Gannett: Pollsters say Melancon's numbers make him competitive in Senate race
Source: Mike Hasten, Gannett
Gannett: Pollsters say Melancon's numbers make him competitive in Senate raceMike Hasten
March 13, 2010
http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20100313/UPDATES01/100313012
BATON ROUGE — Candidates for public office often run internal polls to answer certain questions: “Should I run? How strong is my opponent? What are my and my opponents’ weaknesses? What do I need to do to win?”
Rarely is one of these polls seen outside the campaign headquarters.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon’s latest poll, taken Feb. 18-24 by Alabama-based Anzalone-Liszt Research, was shared with Gannett. It indicates his campaign has room to grow in his bid to overtake Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. David Vitter in November’s election.
Campaign supporters say it paints a path for doing that.
Verne Kennedy of Market Research Insight, a polling firm based in Pensacola, Fla., said judging by the numbers in the poll, Vitter could have trouble being re-elected. Kennedy is not affiliated with either campaign.
Vitter was not willing to share any polls to compare with Melancon’s, and his campaign chose not to comment on the process.
Vitter spokesman Joel DiGrado asserted. “Every independent poll shows Sen. Vitter’s conservative reform message resonating with Louisianians.”
The Anzalone-Liszt poll, compiled in telephone interviews with 800 “likely” voters in the general election, shows Vitter leading by 10 percentage points, 48-38, in a head-to-head election question.
The Republican Party is promoting a recent Rasmussen poll showing Vitter having 57 percent support, but Kennedy cautions, “Many Rasmussen polls are conducted by computer and many professional pollsters consider that method unreliable” because most people hang up when they get a computer call.
When Anzalone poll asked “if the November election were held today,” 48 percent said they would vote for Vitter and 38 percent for Melancon. That’s up 1 percent for each candidate since May. Fifteen percent was uncommitted.
The poll “indicates it’s going to be a competitive race,” said Democratic campaign adviser James Carville, but he wouldn’t predict when Melancon would begin closing the gap.
Kennedy agreed it could be close. Judging by the poll numbers. “My reading is that it’s a 50-50 race.”
Melancon’s poll shows both candidates’ favorable marks are up — Vitter’s 1 point to 54 percent and Melancon’s 4 points to 39 percent from a similar poll in May 2009 — but so are their unfavorable ratings.
Because he’s not known statewide, 41 percent of the respondents said they could not rate Melancon. Of those who did respond, 20 percent gave Melancon an unfavorable rating — up from 13 percent in May — and 38 percent rated Vitter unfavorable — up from 33 percent.
Melancon had 59 percent name recognition among those polled, up from 48 percent in May 2009. Vitter’s name recognition was 92 percent, up from 86 percent in May 2009.
Kennedy, who has done more than 5,000 political surveys nationwide, said Vitter should be concerned if the 54 percent favorable and 38 percent unfavorable results are valid.
“My experience is incumbents with a favorable and unfavorable ratio less than two-to-one generally are defeated by a viable candidate,” he said.
Another question also presents problems for Vitter, Kennedy said.
The poll found 43 percent said they would vote to re-elect the senator but 47 percent said they prefer someone new.
“If the survey is correct, any well known incumbent who receives higher ‘favor someone new’ than ‘favor re-election’ is in trouble,” Kennedy said.
But he said the 35 percent of respondents identifying themselves as Republican or who “lean Republican” appears to be low, even in a state that has far more registered Democrats than Republicans, because many Democrats vote Republican. Kennedy said that percentage is “inconsistent” with other surveys he has done, and it should be a several points higher.
Besides Republican, 46 percent of the respondents said they were registered or leaning Democrat and 19 percent said they were independent.
But the poll also was low, only 24 percent, on African-Americans, a traditional Democratic base. Kennedy said that was surprising for a Democratic pollster like Anzalone, and he could have gone for 27 percent and still been within bounds. The would likely increase Melancon’s numbers.
U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu got 95 percent of the black vote in her re-election, so the Melancon campaign hopes to get at least 90 percent, said Bradley Beychok, Melancon’s campaign manager. While Barack Obama won only 10 parishes in Louisiana, Landrieu carried 38 and won re-election with 52 percent of the vote.
Carville said the most revealing thing in the poll is that “you have a Louisiana senator who’s at 48 (re-election support) when 95 percent of the people in Louisiana know who he is.”
“The poll is pretty instructive” how Melancon can close the gap between the two candidates, said Carville, who described himself as “an involved volunteer” in Melancon’s campaign.
“When you look at his best message (pro-life, conservative Democrat, bipartisan approach to solving problems, cutting taxes and reducing spending) compared to Vitter’s best message (conservative values, opposing reckless spending, cutting taxes and opposing big-government liberals), Melancon’s ahead, so he has to get better known.”
Melancon’s name recognition is high in southern Louisiana, where his district is located, but drops off in other parts of the state.
“He has name recognition in Lafayette, New Orleans and Baton Rouge,” Beychok said. “Nobody knows us in Shreveport, Monroe and Alexandria, so there’s room to grow.”
“By the time the campaign is over, everybody will know everybody,” Carville said.
Carville predicts that as in other races, the leader will fire the first negative shot, and how much damage it does depends on “how negative do they hit back on Vitter?”
Beychok said the poll proves “the path to victory is not a Napoleonville pipedream. We’re going to be aggressive” in promoting Melancon, a native of Napoleonville.
The campaign also will be aggressive in pointing out Vitter’s flaws, Beychok said.
Many of Vitter’s campaign materials work to link Melancon to President Obama, whose popularity in Louisiana is less than 50 percent, and with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Vitter spokesman DiGrado said “Charlie Melancon’s endorsement of Obama and (his) votes for the Obama stimulus and budget and for health care reconciliation have folks really upset.”
Melancon campaign spokesman Jeff Giertz said Melancon “opposes reconciliation — and there hasn’t been a vote on it in the House. He voted against the health care bill. It cost too much, it wasn’t paid for and he opposed language that wasn’t pro-life.”
Beychok said Melancon’s campaign will work to show that “when the President’s right, Charlie will go with him. When he’s not, Charlie’s against him.”
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