Peeking beneath the numbers

by: Thurman Hart

Mon Oct 06, 2008 at 11:14:34 AM EDT

The poll also has some encouraging news - if the Stender campaign knows how to capitalize on it.  For instance, among likely voters, Obama leads McCain by a single point(47-46), with 7% undecided.  If nothing else, that shows that a Democrat can win the district.  The problem is that Lance loses only 4% of those likely voters, while Stender loses 8%, with 14% undecided.  

The problem for Stender, then, is that she needs to give Obama voters a reason to stick with the Democratic line.  This will be helped somewhat by having Frank Lautenberg - though his near-absent campaign doesn't help the coattails flow nearly as long as they would if he actually, you know, ran a campaign or something.  But Dick Zimmer has the attraction of a big ball of poop in a bowl of rice.  If you like that sort of thing, it's yummy - but most people are not going to go out of their way to swallow it.

More analysis after the jump.

Issues also favor Stender.  50% of voters said the economy was their number one issue, while 22% said it was the war in Iraq or state property taxes (which is a stupid reply for a federal race).  Oddly, however, Lance leads on the economy 34-28 and on Iraq 30-25.  But 31% of voters don't know who to back on the economy and 37% don't know who they back for their concern in Iraq.  A strong GOTV effort should help Stender pick up a large portion of these votes - remember, a slender plurality support Obama's positions overall.

And here's the shining spot of great news in the race - 42% of voters in the district see Leonard Lance as being likely to continue the policies of George W. Bush.  Furthermore, a slender plurality want a Democratic majority in Congress - 38-32.  Only 21% of the district approves of George W. Bush.

In other words - this race is still winnable.  But the Stender campaign is going to have to really go high profile.  This is the point in the campaign where the GOTV efforts should be starting, and Stender still has to introduce herself to a lot of voters.  They need multiple direct mail pieces tying Lance to Bush on the economy and Iraq.  

There's another bit of information that can give the Stender campaign hope, though.  The poll sample is evenly distributed among Democrats and Republicans and Independents.  I don't have figures onhand to say exactly what percent of the district is registered Dem/Rep/Unaffiliated, but I do know that this year has seen a record number of Democratic voter registrations.  Even the one's that didn't register Democrat were likely to be led to the voting table by Barack Obama - I simply haven't heard of anyone specifically registering so they could vote for John McCain.  So I think there is some reason to believe the actual vote will skew slightly more to the Democratic side - both because of Obama's coattails and because new Democratic voters have been underrepresented.

But the fact is that we need to work on this one.  We need to win this race.  President Obama needs a strong Democratic majority to push legislation past Republican obstructionism.  Moving the state a deeper shade of blue also strenthens our case during redistricting, which is just around the corner.  It sets us up for successful state-level campaigns.  In short, there is no way that it fails to help us.  It's time to cowboy-up and whip this one into the victory column.