Castle holds big lead despite Bush, Iraq

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Tabular Results
Survey Details

Republican Response

Democratic Response

According to results of the most recent poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind, incumbent Republican Mike Castle leads Democratic challenger Dennis Spivak by 35 points, 59 to 24 percent for Delaware's single place in the House of Representatives. However, voter dissatisfaction with President Bush and the war in Iraq make their presence felt even in this safe seat and cut into the Republican's margin, though he retains a huge lead over his opponent.

The President and the conflict in Iraq remain unpopular in Delaware. Among likely voters, 63% say the nation is on the wrong track. Only 36% approve of the way President Bush is handling his job as President and 60% disapprove. In fact, 47% strongly disapprove of Bush's job performance and survey results show a substantial overlap between support for Spivak and dissatisfaction with President Bush and the war in Iraq. Three-quarters (76%) of Spivak's supporters strongly disapprove of Bush and 81% say that going to war with Iraq was a mistake.

“Spivak is running on his opposition to the Bush and the war, and that's the only reason he's getting even a quarter of the vote,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University and PublicMind survey analyst. “The fact that an underfinanced and unknown challenger to a popular incumbent is doing as well as he is shows just how much national issues are hurting Republicans this year.”

The impact of national issues on Spivak's support is also clearly demonstrated by a portion of the survey designed to test how these issues affect Delawareans' vote choices. Half of respondents were asked questions about Iraq and President Bush before being asked about the House race, and half were asked about national issues only after answering questions about the upcoming election. Among those respondents who were reminded of national issues first, Spivak's favorability increased to 37%, up from just 20% among those who were asked about national issues only at the end of the survey. Similarly, asking voters about national issues first reduced Castle's support on the ballot question from 63% to 56%, while increasing Spivak's support to 27% from 21%.

“The fact that Spivak gains from reminding voters about Iraq is a bad sign at this point for Republicans nationwide,” said Cassino. “The national shift against Republicans is brushing even against Mike Castle.”

Despite his vulnerability on national issues, Castle retains a large advantage in both name recognition and favorability over his opponent. Overall, Castle enjoys 96% name recognition, with 75% of respondents holding a favorable view of him. This favorability is across the board for the Republican, who enjoys 77% favorability even among Democrats.

Castle's challenger lags well behind in both name recognition and favorability. With only two weeks remaining before the election, only 50% of likely voters recognize Spivak. Moreover, half of Democrats who do recognize him don't know enough to hold a view one way or the other.

Two other candidates running for Delaware's seat in the House of Representatives, Karen Hartley Nagle and Michael Berg, fail to rise even to Spivak's level of visibility. Nagle's name recognition is 23%; Berg's is 29%.  Both have a positive ratio of favorable to unfavorable opinion but most voters who say they recognize them have no opinion, favorable or unfavorable.  All told, only 4% of voters say that they will vote for some candidate besides Castle and Spivak, and a minority of those voters cited Nagle or Berg as their candidate of choice.

“Voters are typically resistant to third-party candidates, and this year is no different,” said Cassino. “No matter how upset people are with the parties in power, it takes a lot for them to support a third party.”

Since September, Castle's lead over Spivak has shrunk slightly, to 35 points now from 39 points a month ago, but the broad outlines of the race have remained largely unchanged. Castle holds the support of 59% of likely voters, including 60% of independents and 88% of Republicans. Among the largest bloc of voters in Delaware, Democrats, Castle and Spivak are in a dead heat, with Castle having a 42% to 40% edge, statistically unchanged from the 45% to 42% edge he held in the previous survey.

The PublicMind poll also asked likely voters about their support for federal financing of stem cell research, but despite its prominence the issue has little impact on the race. Of the 64% of Delaware voters who support federal funding for the research, 57% support Castle and 26% support Spivak, little different from their overall support.

“The issue of stem cell research has been used against Republican candidates in other races, but Castle has been upfront with his support of the research, and it does seem to have paid off,” said Cassino.

The PublicMind poll of 502 randomly selected likely voters statewide was conducted by telephone from October 18 through October 24 and has a margin of error of +/- 4.4 percentage points.

 

Contacts:

Contacts: Peter Woolley 973.670.3239; Dan Cassino 973.896.7072

For more information, please call (973) 443-8661.

Copyright © 2006, Fairleigh Dickinson University. All rights reserved. FDU PublicMind Poll [Latest update 061027]