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Murray losing ground

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 21st, 2010 at 01:43 PM  | 

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Murray Rossi

The Elway Poll has updated us on the Washington Senate race. And while the Republicans have yet to decide who will be the standard bearer against Patty Murray, Dino Rossi is getting all the attention.

That said, Elway shows Murray below 50 against all leading Republicans, who each gained 6-8 points against her.

Rossi made huge gains. Elway had shown Murray up 17, but now she only leads Rossi 47-40 (I can’t find a margin of error for this edition, but previously it was 5 points). That large MoE on that lead gives Rossi a one quarter (24%) chance of even being up right now.

Clint Didier and Paul Akers aren’t quite doing as well even after big gains, the two trailing 47-33 and 46-32. There would be time for either man to catch up to an incumbent on the decline in a wave year, but obviously Murray would be a big favorite in those matchups.

Murray would also be the favorite against Rossi, but as I’ve been saying since I first started tracking this race, it’s clear that the experienced statewide campaigner has the best chance against the incumbent Senator.

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COMMENTS

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  • E Pluribus Unum

    Oh this is almost as fun as eating BACON.
    Almost.

  • http://itsonlywords55.wordpress.com itsonlywords

    Republicans, per se, won’t be selecting the GOP nominee. In Washington, we don’t register to vote by party and we have open primaries so it’s a real free for all with crossover voting being a real possibility. In addition, we have a top two primary system, whereby only the top two vote getters will appear on the general election ballot.

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

    That horrible, horrible system is apparently coming to California too.

  • http://www.criterionchemical.com Chemical Sam

    n/t

  • http://www.criterionchemical.com Chemical Sam

    And why doesn’t the Republican Party in any given state politely (or impolitely) refuse to subject themselves to that now?

  • From ME to You
  • Achance

    to both these schemes. Since both CA and WA have Democrat Legislature, they might not let you on the primary ballot, that would be a good legal fight, but they can’t control how the Party selects its nominee. If Democrat legislatures or a stupid electorate force these systems on the “primary,” then Republicans should consider not participating in the “Primary” and nominating by caucus or convention and then placing the nominee only on the General ballot.

  • Adjoran

    with more intelligence than Patty Murray. The voters of Washington ought be ashamed she has been allowed to embarrass them for this long already.

  • ralatredstate

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/senate/2010_washington_senate_race.html

  • From ME to You

    If they could afford it they could even send a “Republican Party” primary ballot to every registered Republican and use that to nominate their candidate!

  • From ME to You

    This should be attached to Achance’s reply on the “One tiny point..” thread

  • red_oakster

    Washington and California are in play in 2010 and your coverage really supports conservative activism.

    Now that the June 22nd runoffs are almost behind us, please consider paying more attention to three other blue states: Oregon, New York, and Vermont.

    In Oregon, Wyden is polling around 50%, hardly invulnerable. While his opponent is less than ideal, he is much better than Wyden.

    In New York, Gillibrand is in the high 40s, but one of the Republican candidates is David Malpass, a tried and true Reaganite supply-sider and national security hawk. Malpass deserves some RedState attention, since it could make the difference in the primary.

    And in Vermont, a tea partier is taking on Patrick Leahy. While it’s a long shot, this is a year when independent voters may be willing to retire a crotchety old porker like Leahy.

    Focusing on Scott Brown and now Dino Rossi is the right thing to do. But widening the RedState scope to these other races may yield immense rewards.

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

    The general election ballot does not have formal party lines. Candidates are allowed to give their “preference,” but it’s not listed as a party nomination.

    So I think that will dodge them some legal challenges, but Flash Report said there may be others.

    Here’s hoping.

  • johnt

    Say this about a rock, it just sits there, it doesn’t even look stupid.
    Now Patty Murray, scroll up and gaze at that face. That’s stupid.
    Funny though, you never hear about stupid Democrats, not a word from our media, can’t figure out why.
    And what it says about a very considerable portion of the electorate is best avoided before supper.

  • http://itsonlywords55.wordpress.com itsonlywords

    There are no registered Republicans. We don’t register by party…we just register.

  • E Pluribus Unum

    The Dems have to burn a bunch of money, JUST to defend states that should have been safe. Every dollor spent keeping these seats is a dollar they can’t spend in a legitmately competitive races like NV, AR, etc.

    So even if they ultimately lose, there is a very tangible reason for them to fight hard, and for us to support them.

  • E Pluribus Unum

    Because far too often, and for far too long, Republicans are stupid.

  • From ME to You

    If there is, I’m sure that they could generate a mailing list of their members and mail them a ballot.

    The decision to participate or not participate in the primary elections run by the state is a party decision. If the party chooses not to and uses another means to choose its candidate the state can’t complain because they cannot (currently!) force a political party to choose its candidate by any particular method. But that, of course, may be changed at any time by this administration!

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

    Primary regulations were started in some places, I believe, to combat the old “white primary” thing the Democrats used to do.

  • From ME to You

    the “white primary” thing that the Dems did. Was it a ‘regional’ thing?

    (I meant ‘politically young’ unfortunately the calendar doesn’t let me claim youth!)

    As fa as I can remember Maine has always had primaries. I believe they are the best way we have of choosing candidates, not perfect, just ‘best’.

    The main (not Maine) problem I’ve always seen is that anyone can run in the primaries without some winnowing before the vote. We recently had our primaries and there were 7 Republican Gubernatorial candidates. That split the vote a lot! The winner, Paul LePage received 37.9% of the vote the next on the list received 17.3%. The bottom four vote getters received a total of 30% of the vote.

    I’m not begrudging Mr. LePage’s win, he will get my vote in November, but if those four had not been in the race would Mr. LePage have been the winner? Can we say that Mr. Lepage’s selection truly mirrors the majority of the party members choice?

    Had the marginal candidates been winnowed out at the party convention and the top three names placed on the primary ballot we may have had a more representative choice on the November ballot.

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

    But since political parties were private entities, they’d be “Whites Only,” but then only the party nominees would be on the ballot.

    So guess who got absolutely no say in what candidates were on the ballot in the general election?

    Supreme Court eventually said this was illegal.