About a month ago, we commented on an R2K poll which found the race tied at 42-42. While this result was undoubtedly excellent for Trauner, we questioned seriously whether Trauner could close the deal. On Friday and Saturday R2K and Mason-Dixon released numbers which showed that Trauner was holding strong with under three weeks until the election. Both polls found the following result
Gary Trauner 44
Cynthia Lummis 43
Absolutely identical head-to-head results. The R2K poll was conducted from October 14 to October 16, while the M-D poll was taken on October 13 and 14.
One of my biggest criticisms of R2K's polling of Wyoming has been that I think the samples have been messed up. Approximately 62 percent of Wyoming's registered voters are Republican, 28 percent are Democrats, and rest are independent/unaffiliated. In the 2004 presidential election, the breakdown was 53 GOP-25 Dem-22 Indie, and in the 2006 midterms the split was 55-28-17. In all of its polling of Wyoming this cycle, R2K's split has been 48-24-28. Therefore, I have felt that R2K has been under-sampling Republicans and Democrats while over-sampling independents and unaffiliated voters. The under-sampling of GOPers has been greater than of Dems given the obvious registration gap in the state.
This is important because while Democrats and indies typically break for the right Democratic candidate, Republicans go heavily for the GOP candidate in the field. For example, in 2006, Gary Trauner received the support of 87 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of independents, but he lost the Republican vote 75-25 en route to a 1,012 vote loss. Because of all this, then, I felt that R2K's sample was likely under-stating Lummis' electoral standing.
However, given Mason-Dixon's result this weekend, I now have to believe the wise polling gurus at R2K probably know more about what they are doing than I do. Having two identical results like that certainly bolsters the credibility of R2K.
Let's take a quick look at both polls, though only R2K has provided its detailed cross-tabs. Nevertheless, both polls give us the same vital conclusion about the state of the race. First, R2K, where the poll results from last month will appear in parenthesis.
Gary Trauner personal favorables
55 percent favorable, 37 unfavorable (53/36) -- Change: from +17 to +18
Among men: 53/40 (50/41) +9 to +13
Among women: 57/34 (56/31) +25 to +23
Among Republicans: 40/52 (35/56) -21 to -12
Among Democrats: 82/13 (75/12) +63 to +69
Among Independents: 57/32 (58/23) +35 to +25
Cynthia Lummis personal favorables
57 percent favorable, 34 percent unfavorable (52/32) -- Change: from +20 to +23
Among men: 60/33 (58/29) +29 to +27
Among women: 54/35 (50/35) +14 to +19
Among Republicans: 72/18 (71/13) +58 to +54
Among Democrats: 31/65 (30/62) -32 to -34
Among Independents: 54/35 (48/37) +11 to +19
Not huge change over the last month, but some interesting movement worth noting. The key takeaway is simple: both Trauner and Lummis are very well-liked in the state, and while Trauner's overall number is not as high as Lummis', he boasts some impressive support. Trauner has shone up his base, but he also made gains with Republicans, going from a personal -21 to -12, while Lummis lost four points with her base. For Wyoming, this is a not a bad showing at all for a Democrat running statewide.
The fact is that Lummis has slightly better ratings because of her well-known family name in the state, but also because she has an 'R' next to her name. This is no fault of Trauner's. But he has been able to hold his own very well here, and voters genuinely like him.
A big concern for Trauner is his big drop among independent voters -- where he went from +35 to +25. This is still higher than Lummis' +19, but while she gained six points in her favorables with indies, Trauner's unfavorables went up a whooping nine points. This is very troubling for Trauner. As noted above, he won independents 71-29 over Barbara Cubin in 2006. He absolutely needs to win this bloc decisively to get elected.
Overall
Trauner 44 (43)
Lummis 43 (42)
(MOE: +/- 4.5%)
Men
Trauner 41 (39)
Lummis 47 (46)
Undecided 12 (15)
Women
Trauner 47 (45)
Lummis 39 (38)
Undecided 14 (17)
Again, we see very little movement at all in just under a month between the R2K polls. Trauner took a one-point lead and turned it into two points, both well within the margin of error. Why haven't the numbers moved much? The following data will show us
Democrats
Trauner 87 (85)
Lummis 11 (12)
Undecided 2 (3)
Republicans
Trauner 14 (13)
Lummis 65 (62)
Undecided 21 (25)
Independents
Trauner 58 (56)
Lummis 33 (33)
Undecided 9 (11)
As you can see, while nearly all of the state's (few) Democrats have been decided for some time -- going from 3 percent undecided to 2 percent in the last month -- Republicans are another story. Whereas one-quarter of Republicans were undecided a month ago, that number is still high at 21 percent. This is why there was basically no movement between the two polls: Wyoming is hugely Republican, and a large chunk of the state's Republicans are undecided in this race.
