Mixed News from the Ocean State

With the Rhode Island primaries only six days away, it's no secret that the fate of Lincoln Chafee's Senate seat hangs in the balance. Should Chafee win, the GOP has a shot at holding this seat in the general; should challenger Stephen Laffey win, Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse wins in a landslide. It's sort of like a Lamont-Lieberman thing, but Laffey's running more as the anti-incumbent than the true conservative. What is rather like Lamont-Lieberman, however, is the confusion generated by the poll numbers. These two are best summed up by a post on WSJ's Washington Wire blog: two polls, conducted over roughly the same period, and with roughly the same sample size of likely Republican voters. One, from Rhode Island College (and possibly associated with the Laffey campaign, though I'm not certain on this point), shows the challenger up 51%-34%. The other, from Publican Opinion Surveys (but conducted on behalf of the NRSC), shows Chafee up 53%-39%. While at first glance the two effectively negate eachother, the POS numbers look significantly better when you realize that "Of the 53% of respondents who could actually name the primary election date, 58% support Mr. Chafee compared to 37% who back Mr. Laffey" (that from Washington Wire). Not only is that a good thing in and of itself for the Chafee campaign, I have to assume he'll also have the better GOTV operation. So while I'm not in any way calling this one right now, I feel like Chafee's not hurting as much as some might have you think, and I also think that RIC poll has got it wrong.