BREAKING: BIDEN / CASTLE TIED (Updated with more numbers)

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1. Unstable Isotope says:

   October 15, 2009 at 4:00 pm

   This is exciting! The Biden camp has to be ecstatic about these numbers. There really is no excuse to hold back now.

2. Unstable Isotope says:

   October 15, 2009 at 4:07 pm

   Castle’s numbers look fairly steady around 50% against even the fairly unknown Chris Coons. Those aren’t great numbers for Castle, I think.

3. Delaware Dem says:

   October 15, 2009 at 4:21 pm

   There is a plethora of information here. Obama has a 64% approval rating in Delaware. I will keep posting

4. X Stryker says:

   October 15, 2009 at 4:24 pm

   If Beau holds back, Carney could win this thing. Down 8% against an opponent with much higher name recognition is pretty good – especially when you consider the fact that Carney’s campaigning has been honed by an intense primary, whereas Castle hasn’t faced a difficult race in decades. Plus, Castle doesn’t have an ounce of spine and will crumple when forced to defend himself for real.

5. X Stryker says:

   October 15, 2009 at 4:26 pm

   (and yes, I know Carney already declared for the House, but if Biden doesn’t run, Carney should be drafted by the DSCC – Denn could run for the House)

6. cassandra_m says:

   October 15, 2009 at 4:43 pm

   There is alot of great stuff here —

   1. about the only R who has anything approaching competitive numbers here is Mike Castle. There is a story here, I think.

   2. Castle has almost all the Rs meaning that the teabag partiers are not going to be a factor here. They’ll provide plenty of entertainment, but won’t be a factor. Ha HA!

   3. Where’s O’Donnell?

   4. I’m intrigued by how high Carney’s No Opinion number is considering the high profile campaign he went through.

   More later — I’ve got a document deadline today.

7. Rebecca says:

   October 15, 2009 at 4:47 pm

   That 21% of D’s who would vote for Castle puzzles me. After what we’ve just seen the R’s in the Senate do to Health Care Reform, why would any D risk flipping this seat? Oh wait, I just answered my own question — Sussex.

8. Delaware Dem says:

   October 15, 2009 at 4:47 pm

   Thanks Cassandra for posting this. I was on the road when I received the poll numbers from Markos, and was a rain soaked 1-95 away from my computer.

9. Delaware Dem says:

   October 15, 2009 at 4:49 pm

   Rebecca, the undecided Dems will come home, as will a substantial portion of that 21% when the campaign gets under way. A lot of those Dems buy into the fact that Castle is a moderate, and that notion has not been challenged by a competitive campaign in 16 years.

10. John Manifold says:

    October 15, 2009 at 5:18 pm

    Have to be impressed that Coons has 34-8 Fav/unfav after five years in state’s most thankless elective position.

    Markell at 55-28 after impossibly difficult year. My GOP friends dream of a Democratic primary challenge. These numbers suggest that only a suicidal grudge-holder [Danny Rappa II] would try.

    Carney at an impressive 41-19. Agreed that the undecided figures for him [and Jack and Tom C] are higher than one would expect.

11. Rebecca says:

    October 15, 2009 at 5:18 pm

    Both excellent points DD.

    I’ve helped on statewide campaigns and they take unbelievable physical stamina. I don’t wish Representative Castle ill, but this will be a test for a man his age who hasn’t had to run for 16 years. And it’s not like he has a lot of local surrogates who can stump for him. There are national R’s who will come in but they’ll be talking to the ‘base” and aren’t likely to swing too many moderate to left-leaning Delaware independents. Still, this is going to be a very tough race. Charlie Cook is calling it a toss-up at this point.

12. Delaware Dem says:

    October 15, 2009 at 5:30 pm

    It is obviously a toss up, and I would give Castle the advantage at the start, just due to his history of running statewide and winning statewide for over 28 years.

13. Unstable Isotope says:

    October 15, 2009 at 5:35 pm

    Wow. Copeland has almost no name recognition despite running in a statewide race. Coons has higher name recognition than Copelan!

14. Jason330 says:

    October 15, 2009 at 6:43 pm

    I could see Castle dropping out “for health reasons” when he sees these horrible numbers. To Rebecca’s great point – who could the Republican’s possibly bring to Delaware? C’mon Sarah Palin!

15. John Tobin says:

    October 15, 2009 at 8:25 pm

    This poll has the breakdown of registration about right as far as having 47% Dems, 31% Reps and 22% Others,but one issue not addressed is that in the last two off year elections Republicans turned out better than Democrats who turned out better than Others:

    2002-turnout % by party
    Dems 45%-Reps-50% -Others-36%
    http://elections.delaware.gov/archive/elect02/elect02_agp/agp2002.shtml#STATEWIDE

    2006-turnout % by party
    Dems-48%-Reps-50%-Others-38%

    http://elections.delaware.gov/reports/agprpt_2006.html

    There may be fewer Republicans than Democrats,but they turn out in higher percentages which could make a difference in a close race

16. cassandra_m says:

    October 15, 2009 at 8:40 pm

    Thanks for that John.

