 |  | |
| Charles Melancon | David Vitter |
Last week the Southern Media and Opinion Research (SMOR) polling firm in Baton Rouge released the results of a public opinion poll which gauged current sentiment among Louisiana voters for next year's U.S. Senate contest between Republican Senator David Vitter and his Democrat challenger, Representative Charles Melancon. The poll was conducted October 4 - 7 among 600 Likely Voters across the state.
Head-to-Head: Vitter Currently Has a Double-Digit Lead
The results of the current head-to-head matchup are no surprise.
| Melancon vs. Vitter: Head-to-Head | |
| Candidate | Support |
| David Vitter | 47.6% |
| Charles Melancon | 35.8% |
| Don't Know/Won't Say | 16.6% |
Since polling on the race first began last March, Vitter's support has remained steady, between 44% - 48%, depending upon which pollster's results you use. Melancon's general trend is down from a high of 41% in March, though the recent polls from both SMOR and Rasmussen have him rebounding from lower numbers in July, when he took an obvious hit from growing dissatisfaction among Louisiana voters with Obama's policies, something that is made clear in the current SMOR survey, when respondents gave their opinions on a variety of issues, including the stimulus plan and health care reform.
Plenty of Room for Melancon to Grow His Approval Numbers
Things do begin to get a little interesting when you look at the approval ratings for the two candidates, which show that Melancon is not very well known, since Vitter has both higher approval and disapproval numbers.
| Melancon and Vitter: Approval/Disapproval Ratings | |||
| Candidate | Approval | Disapproval | Don't Know/Won't Say |
| David Vitter | 57.1% | 37.4% | 5.5% |
| Charles Melancon | 35.8% | 22.7% | 41.5% |
The conventional wisdom generally offered as analysis of the poll's results is that Melancon has "room to grow." Southern Media and Opinion Research pollster Bernie Pinsonat made the comment immediately upon release of the survey and it has been posted all over the web. With 41.5% of respondents not having an opinion which either approves or disapproves of Melancon, it certainly suggests that there is plenty of room for Melancon to raise his approval numbers, which puts Pinsonat's take in perspective. But just how much of a chance does Melancon have to grow his actual support among voters?
What About the Goose Egg?
Growing a candidate's approval numbers and growing support at the ballot box are not the same thing. Unless the context of a campaign is so exceedingly negative that the majority of voters feel they must vote for the candidate they dislike least, the usual pattern is that first a candidate gains approval with the electorate and then he gains their support once he convinces them he is worth their vote. The results of the SMOR poll show that the latter option is not now open to Charles Melancon.
| Melancon and Vitter: Favorables with Louisiana Voters | |||
| Candidate | Approval | Support | Approval - Support |
| David Vitter | 57.1% | 47.6% | 9.5% |
| Charles Melancon | 35.8% | 35.8% | 0% |
That goose egg says it all. Melancon's approval and support ratings are exactly the same. He must change the current electoral calculus completely to create an opening. With no additional body of approving voter sentiment above his support numbers on his side and Vitter dangerously close to a majority, Melancon has no choice but to bring down Vitter's approval numbers, and hopefully, from Melancon's perspective, Vitter's support as well. This means that Melancon must go after the approval rating first, since there is a larger proportion within the Louisiana electorate who approve of Vitter than have now committed themselves to voting for him. In other words, voter support for David Vitter is encompassed within a larger body of the electorate who approve of him. At the very least Melancon must contain Vitter's current support where it is, which means reducing the numbers of the more sizeable group, i.e. those who approve of the sitting Republican senator.
Lowering Vitter's approval ratings and containing his support where it is now implies the obvious strategy of raising Vitter's negatives with Louisiana voters, which is an even more dangerous task for Melancon for two reasons: 1. Vitter's approval rating is 21.3% higher that of Melancon, who likely will be unable to raise his own approval ratings to any sizeable degree at the same time because; 2. Negative campaigning is not a strategy which creates approval for a candidate. Therefore, we may conclude that the nature of the campaign Melancon is preparing will be extremely negative given the dramatic difference in their approval ratings. And this outlook is reinforced significantly when one examines the attitudes of Louisianians to those issues in national politics which should form part of an issues-oriented senatorial campaign and which in no way favor Melancon.
From the Perspective of Louisiana Voters: Is it Obama or the Issues?
