Rasmussen is a Republican outfit that skews both its sampling and its questions towards Republicans. They have just released a new Delaware poll, conducted on Monday with a sampling size of 500 (which is probably average for Delaware) but the margin of error is high (4.5%) with this poll. No other internals are available at this time for review (as to partisan or ideological breakdowns), which is a red flag in the polling world.
So with those boulders of salt, here are their results for the First State.
* President Obama has a 51% approval rating, versus a 48% disapproval rating.
* Governor Markell has a 61% approval rating, versus a 37% disapproval rating.
* Castle leads Coons 53% to 32%. 8% prefer some other candidate (O’Donnell?? Anti-Coons or Pro-Biden sentiment?) and 8% are unsure.
This feels about right to me, in that I feel the Castle-Coons race is a 50-40 race at the moment, with Castle as the favorite. I really want to see the partisan breakdown here, though.
* Coons has a 43% favorability rating, versus a 35% unfavorability rating. 22% don’t know who he is or are not sure.
* Castle has a 65% favorability rating, versus a 30% unfavorability rating. 4% live in caves.
* Here is an interesting nugget about the economy and Delawarean’s personal finances: 82% rate their personal or family finances either fair, good or excellent. Only 16% rate them as poor. And 2% live in caves. Yet, 51% feel their finances have gotten worse over the past year. How is that possible? 18% feel they have gotten better, and 28% say they are the same, and 2% live in caves. I think media perception drives views on the economy. Do you ever notice commercials on TV and radio that continue to say “In tough times as these….” We are officially in a recovery, the recession is over, the economy is growing and the unemployment rate is finally falling again, and yet the President from 24 on the Allstate commercial thinks we haven’t bottomed out yet.