Body Politic Not Responding to Treatments
The bombshell poll from Quinnipiac today shows that wrestling impresario Linda McMahon has pulled even with Attorney General Richard Blumenthal in the race for Connecticut’s open U.S. Senate seat. Just three statistically insignificant percentage points separate the Republican McMahon from Democrat Blumenthal among likely voters.
The new data is a testament to the consistent, some might say incessant, McMahon presence in Nutmeg State mailboxes, television sets, and radios, as well as the hundreds of retail campaign events she’s done over the last twelve months. Unlike many self-funding candidates, Mrs. McMahon has paid top dollar for high quality staff and they are earning their money.
Blumenthal, on the other hand, has been doing and saying the same thing for twenty years but seems genuinely surprised that it isn’t working.
But more broadly, the fact that Mrs. McMahon is now even with Blumenthal highlights a peculiarity of this year’s electorate for both campaigns. The negatives on Mr. Blumenthal and Mrs. McMahon have been injected into the body politic for months with negligible effect.
After the Blumenthal Vietnam misstatement/lie story broke, Q polled and most folks said they really didn’t care. Mrs. McMahon’s favorable/unfavorable rating is actually inverted in this poll but she still has 46% of the vote.
The Blumenthal rebuttal being carried by some outlets is that Quinnipiac’s likely voter screen is either really good or really bad, and mixed with the Blumie internal showing a twelve point lead, it must be the latter. Whatever the numbers, it seems clear that the people are in a lousy mood and the usual political attacks just aren’t working the same way this year.
