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Republicans joust in Indiana

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 29th, 2010 at 08:30 PM  | 

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Five men are seeking to be the Republican nominee in the Indiana Senate race to replace Evan Bayh. Three have a likely chance to win. From where is each getting his support?

SurveyUSA polled the race for the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics, and I have the news release. The top line has been spread out far and wide: Don Bates and Richard Behney are negligible at 6 and 4 precent, so we turn our attention to the top three candidates. Dan Coats leads at 36, followed by John Hostettler at 24, and Marlin Stutzman at 18. But let’s dig beyond that.

All three lead Democrat Brad Ellsworth in the general election according to the poll, but their profiles in the primary are different. Coats and Hostettler do better among voters lacking a favorable view of the Tea Party Movement, 47-34 and 27-21 respectively, while Stutzman does better among the Tea Party supporters by a 20-8 margin. Those who do not consider themselves Tea Party members also favor Coats and Hostettler more, 36-30 and 27-21 again. Stutzman does better among the Tea Party members as well, drawing 23% of the Tea Party members, and only 18% of the non-members. Stutzman is apparently the Tea Party candidate.

On the other hand, Hostettler is the candidate of Independents. He leads among all Independents with 35%, but drops to 19% among Strong Republicans. He also beats Coats and Stutzman among 2008 Obama voters polled. Stutzman does best among Independents leaning Republican, which sounds to me like a Tea Party-friendly category.

Lastly Coats sounds like the mainstream, establishment Republican pick, as he leads overall and among Strong Republicans.

A three way primary with Republicans and Independents both voting allows for a complicated web of relationships, to be sure.

Crossposted from Unlikely Voter

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COMMENTS

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  • e_rowe

    Only one candidate, Dan Coats, has a “likely chance to win.” Outside of him, only one other candidate, John Hostettler, has a realistic chance of winning.

    The other three are all so far behind that if 100% of the undecided voters went for any of them, that candidate would still fall behind Coats by more than the margin of error.

    The race from here on out is between Coats and Hostettler. If conservatives want to beat Coats, then their only choice is to unite behind the one who happens to be the guy with the strongest proven conservative record in the race, John Hostettler.

  • jenniferjmilleresq

    why does he “beat Coats and Stutzman among 2008 Obama voters polled?”

  • prachar

    I have heard Hostettler is endorsed by Gunowers of America (I have not confirmed this). It doesn’t get much more anti-gun than Obama.

  • http://ruminationsaspirations.blogspot.com jonbingham

    Hard to know how much of an impact the recent endorsements of Marlin (DeMint, ACU,…) had or did not have on this poll. The endorsements may have been out there for initial consumption, but the money likely was not a big factor for the poll.

    It will be interesting to see if the Stutzman surge will be enough in the last week to inform voters away from their shallow, nameID-based support of Coats.

    Stutzman v Coats is…
    DeMint/Coburn v McConnell/Cornyn
    Hoosier v DC
    The future v the past
    Opportunity v caution
    Grassroots enthusiasm v lack of inspiration

    Go Marlin!
    Here’s hoping!

  • e_rowe

    He has the most proven conservative record. You can check it yourself. Who knows why some people vote the way they do? Anyone who would vote Obama one time and Hostettler another isn’t a normal voter, and are probably people who base their decisions on superficial things. But basing your support on what someone who voted Obama in ’08 and plans to vote in a Republican primary in 2010 thinks, while not looking at the actual candidate doesn’t seem like the best way to choose.

  • e_rowe

    http://gunowners.org/op02112010tm.htm

  • mizzoumark

    He’s down 20 pts with about 5 days to go. I don’t see how that gap is made up, especially with a well-known former Republican senator in the race.

    How does Stutzy’s ground game look?

  • ktsub

    Mizzoumark is correct, this thing is wrapped up. Really the outa-state endorsements probably mean ZERO in the Hoosier state, as opposed to the Pence endorsement of Coats.

    Ellsworth thinks he is happy to have Coats in this thing, that is fine, Ellsworth will use his millions of cash on hand to try to make Coats into an outa state, lobbying, anti-gun, old Republican. That campaign will be about as flat as an Indiana cornfield in Wayne County. From my reading Hoosiers perceive Coats as a conservative, that is worth a couple of million right there.

  • e_rowe

    The good news is that Coats has no ground game at all. But Stutzman doesn’t have much, expecially outside his home turf in Northeast Indiana. Hostettler has hundreds of volunteers, though, which could make the difference. If Coats does lose it will be to Hostettler, and that will be why.

