Embattled Sen. Mark Udall’s team must be freaking out right about now. In a campaign that has leaned heavily on “war on women” messaging, it turns out that this cycle, that message is totally ineffective, according to a new Suffolk University/USA Today poll just released today. Here’s the gist of the results:
“Among the small group of voters who already have cast their ballots, Gardner leads 50%-42%. While partisans have fallen in line — Udall is backed by 81% of Democrats and Gardner by 84% of Republicans — Gardner has pulled ahead among independents, 44%-31%. And he has erased the gender gap from September’s survey; women are now as likely to support him as men are.”
This is huge. The swing on this poll over the last month in favor of Gardner is a whopping seven points. Gardner’s eight-point lead also is well outside the margin of error.
As we pointed out earlier, the more Udall goes negative, the higher his own negatives go. Udall’s unfavorables are sky high at 54.2% whereas Gardner’s are at just 41.4%, which is particularly interesting when you consider that 46% of voters feel Udall is running a more negative campaign compared to 29% who think Gardner is. We guess it turns out that being a Human Sunbeam pans out because Udall’s negatives have gone up 10 points in the last month, while his favorables have gone down two points – that’s a 12-point erosion in support over the past month.
The poll surveyed 500 likely voters (including 16% who had already voted) on October 18 through 21.