It is practically a drumbeat as sounded within the communications media. Vitter's strategy for the campaign is to tie Melancon to Obama, who has a disapproval rating of 54% in the SMOR poll. This could imply that the intended linkage is personal, tied to issues, or both. One of the interesting things about the survey is that it gives us an opportunity to set the personal aside for now, and examine the attitudes of Louisiana voters to several major issues of national interest at the moment, whether they may be pending or already decided. There are four which we could examine; the president's stimulus plan, health care reform, the labor union "card check" legislation now pending, and the "Cap and Trade" proposals within energy reform legislation. I want to set "Cap and Trade" aside for now, since there is some unity among Louisianians in opposition to the proposal, and focus on the other three, which do draw distinct divisions between Vitter and Melancon.
| Issue No. 1: The Stimulus Package |
| a. The stimulus package passed by Congress has stimulated the economy and created jobs. |
| b. The stimulus package has done little to stimulate the economy but has caused the national debt to increase dramatically. |
| c. Don't Know / Won't Say |
 |
| Issue No. 2: Health Care Reform |
| a. Favor |
| b. Oppose |
| c. Don't Know / Won't Say |
 |
| Issue No. 3: Labor Union "Card Check" Legislation |
| a. Secret Ballot |
| b. Vote in Public |
| c. Don't Know / Won't Say |
 |
What the above charts show is that there is exceptionally strong opposition among Louisianians to three key policy initiatives President Obama has either proposed or supported during his first year in office. The numbers opposed range from a low of 58.2% with respect to the Obama health care reform plan to a high of 75.8% on labor union card check legislation. Thus do we come to the reality of the attitudes Louisianians have towards the president, whose disapproval numbers are only at 54% -- President Barack Obama is more popular among Louisiana voters than his policies.
The SMOR poll's revelation of President Obama's success in overcoming at least some of the widespread opposition to his policies must suggest that that there are flaws in the notion that the dislike of Louisianians for him is entirely personal or racial. No president occupying the White House who urges legislative initiatives which generate such strong reactions from Louisiana voters should expect that his own approval ratings will not suffer as a consequence.
And now that we have arrived at the centrality of issues to Louisiana voters with respect to the Obama Administration, we must again return to the senatorial campaign and ask ourselves just how negative must Charles Melancon become in order to close the gap with David Vitter? Melancon is on the wrong side of the preferences of Louisiana voters in each of the three major issues just discussed. Obviously the answer is very negative. So what makes him think that it is possible? I believe the only logical answer to that question is that Melancon and those in his campaign believe they are going to get help. But from where will that help come?
Part of it is already in place. Much of the news media in Louisiana is now playing ball promoting the notion that Vitter's strategy is centrally focused on tying Melancon to Obama, which leaves the potentially personal and/or racial nature of the president's unpopularity in play while ignoring the evidence of opposition to specific policies. Just see Stephanie Grace's recent commentary in the Times-Picayune on the significance of the SMOR poll for an example. It is about Obama's disapproval rating and the disagreement of Louisianians with the direction in which the president is leading the country. There is no reference to the specific issues the poll examined, which does not do anything to help integrate them within the debate of the senatorial campaign.
If the remainder of the news media keeps a discussion of policy out of the campaign, while leaving the personal and racial aspects of Vitter's tie Melancon to Obama strategy in place they will preserve an opportunity for Melancon to wage the kind of negative campaign the numbers presented above show that he must make or fail completely. That personalization of Vitter-Obama conflict also opens the way to let the wolf in the front door of our home state. There are already indications that a negative campaign against Vitter of a far more poisonous kind may now be developing from outside Melancon's organization, but which is clearly intended to help him, which focuses on race and will attempt to use the Bardwell affair to dangerous effect.
In my next blog on the Vitter-Melancon campaign I will introduce some aspects of this developing campaign of promoting racial animosity on behalf of Charles Melancon and where it may take us.
Jacob Sulzbach
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Notes:
- There is extended documentation of the SMOR poll up at BayouBuzz.com.
- The use of the category names "Approval" and "Disapproval" represent the following combinations of categories as presented in the original poll results for question no. 2: "Approval" refers to the addition of percentages for "Excellent" and "Good"; "Disapproval" refers to the addition of percentages for "Not so good" and "Poor."
