Carper continues to hold big lead

see also:
Tabular Results
Survey Details
Republican Response
Democratic Response

With little time left before midterm elections, Republican challenger Jan Ting remains unknown to much of the state, even as more people begin paying attention to the race. According to the latest results from Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind poll, incumbent Democratic Senator Tom Carper retains a commanding 34-point lead over Ting, 60% to 26%.

The deciding factors in this race are name recognition and favorability. Tom Carper enjoys 95% name recognition, and two-thirds of likely voters (66%) hold favorable views of the incumbent senator, former governor, and former House member. Even half (49%) of Republicans view him favorably.

By contrast, Ting remains unknown to many of Delaware's likely voters. While up by 13 percentage points since September, at 55% his name recognition lags well behind that of Carper. Further, almost half of those who do recognize Ting (46%) don't know enough about him to hold an opinion. Worse, a third of Republicans (32%) don't recognize his name, and almost as many (30%) say they are voting for Carper.

Much of Ting's support comes from the minority of voters (30%) who say that the war in Iraq is going “fairly well” or “very well.” Among those voters, Ting actually leads Carper. However, among voters who say that the war isn't going well at all, Carper leads by a margin of almost 8 to 1.

“Ting has tied himself to Bush on a number of issues, and it just isn't a winning strategy this year,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University and survey analyst for PublicMind. “He isn't going to get much traction appealing to a conservative base in Delaware in a toxic climate for national Republicans.”

Ting's support has increased only slightly since PublicMind's previous poll in September when Carper led by 40 points. That increase comes in part from independent voters, 23% of whom now support the Republican, up from 12% a month ago. However, among the largest bloc of voters in Delaware, Democrats, Ting gets just 9% support. Carper gets 84% from his own party.

Delaware voters are paying a little more attention to the race: 19% now say that they have heard or read a great deal about the race, up from just 8% a month ago. Those who have heard nothing at all about the race declined to 20% from 31%.

“It works to Carper's advantage if interest in this race is low. As the incumbent, he has vastly superior name recognition. Also, he's the Democrat in a political cycle that is trending against Republicans nationwide,” said Cassino. “Voters who haven't heard very much going into the booth are likely to favor their own party, and names they recognize. Carper has both on his side.”

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.