United Liberty

The latest poll out of West Virginia shows John Raese taking a seven point lead over Gov. Joe Manchin (D-WV) in the race for United States Senate. More importantly, Raese has hit the 50% mark again.

• Raese: 50%
• Manchin: 43%
• Other: 2%
• Not sure: 5%

What this poll says is that Manchin’s attempts to break from his positions party has taken on the national level, such as cap-and-trade and ObamaCare, are not working. However, Machin remains popular, a reoccuring theme when reviewing polls from West Virginia, as 65% of voter have a favorable view of him and 69% approve of the his job performance (both of those numbers are down slightly from the previous poll).

And that’s why we’re seeing the NRSC run ads that call him a “good governor,” but at the same time encouraging voters to send a message to Barack Obama:

Raese is on the rebound after the NRSC’s gaffe. The number of voters with a favorable view of him jumped from 48% in the last poll to 55%. His unfavorables are back down, dropping from 49% to 43%. Voters also believe he’ll be better at dealing with taxes and spending

Below is a collection of recent ads running in competitive United States Senate races around the country. Some are positive ads, some are attack ads, but they give you an idea of what is going on in this states.

Ken Buck discusses, in one of the better ads I’ve seen this year, how Washington has heard cries for less government, but they have gone ignored:

Pat Toomey, who seems to be closing out his race well, responds to baseless attacks against him hits Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) for backing President Barack Obama’s agenda:

Rasmussen, using a reasonable party ID breakdown (unlike Public Policy Polling), shows John Raese losing ground to Gov. Joe Manchin, who has broken with his party on ObamaCare and cap-and-trade, though still maintaining a three point lead in the race for United States Senate in West Virginia:

• Raese: 49%
• Manchin: 46%
• Other: 2%
• Not sure: 3%

The is the first time Rasmussen has polled in the race since the NRSC ad scandal, which seems to have cost Raese his lead. But the bad news doesn’t end there.

As has been often noted here when covering this race, Manchin is enormously popular in his state. This latest poll finds Manchin’s favorability with voters at 70% and 72% approve of his job performance as Governor. However, this race has been a referendum on President Barack Obama, whose job performance is disapproved of by 61% of voters.

Raese has seen his unfavorables jump from 40% in the last poll to 49%. His favorable rating is down from 56% to 48%. The silver-lining is that he has only dropped off by one point since the last poll, while undecideds are breaking for Manchin. He also continues to hold the lead among independents, 59% to 32%.And 53% believe Manchin should stay in West Virginia, continuing to serve as Governor.

Public Policy Polling, a Democratic leaning polling firm, put out some new numbers yesterday out of West Virginia in the Senate race between Gov. Joe Manchin and John Raese. According to the poll, Manchin has regained the lead.

• Manchin: 48%
• Raese: 45%
• Undecided: 7%

Here is the party breakdown of the poll:

• Democrats: 55%
• Republicans: 33%
• Independents: 12%

That’s questionable, to say the least, especially when you consider that Democrats make-up a little over 54% of registered voters (the poll claims to be among likely voters) in the state that has gone Republican in each of the last three presidential elections.

Compare this to the party breakdown of the last poll, which show Raese in the lead, though by the same three point margin.

• Democrats: 51%
• Republicans: 37%
• Independents: 12%

Public Policy Polling explains the difference:

Joe Manchin (D-WV), a popular Governor facing a battle from John Raese for United States Senate in West Virginia, has put out a new ad that looks like it could have come from a Republican, promising to repeal the “bad parts” of Obama and taking aim (literally) at cap-and-trade:

Manchin faces a credibility issue when it comes to ObamaCare. He is on record expressing support of it:

I’d be for it. I think you’ve got to move the ball. Ted [Strickland] is exactly right. You have to move this ball forward right wrong or indifferent. I have never, since I’ve been in the legislative process and since I’ve been governor, I’ve never gotten a perfect bill. I’ve never gotten a bill exactly the way I’ve wanted it….Let’s try, let’s try to make this. Bring us all in. Let’s make it work.

