Senator Jim Talent's May 2006 approval rating sits at just 43%, according to a poll taken by SurveyUSA. Conventional wisdom says anything below the 50-percent mark is trouble for incumbents. It's just another signal that his re-election battle against Democrat Claire McCaskill remains a barnburner.
The most surprising part of this poll is Talent's number in the Ozarks. Among voters in southwest Missouri, the junior senator's approval rating is 41%. That's a drop of 19 points in 5 months among what's presumed to be his conservative base.
When I interviewed Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report in Washington, D.C. last fall, she told me: "The one thing that could hurt Talent is a disengaged Republican base. They're going to have to turn out and vote for him. That's the key to his success."
Also notable: Talent has dropped 11 points in 2 months among pro-life voters. Speculation among politicos is that his evolving position on embryonic stem cell research has angered and possibly confused some voters. Talent is down 8 points in 2 months among all voters sampled.
Still, when I pressed Duffy on a prediction back in November, she said, "You always give a little bit of an edge to an incumbent like Talent who doesn't have high negatives, who doesn't have a scandal, who has a tremendous fundraising advantage."
To be fair to Duffy, that *was* last November. And the political landscape has shifted significantly.
1 comment:
Hey, Maybe you should check out other polling places besides survey USA. They are notoriously inaccurate and over sample the St. Louis area.
I would advise that you guys check out Rasmussen. You know, the guy who nailed the presidential election and just about everything else during the 2004.
Oh wait, yeah, thats right - they have him up three points over Claire.
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