Karl-T reports on a poll commissioned by John Courage.
In a poll conducted by Lake Research Partners of 500 likely general election voters June 18-21, 2006, only 31% said that they would vote to re-elect Lamar Smith.(MoE +-4.4%)
This is an anemic number for a (20-year!) incumbent, as that number should on average be closer to 45-55%. The voters want change, and we’ve got a man of the people that is a teacher and a veteran who wants to be their representative.
I don’t doubt the statement about how anemic his re-elect number is, but let’s bear in mind that Smith is only a one-term incumbent for much of CD21, and the last time around he ran against a nutball perennial candidate, meaning he probably didn’t do a whole lot of campaigning. Going by the Redistricting Reports page, the population of Bexar and Travis Counties in CD21 in 2002 was about 356,000. In 2004, those two counties had 538,000 people in the district. That’s a lot of map-induced change. Smith’s tenure in government may be long, but to a lot of people in CD21, he’s a newbie.
Smith is below average in personal approval ratings as well, while President Bush clocked in at 44 approve/55 disapprove, and Congress itself was at a remarkable 21/78. As with Shane Sklar, the opportunity is there if Courage can get a message out. If you haven’t voted for Courage yet as part of the Straight Ticket Texan slate of Mapchangers, now would be a good time.
Thanks for the note Kuff, good points all. It’s also due to that that Smith is only at 69% name ID in the 21st. I’d rather be working against a guy who’s unpopular with the fewer people who know him than one that is popular with everyone already. So that’s a helpful thing to work on as well. Of course, it could all get f***ed by the Supremes so I guess everyone in Texas just waits and sees.