Jon Lauck at Daschle v. Thune reports on two new polls that show John Thune leading Tom Daschle in the hotly contested race for the US Senate. The GOP pollster McLaughlin and Fabrizio had Thune up against Daschle 50-45 and now Rassmussen’s latest poll has Thune up 49-46.
Daschle has made a major strategic mistake by inundating the airwaves with negative attack ads. In the 2002 GOP primary, businessman Steve Kirby and former Attorney General Mike Hatch engaged in a vituperative ad war that soured the electorate on the two and ended with a win for the lackluster Mike Rounds. South Dakota voters are getting sick and tired of the constant stream of political ads – hell, I’m getting sick of the constant stream of political ads.
In the end, I think Daschle is wearing out his welcome by trying to paint John Thune, one of the most popular figures in South Dakota politics, as some kind of extremist. That kind of attack may fly in a liberal state like Minnesota, but in redder than red South Dakota it just doesn’t fly at all. Daschle is trying to run from his own record, but he simply cannot hide. All the pork in the world may not be enough to keep him in office. If the latest round of polling is correct, Thune may have enough of a lead that the reservation votes west of the Missouri won’t be enough to sink his candidacy as it did in 2002.
The Republican-leaning Mason-Dixon Poll shows Daschle up by two. That’s a bit of comfort, but I agree that Daschle is in some pretty serious trouble right now and that his yearlong ad barrage was a mistake.
The internals of the KELO/Mason-Dixon poll looks more optimistic for Daschle, assuming it’s accurate. Daschle is reportedly scoring in the mid-50’s in Sioux Falls, along with the state’s northeast quadrant. Tim Johnson got a mere 52% in Minnehaha County and still eked out a victory. Should Daschle get 54 or 55% in Minnehaha Co. (Stephanie Herseth only got 53.5%), Thune would have to overwhelm Daschle even more than he did Johnson West River. That would be a tall order for Thune, considering he did better than 61% in Pennington County and his internals show him at only 60% at-large for West River.
Hmm… the majority of attack ads I’ve seen aren’t going after Thune, but going after Daschle… then again, I don’t watch very much TV, and most of my ad-exposure has been through mailings and the Argus Leader (the sheer quantity of pro-Thune ads is easily drowning out any pro-Daschle bias at that paper).
The nastiest ad I’ve seen in the whole campaign (or any Senate campaign in South Dakota during the last ten years) was in today’s Argus, in the Sioux Empire section. There’s a half-page ad comparing/contrasting Daschle with Zarqawi, culminating in a quote to the effect that “using your pencil to vote for Tom Daschle is the same as jabbing it’s point through an infant’s skull”.
After seeing an ad like that, I know I can never vote for John Thune. I hope such tactics blow up in his supporter’s faces.
Thune’s negativity would seem to be a huge turnoff for civil South Dakotans. I have absolutely no ties to West River, so I can’t even begin to speculate on what they see in John Thune. However, I suspect if Thune is going as starkly and delusionally negative as is reported, Daschle has a good shot at a late surge in his East River bastions. In the likely event that Daschle wins by double digits in Minnehaha County and by 20 points or more in Brown County (Aberdeen), Thune’s margins West River are likely to be irrelevant. Otherwise, the bellwethers are likely to be Watertown and Mitchell. If Daschle loses Codington County (Watertown), it’s certainly advantage Thune statewide. If Thune loses Davison County (Mitchell), things are looking up for Daschle.
Mark Barnett. Who on earth is Mike Hatch?