Rasmussen Polls The Castle-Biden Match-Up
A very special tipster (Jason330) passed along a tip to a new Rasumussen poll on the Castle-Biden match-up. Rasmussen also polled the Biden-O’Donnell race. Here are some results:
The first Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 survey in the state finds that longtime Republican Congressman Mike Castle beats state Attorney General Beau Biden by five points – 47% to 42% – in a hypothetical match-up for the seat Biden’s father held for 36 years. Five percent (5%) like some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided.
Against the only declared GOP candidate for the race, Christine O’Donnell, Biden wins by nine points – 49% to 40%. Three percent (3%) prefer another candidate, and eight percent are not sure (8%) how they’ll vote.
Castle carries the male vote by 25 points, while Biden fares better among women by 13 points. While both candidates get over 70% support from those in their respective parties, Castle wins voters not affiliated with either party by a two-to-one margin.
Those numbers don’t look that great for Castle, actually, especially since Rasmussen has a Republican lean. Jason thinks this means that Castle will bow out, and I have to concur.
Tags: Beau Biden, DE-Sen, Mike Castle
Yeah, if a Republican Is that close in a Rassmussen poll, it ain’t good for the Republican. Especially when you consider the history of Castle in Delaware and the way we love us some incumbents.
Rasmussen is a biased GOP poll, and Castle is under 50? With only a 5 point lead? WOW.
Yeah, Castle’s done.
By the way, you can tell how biased Rasmussen is by their results for O’Whackjob.
Also the last part, where Biden has only 70% of Democrats. There are a lot more Democrats than Republicans in this state so he can move his numbers quite a bit more than Castle can.
Exactly, DD. There’s no way that O’Donnell will get 40%.
To be abit of a contrarian here — what if this poll reflects something of a holding pattern here? You can only see the toplines and the questions here, but this is a poll of a non-race so far. No one is really in except the idiot O’Donnell. And even those these polls are weighted to repubs — I wonder how much of a real bellweather this is, when no race is being prepped for and no race looks like it it at the top of anybody’s list. Except the idiot O’Donnell.
I think it’s the state of the race now. Both Biden and Castle have well-known names, but I’d have to say Castle would be considered a near incumbent. I think the trouble for Castle is that most of the unaffiliateds are already on his side, so his numbers don’t have nearly as much room to grow as Biden’s do. It is also showing that this will be a tough race for Castle. He has to decide he really, really wants it – he hasn’t had to fight a tough race in years. I think it should also be pretty alarming to Castle that his numbers are only 7% better than O’Donnell’s.
I think it should also be pretty alarming to Castle that his numbers are only 7% better than O’Donnell’s.
This is why I wonder if we have a poll of a non-race right now. This pollster is pretty well known (outside of its Presidential polls) to lean very Republican. I suspect that the people thinking about this race right now are the wingnuts who support O’Donnell and who are blathering on about returning to conservative principles. I suspect that the great Delaware mushy middle is no where to be found in this poll.
O’Donnell is standing in for generic Republican and Castle is only 7% ahead of that despite his huge name recognition advantage over O’Donnell. That is a big problem for him. I also think it means Castle’s floor is around 40%.
Dave Weigel at the Washington Independent takes a look at this race and the new poll.
Thanks for that link, Cassandra. I think Weigel’s take is similar to ours – that these numbers mean a competitive race for Castle if he decides to jump in and he hasn’t had a race like that for many years.
I heard Allan Loudell on part of the drive home and he was talking with someone from DSU about Castle’s delay here. Allan seemed to be speculating that some kind of announcement was imminent — that he had been trying to line up an interview with Castle for days and couldn’t get one. Which Allan noted was quite unusual.
The gentleman that Allan was speaking to ( did not catch his name) seemed to think it might go as late as the first of the year for all of the candidates to be in place. I think that is way too late, but I wonder if everyone is basically waiting for Beau to get back and settled before getting too far out there. There is something very old-school gentlemanly about that that I could see. And if it is, it is likely the last time I’ll ever see it.
