| Not much else available but the numbers, not even at KATU, but they speak for themselves: Do you approve or disapprove of the job Gordon Smith is doing as United States Senator? Approve 38% Disapprove 56% Not Sure 6%
No one has a better handle on Senate approval than Survey USA. They do it monthly, although strangely they semed to have taken this summer off, not reporting in June or July (these calls were done in mid-August). And in over three years of (mostly) monthly polling, Smith has never been anywhere NEAR this low. As you can see from the tracking graph, it goes all the way back to May of 2005, and the next-worst rating is 45% approval, recorded with the last prior sample, May of this year. Smith has flirted with the mid 40s before, but for the most part it has hovered in the low 50s, with dips right at 50%. So this is a five month sagging of Smith's approvals, from 50-40 (+10) in April, to the first-ever negative approval at -2 (45-47), following three months later by this whopping -18 ratio, a stunning twenty-eight point drop in four months, over three surveys. Perhaps this poll is noise, and there's further slackening from May's narrow deficit but not THAT much, or maybe it's even crawled back to the positive. But if it's not noise--if September's ratio shows a negative even in the high single digits, then he's definitely taken a major hit over the summer. Why? {more} |
Mechanically speaking, if these numbers are to be believed Smith has dropped 19 points over the last three surveys, from an actually-kind-of-embarssing +3 (44-41) down to 32-59 and now 35-61 as more undecideds made up their minds. Since he's down in the dregs (finally) among Democrats in both of the last two surveys, the big -16 drop overall can't be coming from Dems. Smith has weakened a little among Republicans, finding more disfavor and hanging in the high 50s rather than low 60s as earlier this winter. That leaves....uh oh, Gordon...INDEPENDENTS (which is to say everyone else). As you might expect, over the last three years the "other" vote has varied widely from month to month, anywhere from high 50s approval to low 40s, and sometimes one month after another. So it's a volatile group, apparently sensitive to current events, or seasonal affect disorder, or who knows what. But this is no normal volatility. From looking at the graph of independent approval, if you hadn't been watching the news you'd be thinking "My God, were there TWO underaged girls in the hotel room with him?" It's jarring. (And it's behind that link up there, because it fits poorly in a blog window without distorting). If you still refuse to look, among indies Smith has gone from 55-38 approval in May, a healthy +17, to an almost absurd 28-64. Let's count the surprises. Just on raw approval alone, it's a twenty-seven point drop. It is a three year low, by far, not even close (although the previous low of 37% was most recently 'achieved' last March). It's under 30%, for heaven's sake. It's an incumbent! It's an incumbent who, relatively speaking, is observably free from disqualifying corruption!! Expressed as a ratio of approval to disapproval, it is a fifty-one point drop. (+17 to a whopping -36). Did pollsters just happen to call every single member of the Multnomah Democrats last month? I doubt it. Did SUSA simply screw the pooch on this one? Plausibly. But I think for people who would desperately like to see Smith out on his ear, there is evidence that they did not, and it offers hope that a seemingly savvier public has watched its fill of Gordon Smith on heavy rotation (as he was in the Olympics, and fairly so were the Democrats), and pretty simply isn't buying the bullshit anymore. Or more specifically, they're done buying Gordon's. His pandering and obvious job of positioning at some point becomes more of an insult to an Oregonian's intelligence after a while. It's so blatant and transparent that even as a hardcore Republican, you have to laugh when Gordon tries to imply Barack Obama's endorsement in an ad! And the old bromides and "carried our water" routines don't seem to be ringing as true lately, not least by fisherman who have plenty of water, but none for fishing this year. I think many Democrats and their supporters wished that folks would be disgusted by the shamelessness of Smith's ad assault (that really started in March or April and has continued almost incessantly since), but could only hold out hope that they wouldn't sway Dems, and Republicans would be turned off by the blatant appeal to non-party-faithfuls and...independents. It's not worked at all with Democrats, but ironically Smith's Republican base has held mostly firm. It's precisely the sweet spot of Smith's target demographic, the people his ads were aimed at, who were most apparently repulsed. That's gotta hurt. Smith has to pray that any head to head numbers that come out in the next couple of weeks aren't infected with this apparent plunge in political viability. If his veneer of smooth incumbency is worn thin, he doesn't have a whole lot else to offer in this electoral climate. If indies have made some kind of definitive assessment of Smith here in the months running up to the election, he is flat out fucked as Mudhoney used to say. And this was before the convention, before Palinsanity. (A quick look at Wyden's ratings; he's still ahead of the game but has lost some stature. Notably, women are overwhelmingly fond of Wyden but decidedly cool on Smith, whereas men are split on Wyden but gung-ho on Smith. I predict now he does OK in 2010.) |
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