First Poll Says Senate Race Close

Congressman
Joe Donnelly

The first poll in the 2012 General Election U.S. Senate battle here in Indiana shows a close race between Congressman Joe Donnelly and Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock.

The Global Strategy Group poll, released by the Donnelly campaign, shows that Mourdock and Donnelly are locked at 40 percent each with a large number of undecided voters (20 percent).  Libertarian Andy Horning was not included in the poll.  While the poll was released by the Donnelly camp, political commentators like Abdul say that the poll's "scientifically sound."

Buried in the polls results is some actually pretty interesting things.  For example, Mourdock starts the campaign with a 37 percent unfavorability rating.  36 percent have a favorable view of the Treasurer of State.  That's good news for Donnelly.  The bad news?  Only 40 percent of the people have any familiarity with Donnelly while 70 percent of the 602 people surveyed by phone knew Mourdock.

Treasurer
Richard Mourdock

Mourdock's partisan message didn't fare well vs. Donnelly's message of bipartisanship.  Bipartisanship won that battle 41-28 percent in the poll.  The Tea Party Movement also has 44 percent unfavorability rating with just 34 percent viewing the movement as positive.

The poll broke down to a 31-30 spread favoring Republicans with 39 percent of those interviewed saying they were independent.

I'm not sure what this poll means exactly, but I think it's mostly pretty good news for Donnelly.  He can use this result to raise money.  Then again, so can Mourdock.  It's still very early.  Heck, the ink isn't even dry on the Primary results.  This is just a momentary glimpse of what will probably be a very long and nasty race.  We'll see how it develops in the coming weeks.

Extrapolating this out, I think this is excellent news as well for John Gregg.  If he could successfully tie Mike Pence to Mourdock and the message of divisive government, it could pay major dividends in November.