A couple days after a Fox News poll showed John Raese (R-WV) with a five point lead over Gov. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Rasmussen shows him up by six and hitting the 50% mark for the first time in the race for United States Senate.

• Raese: 50%
• Manchin: 44%
• Other: 2%
• Not sure: 5%

Independents are overwhelmingly breaking for Raese, 54% to 26%. Perhaps the most telling point in the poll is that 53% of West Virginians believe that Manchin, who has an approval rating of 69%, should remain as Governor, which was a point emphasized in a recent ad by the NRSC.

As has been noted here a few times, this election, like so many across the country, is a referendum on Barack Obama. According to the survey 69% disapprove of his job performance.

New polling out of West Virginia, where the race has become a referendum on President Barack Obama, shows John Raese increasing his lead over Gov. Joe Manchin (D-WV) in the race for United States Senate:

A new Fox News battleground state poll on the race for the seat held by the late Sen. Robert Byrd for 51 years shows Republican businessman John Raese with a 5-point lead over Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin among likely voters — 48 percent to 43 percent.

In what may be the year’s clearest case of Obama’s downward pull on his party’s candidates, Manchin gets high marks from voters – 66 percent approved of his job performance and 65 percent had a positive view of him personally — but they still prefer Raese.
[…]
Manchin’s most obvious problem is Obama’s 29 percent approval rating in the state. Only 12 percent believe that Obama’s policies have helped the state economically, while 55 percent in the coal-rich state believe they have hurt. That is borne out in the slim 28 percent of respondents who supported a plan to address global warming like the one Obama favors.

The NRSC has started running ads in the state, though they are careful not to go negative on Manchin, who continues to be a very popular governor despite recent poll numbers:

The latest poll from Rasmussen out of West Virginia shows John Raese (R) leading Gov. Joe Machin (D), who held a 16 point lead two months ago. This is the second poll in the last two weeks to show Raese leading, the other came from Public Policy Polling.

• Raese: 48%
• Manchin: 46%
• Other: 2%
• Not sure: 4%

Machin’s favorables are still high, right at 70% and 69% approve of his performance as Governor. It looks like Raese and the NRSC have been successful thus far in making this race a referendum on President Barack Obama, who is not doing that well with West Virginians as 68% disapprove of his performance. Sixty-six percent believe that the country is headed in the wrong direction and 50% of voters believe that Obama’s policies caused the current economic problems.

In recent days, Machin has backtracked on his support of ObamaCare, now supporting repeal of some provisions:

Manchin endorsed President Obama’s efforts on landmark health care reform and voiced support for the bill before and after its passage in March. Now, just five weeks away from a tougher Senate race than he expected against Republican John Raese, the governor said in an interview with RealClearPolitics that he supports many basic components of the law but volunteered that some of it needs to be repealed.

“I believe in health care reform. I don’t believe in the way this bill was passed,” Manchin said Sunday afternoon. “Why they overreached, I don’t know.”

Let’s take a look at this ad from the National Republican Senatorial Committee that’s running in West Virginia:

In case you missed it, Alex Knepper points out the problem with this ad:

“Manchin supports Barack Obama’s big government agenda…Manchin supported the government takeover of healthcare that cuts Medicare…”

The words “Government takeover of healthcare” are actually juxtaposed with “Cuts Medicare” on the screen.

(…)

Do these newfound entitlement-lovers think that these cuts were made because Nancy Pelosi enjoys watching old people suffer?

It reminds me of the protesters against ObamaCare that were showing up at Town Hall’s in the Summer of 2009 saying that they opposed a government take over of health care because they didn’t want the government touching their Medicare, or the poll numbers showing that 25% of Republicans didn’t know that Medicare was a government program.

Campaigning against one government program by saying it will make cuts in another government program is not limited government, people.