General
Schmidt Wulsin Poll
Apparently the Dems capacity for self-delusion is very, very large:
There is no question that this is a district in play, not only because of the national climate, but because of the uniquely vulnerable state of Congresswoman Jean Schmidt. Democratic candidate Victoria Wulsin, with an early positive image and clear momentum, is poised to overtake her this November.
BSB:
The Wulsin campaign was kind enough to send me the polling memo. After just reading it, the results for the GOP in this heavy Republican district are devastating. We’re starting to see this pattern emerge in every poll now - the fact that anti GOP sentiment has seeped so deeply into the reddest of red districts should panic every GOPer in Ohio.
Pardon me while I go panic…
….
OK back now.
OK let’s restate the facts on the ground about this district.
It’s about 70% GOP district. Any GOP candidate needs to underperform by 20% to lose. I know Schmidt is not the strongest candidate in the world, but come on. The GOP could run Bob Taft in this district and he would probably win.
If anyone had a chance it was Hackett, he had the perfect storm going for him: money, energy, media attention, depressed GOP turnout.
We all know how that turned out.
Let’s also remember that Hackett ran pretending to be a member of the GOP.
Victoria Wulsin? She’s an out and out liberal:
Wulsin, though, has all the right stances on every issue. She’s against the war in Iraq, she’s strongly in favor of protecting the environment, opposes drilling for oil in Alaska, is dedicated to keeping abortion safe and legal, and supports preserving social safety nets like Social Security.
Which makes her completely unelectable in this district. If things are looking a little tough in October, Schmidt runs one series of ads highlighting the pro-life pro-choice contrast, and that’s it. Game over.
Project Logic has more thoughts on the specifics of the poll:
This dead-heat is hard to swallow when you consider that in the primary Jean Schmidt received three times as many votes as Victoria Wulsin did. In fact, Jean Schmidt received more votes than all of the Democratic candidates put together. Then add the fact that the Wulsin Campaign sponsored the poll. Then add that it only shows Wulsin with 20% name recognition…
I haven’t seen any crosstabs for the poll, but the company’s memo to Wulsin seems to suggest their sample was skewed. Their poll suggests that party identification in OH-02 is 47% Republican to 34% Democrat, but as I mentioned above the last primary (and the 2000 election, and the 2002 election, and the 2004 election…) all suggest that the district has a much heavier Republican pressence.
Ditto to that from my end as well.
As to Jean Schmidt’s supposed ‘weakness’ Anyone remember how she did with her well-financed and well-organized primary challenger?
–On an advertising note, I’m now keeping track of polls on racetracked.com, so you might want to bookmark links like this one. It’s not really ready yet, I’m working on full color charts of goodness, but it’s getting the job done now.
Discussion
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Part of me hopes the Democrats really get their hopes up on this one. An election just wouldn’t be complete without seeing some liberals cry.
weep weep weep weep.
Wulsin’s poll is out of touch with reality…
UPDATE: NixGuy doesn’t buy it, either. He also points out how easy it would be to sink a candidate as liberal as Wulsin in a district as conservative as this one, saying “If things are looking a little tough in October, Schmidt runs one series of ads…
Last year in the general election on August 2, Jean Schmidt overcame 1) a pseudo-GOP candidate using Bush in his ambiguous TV ads, 2) a rabidly anti-Schmidt cabal known far and wide as COAST, the brainchild of rabidly anti-Schmidt Ohio House Rep, Tom Brinkman, joining forces with a liberal PAC from Oregon to buy ads TO SUPPRESS THE REPUBLICAN VOTER TURNOUT!,
3) many Republican voters out of the District on vacation,
4) lackluster support from the Hamilton County GOP because of the million-dollar primary loss of their fair-haired boy, Patrick DeWhine, 5) big-name Democrats coming to town (Carville, John Glenn) to campaign for Hackett and
6) hurt feelings on the part of a bunch of the Republican candidates Jean beat in the primary. Yet she still won. And in this year’s unnecessary and nasty primary against that Virginia resident retread McEwen, she prevailed again, despite some ugly attempts within Republican ranks to derail her campaign, centered in Anderson Township. Now just how difficult do you think it will be for this tiny marathon runner from Loveland to defeat a bona fide liberal from Indian Hill? We won’t ever get complacent, but I expect a genuine rout, Democrat-bought polls be damned.
I thought about posting this poll, but it was just too luaghable. rumors were out there about a push poll being conducted in this race, so i guess they were true. maybe if democrats spent their time not doing push polls they actually would win a race somewhere.
Does anyone actually buy Wulsin’s poll results?…
A poll that recently came out over the 2nd District Congressional race shows that Jean Schmidt and Victoria Wulsin are tied at 44% each. I for one think that these results are mostly junk……