This mirrors Mason-Dixon's findings which have the overall head-to-head number at 44-43 Trauner. M-D found that of the remaining undecided voters, 75 percent are Republicans, 16 percent are Democrats, and 9 percent are independents. Parsing the R2K cross-tabs, we find that their split of the undecideds is approximately 77 R-4 D-20 I. So, while Mason-Dixon finds that there are far fewer undecided Democrats among the undecideds, its percentage of undecided Republicans relative to the entire poll is basically identical: 75 to 77.
The conclusion, then, is simply that a big part of the state's GOP electorate is torn between voting for a Democrat they like, or a plain Republican they almost always vote for. This even more intriguing since Wyomingites seem to be decided in the other races. R2K found that just three of Republicans were undecided in the presidential race (the rest broke 86-8 for McCain), five percent were undecided in the Senate race between senior Sen. Mike Enzi and Chris Rothfuss (88-7 for Enzi), and nine percent were undecided in the Senate race between junior Sen. John Barrasso and Nick Carter (84-7). Clearly, this is the only race where many state Republicans are undecided.
Interestingly M-D found Trauner's favorable split at 41/31, while pegging Lummis' at a bad 35/34. Regardless of who is right between R2K and Mason-Dixon on this score, both of them agree that Gary Trauner has high personal approval ratings for a Wyoming Democrat, perhaps even greater than the Republican candidate's.
We can make several conclusions from all of this. First, and most basic is that Trauner has a real chance of winning, probably greater than I have been giving him full credit for. Wyomingites have gotten to like him, and it looks as though the attacks lodged on him from Lummis (and before her, Cubin) that he is a New Yorker (Trauner was born in the Catskills) have not rendered permanent damage to him with many of the state's voters.
Food for thought: as the Star-Tribune notes in its article, in its M-D poll from this time in the 2006 campaign, Trauner was down 44-37. This shows he has made great strides with the voters and is not some one-hit wonder. And if you believe Mason-Dixon, Lummis is not beloved in the state, with many voters perhaps reminded of the loathsome Barbara Cubin in her candidacy.
Second, is that perhaps Trauner's decision to run a completely positive campaign has worked in his favor here. In 2006, Trauner was criticized for not hitting against Cubin's ads, and it appears that again this year he has stayed positive throughout even though Lummis too has been attacking him:
Perhaps one reason Trauner is the strongest of the Wyoming party’s candidates for federal office is that he garnered a degree of respect from voters in both parties in 2006. Faced with an onslaught of last-minute attack ads in the closing week of that campaign, Trauner refused national party advice to “go negative.”
“The national party was pushing hard to come back on her with the same stuff she put out on Gary,” one former Trauner advisor told WyoFile. “They had the ads and the money ready and he wouldn’t do it. It hurt at the time, but at least the guy can sleep at night and he can still show his face around the state without raising hackles.”
This year, Trauner’s ads have been airing regularly on Wyoming television stations and the tone has remained positive, in keeping with Trauner’s oft-repeated observation that “the way you campaign is the way you will govern.”
While I am a big believer in the effectiveness of negative ads and campaigning, clearly Trauner's doing pretty well for himself. Perhaps Trauner is too idealistic, but he might also be right. Trauner might be right that Wyoming is different, and given the dynamic there, a Democrat may have to campaign differently than in other states to have a chance. So far, it is hard to question that he has good personal marks from the voters, and his decision to stay positive may be an enormous part of that.
(Incidentally, reading the above article, I would guess that the reason the DCCC has not waded into the race is because the Trauner campaign told them to stay out. That helps us make a lot more sense of it all.)
Third, undecided Republicans are largely going to decide the winner here. Duh. But the very fact that they are still undecided bodes very well for Trauner. These voters are thinking hard about their choice.
Fourth, independents are still crucially important, and Trauner cannot forget about this key segment. Trauner's ten-point personal number drop with indies over the last month has to be concerning, even if he is more well-liked with them than his opponent In 2006, he won indies by 71-29, yet in the R2K poll he is only winning them 58-33. Assuming the undecideds break as the rest have, he will under-perform among the indie group by five to six percent, a big drop he might not be able to compensate for with 90 percent of Democrats (which he might get) unless he can hit 30 percent of Republicans.
One wild card is the presidential race. Predictably, R2K find Obama losing in Wyoming by 58-35. However, remember that neither Al Gore nor John Kerry broke 29 percent in the state. If Obama can get to around 40 percent, he could help bring wavering independents and maybe a couple of Republicans into Trauner's camp. Really, the better Obama does the better it is for Trauner.
Fifth, a final and potentially decisive issue is the libertarian candidate in the race. Unfortunately, R2K did not include him in the poll, but Mason-Dixon did, finding him garnering four percent of the vote. This sounds about right. The 2006 libertarian in the race, Thomas Rankin, also ended up with four percent. Even if a lot of undecided Republicans do not vote for Trauner, if they cast their ballots for the libertarian, that will help Trauner and hurt Lummis. This is a potentially big issue to watch out for.
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