That is probably quite wrong. But what do you think about Castle not speaking to the local press?
What could he have to say? He can’t say “we’ll see in a month” again so it comes down to “yes” or “no”. I doubt that it is chivalry. He dies not have the balls to come out and simply state that he is not running.
If Castle runs, he wins. Case closed.
A1 is absolutely correct.
Most people have no idea that Castle has waffled so often on this decision.
Most people don’t care about his voting record because he has cast himself as above the partisan fray, and he is a genuinely personable human being.
Anyone calling him out on issues in a direct manner will be carefully spun into a strident partisan who is after “our Mike.”
Castle will not lose an election in 2010 regardless of which office he runs for.
I’m really flabbergasted by the people who think Castle is unbeatable.
Well, UI, I guess you’ll remain flabbergasted as nobody has beaten him yet. As Steve pointed out, Castle has the “Delaware’s Mike Castle” brand – and many voters just vote for the brand they know and are used to voting for.
In marketing, it is hard to beat a well-established and entrenched brand.
Don’t mistake Castle facing underfunded, no-name candidates as being unbeatable.
Castle is going to run for the Senate seat. Carney takes Castle’s old seat. I have no idea who wins a Castle – Biden race, though you have to figure on a higher republican turnout and some depressed democratic numbers in 2010, so I’ll take Castle. I’ll take Wharton to beat Danberg in the AG race since the Feds will have taken over the state prison system from Markell and Danberg. Over 200 provision to be rectified in the feds report. Nice job. Way to get on it.
UI
This is (obviously) a very small state. Until my wife developed back problems a couple of years ago, we used to run regularly in 5K races up and down the state. Most would turn out several hundred people in the audience and from 50-125 runners. Castle (and sometimes Carper) would always be on hand, and Castle would run in about 30% of the races. He knew everybody’s face, and most everybody’s name. He would ask about babies and grandchildren by name, talk about job references, comment on new cars. Maybe he has lost a step with age, but if you have not seen Mike Castle working person to person through Delaware, you don’t realize that people do not vote for him because of his positions, they vote for him because he’s “Mike” and they like and trust him. He has what Bill Roth only thought he had. He has positioned himself as himself regardless of issues, and it works. That’s why you have only seen underfunded no-name candidates running against him.
The GOP in Delaware has pretty much been Mike Castle for two decades. It is easier to work around him than to waste the effort to unseat him.
In marketing, it is hard to beat a well-established and entrenched brand.
They said this about John McCain too. And that mavericky thing of his was supposed to make him more moderate and less wingnutty.
You can fight a burnished brand with its working reality. It needs someone who is willing to take on the brand and show how it doesn’t match up with the actual record. It is a tough task, but if Castle runs, he will have to do some work to appease the teabaggers in his party and that is the opening. But again, it has to be done by a highly credible candidate in the first place who would be perfectly willing to hang the teabaggers around Castle’s neck. And Castle will not be able to run and ignore the teabaggers.
I agree Cassandra – I think balancing the teabaggers with his moderate image may be one thing holding Castle back. I would love to see some polling on O’Donnell vs. Castle in a Republican primary. I suspect that Castle still has a comfortable lead but I’ll bet the passion is with O’Donnell.
Steve,
Are you discounting the Biden effect, or just looking at Castle in a vacuum. Because in a vacuum, I agree. I have always found Castle to be accessible and better with people than any of the big dogs.
But a 70 year old Castle standing next to a photogenic young Joseph R “Beau” Biden isn’t the same thing.
And UI — I don’t know if Beau would be willing to run that kind of campaign, either.
Well, Castle can be beaten, I think the polling shows that people are open to this. Despite all of his nice guy cred, he only gets 47% of the vote and his support looks soft. A well-funded candidate who is willing to work should be able to beat Castle. The whole idea that Castle is unbeatable is just a cop-out as far as I’m concerned.