    One more thing everyone should read here is John’s post looking at the 2006 Republican primary for Senate. Interestingly, while the CW here seems to be that she would do well in Sussex, she got very little support from there in that race. Combined with the data above showing very little support of any of the Rs except for Castle, it looks like O’Donnell is at this to burnish her Fox Noise cred more than anything else.

17. Delaware Republican says:

    October 15, 2009 at 8:57 pm

    A poll by Daily Kos? Not terribly credible to me. Just as you as DL would reject any poll by Heritage or any conservative organization. If you believe in Kos you would be happy with the numbers.

    I agree with UI, the statewide name recognition is important and it shows a huge shortfall for the GOP folks except Castle. I know what my statewide number is, it didn’t help in the GOP primary but it is high.

    Mike Protack

18. Unstable Isotope says:

    October 15, 2009 at 9:03 pm

    The R2K/Daily Kos poll is completely transparent. You can check all their crosstabs yourself. I don’t necessarily reject polls by partisan organizations, only polls without transparent methodology. The truth is, these numbers are not very different than Rasmussen’s numbers.

19. John Tobin says:

    October 15, 2009 at 9:16 pm

    Thanks, Cassandra.
    I am now researching the impact of local state rep races on statewide turnout.
    In the most recent post I did I broke the 2006 Senate primary results down by Rep District and was surprised to see that 1800 votes out of 14,386 (12.5%) came out of just two rep districts– the 20th & the 33rd, both of which had local state rep primaries.

    http://politicsbythenumbersmostlydelaware.blogspot.com/2009/10/2006-us-senate-republican-primary.html

20. RSmitty says:

    October 15, 2009 at 9:27 pm

    I could see Castle dropping out “for health reasons” when he sees these horrible numbers.

    …and here, Jason just guaranteed that Castle is in it to win it.

21. Delaware Dem says:

    October 15, 2009 at 9:28 pm

    Protack…

    Please reject this poll. It will just make you Rethugs all the more disappointed when Biden wins.

    Research 2000 is a credible poll. That organization does the polling, and Daily Kos pays for it. Just like NBC News/Wall Street Journal pay for their poll and ABC/Washington Post team up to pay for their poll and CBS/New York Times pays for theirs. All of them pay a polling organization to do the polling. None of them do the polling themselves. So, once again, you are wrong (shocking, I know) by saying that it is a Kos poll.

22. Jason330 says:

    October 15, 2009 at 9:41 pm

    D’oh,

    Smitty’s comment reminds me about the super reverse-psychology powers that I picked up when the 7-11 microwave went ka-plooey blasted me with uh… micro-gamma-waves.

    I meant to say – Seeing these horrible numbers, Mike Castle is going to work extra hard and give one hundred and ten percent. Also, people are going to rush to donate money to his noble cause.

23. Unstable Isotope says:

    October 15, 2009 at 9:56 pm

    Jason,

    This does not excuse you from your promise to run naked. I’m just sayin’.

24. Delaware Republican says:

    October 15, 2009 at 9:58 pm

    Relax boys and girls, you miss the point. You would dismiss any poll by anyone with any kind of conservative leaning or affiliation no matter who did the poll. I would agree with you if you did. I will wait for the F & M poll.

    The lack of statewide recognition is a bad thing for the potential GOP candidates named in the poll. As the minority party with a poor track of late in statewide races it doesn’t help to start out with low name recognition.

    http://www.concernedinsa.com/?p=155 spells it out.Name recognition is very important early on.

    Mike Protack

25. Unstable Isotope says:

    October 15, 2009 at 9:59 pm

    Protack,

    Your mind-reading skills are very poor.

26. Delaware Dem says:

    October 15, 2009 at 10:03 pm

    Sigh. You don’t our point. Rasmussen’s and other non credible polls we dismiss are dismissed because either their methodology is wrong (i.e. questions are biased, high MOE or an unbalanced partisan sample that is not tied to historical turnout in the state or the partisan breakdown in the state) or they won’t release the details as to the their methodology.

27. cassandra_m says:

    October 15, 2009 at 10:07 pm

    Save your breath, DD. This fool can’t quite manage to complete a real campaign so why would he be able to evaluate a poll’s methodology? Polls run by partisans in an honest and open way are fine — polls run by partisans in a way thay continues to grind their ax is not so fine. He’ll never get that, you know.

