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Democrat Robin Carnahan is effectively tied with Republican Roy Blunt in the race to become Missouri’s next senator according to the latest poll from Missouri State University:
Missouri State University (Including leaners) (8/7-22)
Robin Carnahan 48.4%
Roy Blunt 48.8%
Other Candidate 2.8%
This poll is in contrast to what little other recent polling we have seen of the race by Rassmussen and PPP which had Blunt with a solid lead. No doubt the Carnahan campaign is very happy to have at least some independent polling data to point to indicating it is still a tight race.
Interestingly the poll has a very low number of undecideds, which I take to mean that they pushed people really hard to choose. It is possible this could explain why Carnahan is doing better. It might be that there is some traditionally Democratic-leaning segment of the electorate that is really unhappy with Obama and the direction of the country, but when push comes to shove, they will hold their noses and cast a very disappointed vote for the Democrat. This could have been what happened in a few of the special elections this year that Democrats won even though most polling had the Republicans leading.
The poll also found that the voters of Missouri really, really hate the individual mandate. During the August 3rd primary, voters passed the anti-mandate Proposition C with 71.1 percent. Supporters of the new health care law tried to point out that it passed only because of the heavy turnout for the Republican primaries, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The poll asks:
Please rate your level of agreement with the following statement: The State of Missouri should enforce the recently passed Proposition C, which states that Missourians are not required to purchase health insurance, even if enforcing Proposition C could cost the state millions of dollars in court fees.
44.9 percent agreed, 28.7 percent disagreed, and 25.9 percent were not sure. I believe this is about as leading a question you can pose against Prop C, and it still has plurality support. I guess the idea of the government forcing you to buy a product from one of the most disliked industries in American just isn’t popular–who could have possibly guessed?
MSU also polled the MO-04, MO-07 and MO-08 races. Not surprisingly, in the deeply red 7th and 8th districts, which no one thinks will be competitive this year, the Republican candidates have solid leads. In the 4th district’s incumbent Democrat, Ike Skelton, looks to be in decent shape, but give that district’s sub-set sample size of only 187 voters, take it with a big dash of salt.
MO-04
Missouri State University (Including leaners) (8/7-22)
Ike Skelton (D) 46.7%
Vicky Hartzler (R ) 34.6%
Other Candidate 2.2%
15 Comments
Carnahan has also started running some very, very tough ads against Blunt, tying him to the bailouts he pushed while Bush was still in charge.
First ad here, with the tag line “Roy Blunt: The Very Worst of Washington.”
Second ad here, which started running about a week later. Same tag line, with the added prefix “Mr Bailout” at the start.
That kind of very direct rhetoric is what moved the polling numbers that have been relatively unchanged since about March.
Both Carnahan and Blunt are part of big political families, so neither is going to claim to be an ordinary person bringing sanity to DC. But it looks as if Carnahan is finally putting Blunt’s years as Minority Whip front and center.
Blunt’s running against Pelosi and Obama; Carnahan is running against Blunt. It’s going to be a long, ugly race to November.
Note that both ads were running during the time this Missouri State poll was taken.
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=104&subid=116&contentid=253302
DLC | April 26, 2005
New Dem of the Week: Robin Carnahan
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/19/robin-carnahan-missouri-s_1_n_687527.html
Breaking from the president and the majority of her party, Robin Carnahan, the Democratic Senate candidate in Missouri, announced on Thursday that she supports extending the Bush tax cuts for all recipients, including the wealthy.
There is an ad on behalf of Rep. Harry Teague in s. NM that is similar to the first Blunt (nice name) above. Teague, despite long odds, I think is still polling OK down there against Steve Pierce, who is called “corrupt” with similar quotes from sources. It talks about the crony/corrupt pay to play deals he made. I think it works well.
My father-in-law called me this A.M. livid when he read in the local rag (red county) that Robin joined Blunt in supporting tax cuts for the rich. He is so disillusioned that he’s not planning on even voting this fall. I’m afraid that her stance may have that affect on other Dems as well. Why show up to vote when your choices are bad and worse? I, of course, have already come to grip with the realization that our system is broken beyond repair and so infiltrated by corporate control as to no longer be subject to citizen electorate. No matter who you trust to represent you, they’ll be subject to a system that gives corporate amerika undue influence. I’m done. Just hoping I live long enough to witness the revolution.
