OR-SEN: New Poll Puts Wyden Lead at 30%
Jeff Alworth
About a month ago, Rasmussen released a poll that suggested the Oregon Senate race might be a close one, with incumbent Dem Ron Wyden leading challenger Jim Huffman by just 14 points, 49% to 35%. Today, Grove Insight released numbers of a Wyden-commission poll that doubles the gap, 53%-23%. This is three points ahead of the approval rating Survey USA measured for Wyden a month ago. To see what role name recognition might play, they also polled respondents (500 likely voters) about who they would support in hypothetical contests between Wyden and Jason Atkinson and Greg Walden. Finally, Grove included the Libertarian, Marc Delphine. Have a look:
Wyden: 53%
Huffman: 23%
Delphine: 5%
Undecided: 20%Wyden: 53%
Atkinson: 22%
Delphine: 5%
Undecided: 20%Wyden: 52%
Walden: 24%
Delphine: 5%
Undecided: 18%
A few comments and then I'll leave it to you: 1) polls are all about the sample, and the numbers I received didn't come with crosstabs; 2) it looks like respondents in this sample are reading Huffman/Atkinson/Walden as a generic Republican and for the moment, Wyden is safely in front; 3) based on this sample, it looks like the libertarian numbers are coming straight out of the GOP pool; 4) this is extremely early in the process and suggestive not of what will happen in November but where things are now.
Your thoughts?
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5:01 p.m.
Mar 9, '10
Clearly all of these polls are generic Republican vs. Wyden. Most people outside of his district don't know who Walden is in spite of his time in office so he isn't particularly advantaged vs. Huffman. The addition of the Libertarian accounts for some of the poll discrepancy with Rasmussen and the other 10 points is mostly the Rasmussen house affect.
5:08 p.m.
Mar 9, '10
Yes, as was recently exposed in Dailykos, Rasmussen lives in their own little pro-GOP world where they discount Democratic voters as much as possible.
As that article concludes:
In other words, if even Rasmussen says the Democrat is a lock, you know it will be a landslide of biblical proportions.
Mar 9, '10
Don't know about the anti-Rasmussen bashing but 14 points is huge. Then there's that whole reality thing. Wyden has been a solid senator and is running as an incumbent in a mostly blue state. He can piss off the fringe progressives and still win without breaking a sweat. He has also built a strong following among a vital voting block- the old timer crowd. So, though he may skip some meaningless marches in the streets with trust fund babies, ego-driven bleeding hearts and non-contributing losers, he's all over the town meetings in every county in the state and demonstrating his pragmatism in D.C. I gotta respect that.
6:57 p.m.
Mar 9, '10
Actually, I think Wyden's pretty popular with the progressives--though he has been heterodox on some issues.
Mar 9, '10
I thought that Rasmussen poll was odd. In this political environment I could certainly believe that Wyden was hovering around 50 percent, but I didn't believe that Huffman could start out in the mid-thirties.
"Heterodox" is an excellent way to describe Wyden, Jeff. Old-timers would call it "independent."
Mar 9, '10
Quite a list of Republicans running for Senate nomination. Will be interesting to see how that all shakes out--if any of them reveal they don't really know much about Oregon politics, or says something that sounds clueless.
Mar 9, '10
LT, isn't Huffman the only one of the above who actually filed?
Mar 9, '10
Does anybody know whether www.ontheissues.org is a reliable site for analysis of voting records and characterizing candidates as to their political philosophy that their voting record reveals?
Mar 9, '10
"Actually, I think Wyden's pretty popular with the progressives..."
That depends on how you define "progressives."
Mar 10, '10
Wyden is not in Bernie Sanders territory but he's a good senator who doesn't spend all his time collecting antique clubs and playing golf with the lobbyists. Heck, I think a moderate republican could be a good senator for Oregon if such a critter wasn't extinct.
Mar 10, '10
"Wyden is not in Bernie Sanders territory but he's a good senator..."
Wyden has proved himself a loyal supporter of Binyamin Netanyahu, the Likud Party and other Israeli right-wingers.
This is from today's posting at Informed Comment (juancole dot com):
" Israel Humiliates Biden, Announces Further Colonization on Eve of US-Brokered Talks
"The far rightwing government of Binyamin Netanyahu in Israel majorly sandbagged Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday, demonstrating once again that it has not the slightest interest in pursuing a just peace with the Palestinian people or in trading a cessation of its colonization of the Palestinian West Bank for a comprehensive peace with the Arab world."
This is after showing similar contempt for President Obama and, in effect, the American people opposed to Israel's illegal activities.
Mar 10, '10
Thanks for that comment, Bill Bodden. Good to see that Wyden is standing up for Israel with our VP Biden.
Also good to see that Israel is developing East Jerusalem. That area was annexed after 1967, and isn't occupied anymore. No reason not to develop it.
Mar 10, '10
Israel shows what it really thinks
The Big Question: What are Israeli settlements, and why are they coming under pressure?
Mar 10, '10
"This is after showing similar contempt for President Obama and, in effect, the American people opposed to Israel's illegal activities."
<h2>However, in fairness, we should note that Israel's right wing is not so contemptuous of the United States that it will tell us where to stuff the $3 billion in military aid we are scheduled to give them each year for the next decade so that they will have plenty of firepower to blast the people in Gaza to kingdom come and buy Caterpillars with which to run over unarmed peaceniks like Rachel Corrie, formerly of Washington state.</h2>