Tea Party Candidate Richard Mourdock’s demand for more partisanship extremely unpopular with Hoosier voters
Indianapolis, Ind.--Today, Joe Donnelly’s campaign released a poll showing an exact tie in Indiana’s U.S. Senate race and that Hoosier voters are strongly rejecting Richard Mourdock’s call for increased partisanship. A new poll, conducted by Global Strategy Group, shows Donnelly and Tea Party candidate Mourdock locked in a tie at 40-40, with 20 percent of voters undecided. The survey of 602 likely voters was conducted May 10-13 and the margin of error at the 95% confidence level is +/- 4.0. In addition to the race being tied, key data points from the poll show Donnelly in a strong position for November. They include:
- Mourdock’s favorability rating is upside down. Hoosier voters have an unfavorable view of Tea Party candidate Richard Mourdock; those surveyed viewed him more unfavorably than favorably by a 37-36 margin, including 22 percent of respondents holding a strongly unfavorable view of the Tea Party candidate.
The Tea Party as a whole is very unpopular. Hoosier voters view the group unfavorably by a 10 point margin, 44-34, clearly showing that Mourdock’s Tea Party candidacy will be dragged down by the group’s unpopularity. To contrast, exit polling from Indiana in 2010 showed that 46 percent of Hoosier voters supported the Tea Party while only 27% opposed.
Accordingly, Mourdock’s demand for more partisanship is not popular. Mourdock’s opposition to bipartisanship in Washington is extremely unpopular with Hoosier voters. 56 percent of those surveyed agree that the problem with Washington is that there is too much partisan bickering and not enough working across party lines to get things done.
“Tea Party candidate Richard Mourdock has emerged from a damaging primary campaign with a message that is unpopular with Indiana voters,” said Paul Tencher, Donnelly Campaign Manager. “This race starts off a toss-up and with Hoosiers already responding strongly to Joe Donnelly’s desire to reach across party lines to get things done for middle class families. Voters are already rejecting Richard Mourdock’s support for increased partisan bickering and will continue to do so once they learn more about his Tea Party candidacy.”
The toplines are available for download here.
Substitute "Richard Lugar" for "Joe Donnelly" and I think we saw the same press release six months ago.
Posted by: Karlton | May 14, 2012 at 05:33 PM
What we saw in the Primary Election might be totally different than what happens in the General Election.
In the Primary Election, only the party activists tend to come out to vote.
I really hope we don't have enough Nazis in Indiana to elect Richard Mourdock.
On the other hand, bad economies and high unemployment tend to float bad politicians to the top, reinforce underlying social prejudices, and do all kinds of other nasty things.
Posted by: Ryan Farmer | May 17, 2012 at 07:41 AM