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
The President and the conflict in
“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
“The fact that Spivak gains from reminding voters about
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
“Voters are typically resistant to third-party candidates, and this year is no different,” said
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
“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
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]