DrewM: This Poll Showing The Republican Leading In The West Virginia Senate Race Is So Good, I Wish Ace Was Around To Do A Creepy Wicket Joke
Morons: Yeah, So Do We

The Grand Cyclops' sheets must be knotted up from all the rolling over in his grave he's been doing.

A new Fox News battleground state poll on the race for the seat held by the late Sen. Robert Byrd for 51 years shows Republican businessman John Raese with a 5-point lead over Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin among likely voters -- 48 percent to 43 percent.

In what may be the year’s clearest case of Obama’s downward pull on his party’s candidates, Manchin gets high marks from voters – 66 percent approved of his job performance and 65 percent had a positive view of him personally -- but they still prefer Raese.

The survey was conducted before new reports that the head of the state’s Democratic Party, Manchin’s former chief of staff and business partner Larry Puccio, is under scrutiny by federal investigators for state contracts obtained under Manchin.

Manchin’s most obvious problem is Obama’s 29 percent approval rating in the state. Only 12 percent believe that Obama’s policies have helped the state economically, while 55 percent in the coal-rich state believe they have hurt. That is borne out in the slim 28 percent of respondents who supported a plan to address global warming like the one Obama favors.

Remember when Obama was reported to have said that the difference between 2010 and 1994 is that now Democrats have him? Yeah, I don't think that's what he had in mind.

And don't forget, West Virginia is a special election race as well. If Raese wins, he sits in the lame duck. Given some of the squishiness we can expect from a retiring Senator like Voinovich and a vindictive Murkowski, we need to run up the score in the specials.

With a wave this big, there's always a seat or two that nobody really thinks is in play that then goes to the winning party out of the blue. In the Senate, I can't imagine what that will be. A race like Wisconsin was a long shot but now kind of seems in the bag and even California, Washington and West Virginia won't shock anyone on election night if/when they go Republican. I guess NY would be the kind of race that will still have the power to shock.

Thanks to Brian Faughnan for the West Virginia story.

posted by DrewM. at 11:09 AM

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