Whoa, big news! All-but-announced Senate candidate Beau Biden leads Mike Castle in a new poll by 5%. This is bad news for Mike Castle:
In a hypothetical match-up of the candidates, Democrat Beau Biden leads GOP challenger and Delaware Congressman Mike Castle by a margin of 45 to 40 percent; 8% are undecided and 6% say would vote for another candidate. This 5-point lead for Biden, which is statistically significant because it is outside the poll’s 3.36% margin of error, marks the first time in publicly-released surveys that Biden has held the lead. It also represents a significant shift in support for Biden compared to our April survey which showed Castle with a 21-point lead, mainly due to Biden’s increased support with critical independent voters which make up nearly 1 in 4 voters in Delaware. A second explanation for the shift away from Castle in the current poll may be a result of negative publicity he received in the state after casting a “no” vote for President Obama’s health care reform bill in the U.S. Congress. The current poll was conducted 11/10 – 11/15, the week immediately following the weekend when the U.S. House of Representatives voted on this landmark legislation.
As we expected, Democrats are coming home. Castle had some bad publicity with his health care reform vote.