Castle will be very well funded. And put Beau’s inexperience next to Castle’s decades of “experience” in a debate, and Castle wins. Couple that with people who resent voting for entitlement candidates like Biden, and Castle wins.
And, Cassandra, there is really no comparison between McInsane and Castle. McInsane never had a national constituency that was used to voting for him in election after election the way Castle has had in Delaware for decades.
But a 70 year old Castle standing next to a photogenic young Joseph R “Beau” Biden isn’t the same thing.
Obviously you are young if you think photogeniticity means anything… Biden would be the best opponent for Mike Castle to wish for… No one else entering the race would have as high of negatives at the outset, even if we safely say that Beau has earned none of them by his own actions.
This doesn’t mean he can’t overcome them; it just means that the smear machine will be ready and find a lot of those with past grudges to generate it with funding…
Castle could still win it. Against someone new with no negatives, polling suggests he couldn’t.
First, Rasmussen is not a “biased” poll. The reason its results differ are well-known and understood — it polls only “likely voters,” which means more Republicans than other polls use because Republicans are more likely to vote than Democrats.
This methodology renders its results dubious when polling simple public opinion — people who don’t vote have opinions, too. But when polling an actual political race, Rasmussen’s polls have consistently outperformed others.
“Don’t mistake Castle facing underfunded, no-name candidates as being unbeatable.”
You have your causality switched, UI. The reason only underfunded, no-name candidates take him on his that he’s unbeatable (or rather has been). Even unbeatable candidates become beatable as they age, though.
I didn’t say Rasmussen was a biased poll, I said Rasmussen had a Republican lean. This is true, read this post by Pollster.com for house effects. Rasmussen has about a +3 effect for Republicans.
I understand that Castle took on mostly no-name candidates because people were afraid to take him on. That doesn’t make him unbeatable. In fact, I think Democrats lost an opportunity in 2008 by putting up no-name, unfunded Karen Hartley Nagle. I also think the backroom deals of the Delaware Way are part of the reason that Castle didn’t face better opponents. I just don’t think there’s such a thing as someone who is unbeatable.
And, Cassandra, there is really no comparison between McInsane and Castle. McInsane never had a national constituency that was used to voting for him in election after election the way Castle has had in Delaware for decades.
McInsane’s national constituency was always the Press (and still is, frankly) — who delighted in all of the maverickyness and who were recruited as strong pushers of the “moderate” BS. McInsane — like Castle — had a long career of being pretty much a party guy while taking enough well-publicized walks off of the reservation for the Press to not just take notice, but to be part of the cheerleading squad.
UI: I never said you were the one who called Rasmussen biased. Someone did, and it’s not. It’s a methodology issue.
“McInsane — like Castle — had a long career of being pretty much a party guy while taking enough well-publicized walks off of the reservation for the Press to not just take notice, but to be part of the cheerleading squad.”
This is either just plain bullshit or just a factor of you not paying attention to politics for very long. Mike Castle was exactly what he advertised — fiscally conservative, morally liberal — until DeLay became whip.
As for name recognition, you do realize that Biden is a well-known name, right? So Castle enjoys no name-recognition advantage in that matchup.
Mike Castle was exactly what he advertised — fiscally conservative, morally liberal — until DeLay became whip.
Which means he’s been a party guy taking well-advertised walks off of the reservation for the last 14, 15 years or so then. Meaning that he has to count on folks remembering old school Mike and not the one who submitted to party discipline. That kept moving to the right. But not far enough to the right for the “base”.
I guess asking people to vote for the Rockefeller Republican that he was 15 years ago is one strategy.
How can anyone say that if Castle runs he wins, case closed? If the Rasmussen Poll is anywhere near correct, I doubt that Castle would run and would doubt even more that Castle would win.
By now, everyone DOES know Mike Castle and most people (including me) like him personally. There is very little additional upside, especially against a credible candidate. For him, as the de facto incumbent, to be under 50%, signals all sorts of alarm bells going off. I now don’t think he’ll run, as he now knows how hard he would have to run just to be competitive, let alone possibly win.