U.S. Senate primary: most undecided but Hagan leads
In some ways this release from Public Policy Poling on Democratic primaries makes perfect sense to me. Edwards trailing in NC? Sure - especially after losing two early primaries. About 67 percent of folks not having a choice in the Lt. Governor's race? Heck, I bet a good number of those weren't aware the Lt. Governor was elected separately from the governor.
But the U.S. Senate race results confound me.
No, not the part where 66 percent haven't made up their mind. I actually sort of expect that at this stage in the game.
But Greensboro Sen. Kay Hagan leads the field with 19 percent of the vote, 12 points ahead of Chapel Hill investment banker Jim Neal.
It's not that Hagan isn't a legit candidate with a good shot. But she hasn't been doing a lot in terms of outreach or grass-roots campaigning that I can tell. She's been doing fundraisers and getting her campaign team together, but that's not the sort of stuff that tends to give you an advantage in the polls.
Neal, by contrast, has been actively on the stump.
And it's a bit at odds with polls that tested Hagan and Neal against incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole, which showed they were pretty equivalent options among voters. So what gives? Some possibilities:
- * There is a certain segment of the population that will choose a female candidate over male candidates when presented with little other information. Hagan is the only woman in the field.
- * A derivative of my last thought, but primary voters may think that running a female candidate and/or one with a few years of legislative experience is their best shot of taking out Dole.
- * In those versus-Dole polls, some large percentage of voters are basically taking anyone who isn't Dole without much regard to policy or background.
- * Hagan's standing as a state Senator and the chairman of a powerful committee is good for more than just a coffee in the LOB break room.
- * For all of Jim Neal's early campaigning and grass-roots work, he's not hitting a broad segment of the Democratic primary audience. I know the on-line activists really like him, but they're not the bulk of the Democratic primary electorate.
One more note: PPP's Tom Jensen notes:
There continues to be very little movement in the race. Jim Neal barely out polls fringe candidates John Ross Hendrix and Duskin Lassiter. Hagan expands her lead over Neal from 9 points last month to 12 this month, but actually has her standing drop from 22 to 19.(bold mine)
In a poll with a margin of error of +/- 3 percent, I wouldn't get that excited about it. I'm more interested in the relative position of the candidates. But I'll be interested to see what Jensen has to say about that later this week.