Funny, the question about the individual mandate seems written to encourage respondents to oppose overturning the individual mandate (“it will cost you money”) but they STILL want to overturn it.
The law doesn’t force you to buy insurance. It requires you to pay a fine– or a tax if you don’t carry insurance. Which makes sense to me because other taxpayers will end up paying for your care anyway when you get sick, so you might as well have to throw some cash into the kitty if you are planning to gamble.
The new health care overhaul is like the new dutch system, and similar to those in several “socialistic” countries. Highly regulated private providers and subsidized participation for low income people.
As far as Missourians go, they also largely believe that man walked hand in claw with dinosaurs, so it is possible they are being misled about what was even in the HC overhaul.
I love arguing with people who dont know what they are talking about. first of all, if people without health care coverage could afford to buy it they would. passing a law forcing them to buy it wont make it any more possible to do so. your comment about not being forced to buy isurannce (when you can “choose” to be punished by the treasury dept) is as ignorant as the first. thats like saying we are all free to rob banks to get money for medical bills if we are willing to pull down 20 year federal prison setences. moving right along, the money extorted from the uninsured wont go into a “kitty”, it is lost, sucked, hoovered, right up into the appalling, abysmal, inefficient waste of the private health care system. it wont pay for anything. the new health care law does not even REMOTELY resemble germany, or hollands system. with “highly regulated providers”. there is NO CHOICE of providers and there is NO ENFORCEABLE REGULATION on the provider end. they provide what they want ( low actuarial crap which dosent actually provide any care) and charge as much as they want. and WHY NOT? you and me are subsidising the diff! (sweet deal huh?) apparently Missourians know all they need to know about this piece ‘o shit bill. from your comment,you are the painfully ignorant one. and, or, you are our favorite white house press secretary.
“Highly regulated public providers”? I don’t mean to be offensive, but what planet are you living on? There are no cost controls in this legislation, which was written by industry insiders. The legislation requires citizens to pay up to 12 1/2% of their income for insurance that only covers 70% of costs – a very regressive “tax”. Some premiums will be subsidized – by the use of scare taxpayer dollars to pay overpriced insurance industry billings – a travesty. The health insurance industry was losing customers due to their greed and ever increasing prices. The system would have imploded, an opportunity to replace it with an improved, low-cost health care system. Instead, we got an industry bailout. And no, I’m not a Missourian, I’m a progressive Californian.
Im of the opinion that the mandate will be dumped before (or by 2014). you cant get blood from a stone, but if you hire enough lobbyists and bribe enough senators you can wring it out of the govt.
Highly regulated private providers and subsidized participation for low income people.
That’s fine, everyone wants highly regulated private providers. Not every man with a knife is cut out to be a surgeon and sure, subsidizing the poor is great. You’re pushing an open door.
The issue here is what added value do private insurers bring to the transaction? They don’t practice medicine, build hospitals, make pacemakers or invent new drugs. They collect premiums and pay claims. However, the government’s existing Medicare system already performs both functions more efficiently.
So what added value do private insurers provide? Simple, they can make campaign contributions, a government program like Medicare cannot. And that’s why we have a private insurance mandate.
People are paying taxes RIGHT NOW to pay for hospital care for those who can’t pay. So, you get a choice I suppose of requiring everyone to pay for themselves or you can go on paying for other people. Those who oppose the mandate must not mind paying higher taxes to pay for health care for someone else.
That said, this issue isn’t so important as the legislation is already law and only the courts can really change that.
What’s important for Carnahan is to beat Blunt. That requires an aggressive stance Missourians will like and a toughness to take on a semi-incumbent. It appears (as far as I can tell) she’s capable.
I won’t dump on you anymore, you already got what you deserved for repeating the obamabot talking points. Why didn’t the US just pass a health care plan identical to the german plan? Why do we always have to fu$k it up US style?
People will continue to pay taxes to care for people who can’t pay, where do you think the money will come from? We’ll end up paying more eventually since the insurance companies will game the system to make a hefty profit.