LINCOLN LEADS HALTER, BUT CHALLENGER GAINING

A new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll offers the first public glimpse of the Democratic Senate primary match-up between incumbent Blanche Lincoln and challenger Bill Halter.

In a head-to-head pairing, Lincoln leads Halter 44-31% with 25% of the primary electorate undecided. The 13-point lead leaves Lincoln below the 50% threshold that is traditionally considered safe territory for an incumbent.

The 25% undecided vote is also an interesting statement. That’s a lot of room for growth for either candidate, but Lincoln is the Democrat with near universal name ID.

Voters with “no opinion” of her sits at 6%. The poll shows that 25% of voters have “no opinion” of Halter. This is an advantage for Halter to define himself to those persuadable voters. Lincoln’s mission – or that of an outside interest group - will be to persuade voters in this category towards an unfavorable view of Halter.

The poll also shows head-to-head match-ups between Democrats and Republicans. In short, Lincoln would lose to several presumed GOP challengers (although non-candidate Tom Cox is included in the match-up for some strange reason). Halter fares better than Lincoln against everyone but John Boozman.

You can access the poll’s results here.

The Research 2000 Arkansas Poll was conducted from March 22 through March 24, 2010. A total of 600 likely voters who vote regularly in state elections were interviewed statewide by telephone. It has a margin of error of +/- 4%.