Thursday, September 11, 2008

New Poll: Collins +19

Here's the link. More on this later.

UPDATE: First, here are the details:

Rep. Tom Allen (D): 38 (34)

Sen. Susan Collins (R-inc): 57 (56)

The poll was conducted by Research 2000, a non-partisan pollster, from September 8-10. The numbers in parenthesis refer to an identical poll in the field from October 15-17, 2007.

Before I even dive into the numbers, let's be clear: No matter how you slice this, it's a disturbing, sobering result for the Allen campaign. Even if the data is slightly skewed (which I have no reason to believe) it's unlikely to be radically skewed. And the task of whittling down an 8-10 point lead in eight weeks is very different from the work required to overcome a 15-20 point advantage.

Of course, the Allen folks would (and will) likely make the argument that they haven't begun sharpening the contrasts between Allen and Collins--that they're still getting Allen's message and story out to a statewide audience.

Fair enough.

I must say, though, I can't fathom why they've decided to let an incumbent--and one who's been the beneficiary of 12 years of deceptive branding and a supine local media--define herself first, rather than forcing her to respond.

But I suppose they must have their reasons.

Now, the crosstabs: I'm no expert, but nothing in the demographic data seems egregious.

The one number that does stick out is the breakdown among Dems: Collins wins 38%.

There's your whole election right there.

That's obviously a huge problem for Allen, but it also represents an opportunity: If he can get just half of those voters to come home--even if the numbers among Republicans and independents don't budge--we're looking at basically a six point race.

Of course, getting all those voters to come home won't be easy. It'll require telling them bluntly and repeatedly about Collins' record in office these last six years--about the broken promises, the failures of leadership and the pattern of putting President Bush and his corrosive agenda ahead of the interests of ordinary Mainers.

There's time, but there isn't much time.

As someone once said: It's later than you think.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This race is over.

Come home to Brooklyn Dan, you're wasting your time up there.


b.

Anonymous said...

Allen continues to slip because he lacks political savvy and class. Case in point - Collins suspends campaign efforts, including all commercials, on the anniversery of 9-11 to show respect for the magnitude of the day while Allen launces an attack ad. The out of staters that Allen has brought in to run the show just don't get it. They must think that the Mainers working for Collins are small time rubes. Meanwhile, the people from podunk continue to hand the big city slickers running Allen's camp their hats. We should have gone with Mainers in this race.

Anonymous said...

I'll still vote for the guy, but I won't volunteer anymore after he denounced the VoteVets ad. Six more years until we can replace her with Chellie.

Anonymous said...

I've felt Allen was playing to lose for a long time, especially since he admonished everyone to LEAVE COLLINS ALONE back in May. His campaign is basically moribund in Bangor. Meanwhile, Collins is curing diabetes five times per half hour.