  • Raven

    And hand them big sticks and let them joust for real…

    But if Coats wins this, it will be a bad sign for November. And worse for January. We need to get Rid of people like him. Desperately.

  • jcrestonm

    I am from Indiana. Do you think I should vote my conscience and vote for Stutzman or vote more like a realist and vote for Hostettler?

  • RedBeard

    The time when we must, by sheer necessity if nothing else, rally behind whoever wins the R primary.

    If it’s Coats, I surely hope there aren’t any conservatives who will stay home on election day just because he’s not perfect. That behavior helped give us the execrable Barack Obama.

  • jmell7

    Could not agree more…whoever wins!

  • youthgrunt

    Coats is a good conservative. But if you want one with less baggage (aka experience) then you better vote for Hostettler, because it isn’t going to be Stutzman.

  • e_rowe

    Why does your conscience tell you to vote for Stutzman? Is there any issue where he has the better position than Hostettler?

    Have you really given Hostettler a fair shake yet or been to any of his town halls? If not, you might be pleasantly surprised when you learn more about him..

    If the goal is to reform the GOP by putting more power in the hands of principled constitutionalists who won’t buckle to the party leaders, then you just can’t get a better proven example of that than Hostettler.

    If you have some basic principle that you can’t in good conscience compromise, where Stutzman is the only candidate you can support because of that (although I can’t imagine what that principle might be), then you shouldn’t compromise. But if that’s not the case, then you should vote Hostettler, and you shouldn’t even look at it as a compromise vote. It’s a vote to feel great about.

  • youthgrunt

    I just did a count of front page articles since February (when Coats joined the race). 23 have been posted about Stutzman. There have been 7 hit pieces on Coats (well, 6 hit pieces and 1 that was somewhat supportive which being critical when Bayh was still in the race).

    There have been 3 talking about Hostettler. 2 were explanations of polls (including this article) and 1 had the one line critique, “John Hostettler is nowhere to be seen” which was incorrect.

    Yet Hostettler is the only challenger in the race that has a realistic chance of beating Coats.

    How unfortunate.

  • youthgrunt

    would be that of Gov Daniels and he is staying out of this race. I don’t blame him and was quite frankly surprised that Pence said anything.

  • youthgrunt

    on Hostettler putting together the case for him. I know about him, but not really well enough to put context behind some of his votes like those on Iraq. It would be nice for there to be at least one diary on RS talking about Hostettler.

  • e_rowe

    I’m sorry. I think you asked me to do this before and it went over my head. I actually have never made a diary on RedState before. So now that I know what you meant, I think I can do that.

    I won’t promise it though. I probably should have done that a long time ago. But now with 5 days left, I’ve made up my mind to spend less time online and more time canvassing for Hostettler. I’ll mull over what to put in a pro-Hostettler diary and try to get something down when I have enough free time to write it (I think it would take a bit of time).

    In the mean time, you might go to some of the following websites and do a search of the name Hostettler, and you’ll get plenty of hits showing examples of why fiscal and social conservatives love him:
    - eagleforum.org
    - gunowners.org
    - numbersusa.com
    - hslda.org

  • youthgrunt

    I appreciate your efforts. I am spending my energies getting ready to run a polling location and helping out a State House candidate, so I understand the limits of time!

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • IJB

    If Coats or Hostettler are so great, why doesn’t one these commenters write a diary about it, and *tell* us why they’re so great?! *Convince* the rest of us.

  • jmell7

    the Stutzman folks have been a little over the top in pushing a candidate that’s a distant third. Been hearing for 2 weeks how the momentum is all on Stutzman’s side. If that’s the case he must have been at 6% previously.

    Anyway, no time for sour grapes, let’s support whoever wins!!!

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    They know Erick’s right, and they can’t refute him.

  • http://conservativestateproject.blogspot.com/ SE-779

    I’ve been wanting to put together a post on this guy for a while, but I couldn’t access the Issues page on his campaign site. Since finding it through Google, I will do one myself and get it to y’all when I can.

  • http://conservativestateproject.blogspot.com/ SE-779

    http://www.redstate.com/se779/2010/04/30/why-i-am-supporting-former-congressman-john-n-hostettler-for-indiana-senate/

  • e_rowe

    I just wrote this.

    You were right, some diaries about Hostettler have been much needed. Now there are two. I hope not too late to help some voters decide.

  • e_rowe

    I meant to put in this link.
    http://www.redstate.com/e_rowe/2010/05/03/hostettler-for-senate/