28. Jason330 says:

    October 15, 2009 at 10:10 pm

    Mike,

    What if people recognize the name because it induces nausea? (Castle 30% unfavorable or very unfavorable. Second only the the Whorible Tom Carper)

29. rhubard says:

    October 15, 2009 at 10:33 pm

    Greg Lavelle has almost the same numbers as Charlie Copeland on recognition and GOP approval, without having spent nearly so much money or credibility. Interesting.

30. cassandra_m says:

    October 15, 2009 at 11:10 pm

    Indeed it is — there is Mike Castle and there’s all the rest at the bottom of a cliff. Much like their national cohorts, the local Rs have been working hard at turning voters off I guess.

31. G Rex says:

    October 15, 2009 at 11:11 pm

    Wait, Rasmussen is unreliable, but you’ll post a poll from Kos? And furthermore, one that shows Obama at 64 pos/32 neg??? Soylent Green is made from people!!!

32. cassandra_m says:

    October 15, 2009 at 11:22 pm

    Go back to the beginning and read all of the posts.

    And then figure out why we (and others) criticize Rasmussen. Whose numbers (the ones they make public anyway) aren’t too far from these.

    But that would mean you’d need to wrap your mind around math and statistics.

    Nevermind.

33. Von Cracker says:

    October 15, 2009 at 11:25 pm

    http://dailykos.com/weeklytrends

    you’re pretty off, grex

34. Unstable Isotope says:

    October 16, 2009 at 6:27 am

    Again, read this about the house effect in pollsters. Rasmussen has a Republican lean. That doesn’t mean they aren’t a good polling organization, it just means that their polls results lean more Republican than the average. In fact, Rasmussen’s polling for approve/disapprove for Obama has been way off from other pollsters, though in a predictable way.

    I don’t speak for others, but when I talk about a poll I tend to be very careful about it. It’s dumb to just dismiss a poll because you don’t like it’s results. You need to have a reason. That’s why it’s important to know the methodology of the poll. I trust Nate Silver at 538.com and pollster.com in these areas.

35. Geezer says:

    October 16, 2009 at 6:35 am

    G Rex: Rasmussen is anything but unreliable. Because of his methodology — he includes more Republican responses than their actual numbers would dictate, because they are more likely to vote than others. It’s simply methodology, not bias, and it produces somewhat different results (typically a few points different) from most pollsters, who include Ds, Rs and Is in proportion to their actual registration numbers.

36. Geezer says:

    October 16, 2009 at 8:36 am

    If you heard Beau interviewed by Allan Loudell yesterday, I wouldn’t start celebrating too soon. He sounded as peevish as the old man used to, back when he deigned to speak to Delaware media.

37. Jason330 says:

    October 17, 2009 at 12:02 pm

    Geezer is right. Beau choked on local radio after giving a great performance on GMA – all because Loudell had the nerve to ask the question twice. Biden really needs to come up with a better “Part B” response to “Are you running?” I’d suggest something that indicates that he will work to keep the seat Democratic, but I could see why he would want to stay as non-partisan as possible in his current job.

    (BTW- Loudell gave you DL’ers big props in that interview.)

    In other Castle news, I just spotted this comment in the Pollster.com comment section.

    These are surprisingly lousy numbers for Castle. The Republicans thought he’d be a complete and total lock, but he’s currently tied with a guy who hasn’t even declared his candidacy… and this, during the worst environment for Dems ever. Looking at the internals, the only reason it’s tied is ‘cos of wishy-washy Demcocrats. If they come home, as expected, Biden takes a large lead.

    Castle’s going to have to really work for this… all he really wants to do is retire. He told the local media that he’s basically only doing this as a favor to the party, he’d rather be in Florida enjoying his golden years. That’s not exactly a full commitment, especially when the VP’s son is expected to run against you.

    It will still be a tough race, for sure, but it’s not even close to the lock that Republicans assume. I’m rather surprised at these numbers. Castle going in was presumed to be an immediate, impossible to beat frontrunner, but even his Rasmussen numbers from last week are surprisingly mediocre.

    It will be interesting to see what Castle’s vote is on health care reform. Since he has no real primary challenger, if he’s smart, he’ll vote for it. That’s the kind of stuff that gives independents the warm and fuzzies…

    That sounds fairly spot on to me. Maybe someone should Castle if he would be to the left of Tom Carper on Health Care Reform if elected to the Senate.

38. Nancy Willing says:

    October 17, 2009 at 12:25 pm

    I heard the interview and didn’t think Biden choked as much as Loudell was being a pesky whoot.

    This link from Jason just goes to show you what idiots the DE GOP are. They can blow all the smoke they want to but Mike Castle is not a moderate when it counts and the citizens have had enough.
    ‘
    His town halls were pumped with lies a la LaRouche. And he’s been sitting on a House Finance committee for years without a peep on the slow raping of American wealth by Wall Street tricksters.

    I hope Biden comes at him full throttle on Castle’s lack-a-daisical attitude during one of the biggest upward transfers of wealth in our lifetime.