Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu is the frontrunner – by a point – for U.S. Senate in Louisiana's primary election next month, but Republican challenger Rep. Bill Cassidy could topple her in a runoff, a new poll showed Monday.
The
Suffolk University/USA Today poll found that 36 percent would vote for Landrieu, 35 percent chose Cassidy, and 11 percent chose tea party-backed candidate Col. Rob Maness. Eighteen percent were undecided or would choose another candidate.
"It's an amazing race right now, and it looks from the polling that Sen. Landrieu's best shot to make a real showing is in this November election," David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, told
WWL-TV.
The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The survey showed that if the race goes to a Dec. 6 runoff between the two frontrunners — which would occur if no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the Nov. 4 vote — Cassidy would win 48 percent to 41 percent.
"In December, Rob Maness isn't going to be an ally because his voters - 89 percent of them - say they are unfavorable to the senator, so that's a problem for her," Paleologos told WWL-TV.
"Cassidy is going to benefit immediately from Rob Maness' votes, plus the Libertarian and the other Republicans on the ballot, so you have an automatic influx of those votes."
Paleologos also found the survey numbers "problematic" for Landrieu because "when we looked at people who were undecided in this November election, 60 percent had an unfavorable opinion of her."
Cassidy had a favorable rating of 38 percent and an unfavorable rating of 36 percent.
Maness was an unknown to 34 percent of those surveyed. He had a favorable rating of 23 percent and an unfavorable rating of 13 percent, the survey showed.
President Barack Obama's approval rating is just 32 percent, while three in five disapprove, the survey showed, and when respondents were asked about
Obamacare — a big issue in the Senate race — 62 percent said it's generally bad for Louisiana. Twenty-nine percent said it was generally good.
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