U.S. Senate In Play: Blumenthal 49, McMahon 46 in Connecticut

Allahpundit - Propelled by Connecticut likely voters who say they are “angry” with government, former wrestling executive Linda McMahon, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate, is closing in on Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the Democrat, and now trails just 49 – 46 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to a 51 – 45 percent Blumenthal lead in a September 14 likely voter survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll, conducted by live interviewers…

The 33 percent of likely voters who say they are “angry” with the federal government support McMahon 78 – 20 percent.

She’s turned Blumenthal’s lead among independents into a 49/44 lead of her own, but she’s getting crushed among women — a common phenomenon for women Republican candidates, actually — and, worryingly, she’s winning the GOP vote only 80/16. Blumenthal, by contrast, takes Democrats 89/9. If her numbers among her own base were the same as his, this would either be a dead heat or she’d be up by a point or two. Maybe the next round of polls will show that; the momentum in this race is, after all, entirely in one direction. The big question is whether that 16 percent of Republicans who are sticking with Bloomy for now are doing so because they’re Castle-esque moderates who won’t vote for a mostly conservative candidate like McMahon or because they’re a bit spooked by her WWE pedigree and aren’t quite ready to take her seriously yet. If it’s the latter, we should see a bunch of them start to flip into her column soon now that she’s proved she has a chance at winning. If it’s the former, uh oh. Either way, consider this a rough metric for how blue a state needs to be this year for the Democratic nominee to have a chance at winning. Obama took Connecticut by 23 points two years ago, and now state attorney general Dick Blumenthal is within the margin of error — against a pro-wrestling impresario. When The One said he’d bring about Change, he wasn’t kidding.

Meanwhile, in West Virginia, John Raese suddenly leads newly minted ObamaCare skeptic Joe Manchin by two points. Why is that a big deal when PPP already showed Raese leading by three? Because this is a Rasmussen poll and, to date, Ras has had Manchin with a steady lead of five or six points among likely voters. In fact, just nine short days ago, his lead was seven points. Now this. Wave-tastic. Exit question: Which Democratic candidates in other states are going to suffer as the DSCC abandons them in order to pour money into Connecticut and West Virginia? Bye bye, Kendrick Meek!