Talk Business Quarterly released part of a new poll showing Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln with dismal poll numbers. According to the results she has a favorable rating of 37% and an unfavorable rating of 57%. 38% of respondents approve of the job she’s doing; 56% disapprove.
She received support from only 61% of Democrats and 18% of Republicans. Only 24% of independents approve of her.
I can’t say that I’m all that surprised. Health care reform has turned into political kryptonite for Democrats. Despite ample evidence that the Senate version of the bill will lower health insurance premiums for Arkansans, not mention many other tangible benefits, Arkansans still disapprove of it. Democrats, thanks in large part to gadflies like Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, have never been able to articulate that broader message to voters.
It didn’t help that Ms. Lincoln fumbled during the early stages and failed to use some of her campaign war chest to articulate to voters what the hell was going on in Washington, D.C. As I’ve noted before, that was a terrible miscalculation for her political team.
Still, the election is 10 months away. As I said last night on KARK, it’s time for her to kick it into high gear. She needs to start running now – a full blown 10-month general election campaign. If there’s one lesson from Martha Coakley’s miserable effort in Massachusetts its that you can never take the voters from granted.
After all, the GOP isn’t exactly in good shape. It’s entirely probably that they will nominate Jim Holt for the US Senate in which case you can yell, curtains! Still, if I’m the Lincoln campaign I don’t wait to see if the GOP makes that crippling mistake. After all, if, as GOP consultant Bill Vickery said, the GOP wises up and nominates Gilbert Baker, come May his lead may be insurmountable.
Do I detect some hope in your writing that the GOP will nominate Holt? Not starting to panic are you? Maybe she’ll retire and a “deep bench” will surface from the Democrat ranks. As for the Arkansas GOP not being in good shape, it didn’t seem to hurt Senator elect Brown that the Mass. GOP was in a similar position.
If you talk to GOP analysts they’ll tell you that the worst thing the GOP can do in this race is nominate Jim Holt. You can consider it fear for Republicans or hope for Democrats, I guess.
Are you seriously suggesting that there are similarities between MA and AR when it comes to voting behavior, demographics, political affiliation, etc? That’s too absurd even for me to entertain.
Um, I don’t think I suggested anything like that. I simply observed that Mass., like Ark, does not have a strong GOP apparatus and that it didn’t keep Brown from getting elected. The fact that Ark is more conservative and voted overwhelmingly for McCain suggests that Blanche is in big trouble this fall, as the polls continue to show. I sense that you are starting to get that and you are moving away from your belief that, in the end, she will get re-elected.