Mark Takano has put out an internal poll and it's hard to see it as too encouraging for the Democrat. Takano is up by 4 points. On the surface that doesn't seem bad. He's winning and Republicans did beat Democrats in June by 9 points here.
But we have to remember that it is a Democratic internal poll and this is a district that Barack Obama won 59%-38% and Jerry Brown won 51%-40%. So it's a district where a good Democratic candidate should win comfortably. Keep in mind that this is his poll, put out to show how well he's doing. Internal polls usually are skewed for the candidate conducting them, so he probably isn't really leading.
What's worse is that the poll has Republican Riverside Supervisor John Tavaglione with a 15% name ID advantage. If this were August 2011 I could understand a 15% name ID advantage, as Takano was largely unknown. But we're less than 3 months before the election. They should know him by now. What has Mark Takano been doing for the last year?
The popular meme is that Republicans are fading away and Democrats are dominant. As the primary results in CA-21 and CA-31 showed, however, the Democratic party has a number of places where they just don't win elections. Riverside county is one of those places. No matter how many votes Barack Obama or Jerry Brown get, you win locally with local candidates and the local party. The Democrats have no bench in Riverside county and no idea how to win elections.
Any decent Democratic candidate would win this district, but Takano isn't a decent candidate. He could win, but that'll be due to the overwhelming number of Democrats here.
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