Cornyn opponent buoyed by poll

Houston Chronicle:

A new poll conducted for the campaign of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Rick Noriega indicates incumbent Republican John Cornyn's re-election is neither guaranteed nor can it be helped by President Bush.

Cornyn's campaign declined to respond to the poll.

But Republican Party of Texas spokesman Hans Klingler said what the survey does not capture is the opinion of Texans when they compare Cornyn's conservative record to "liberal" votes Noriega has cast as a state legislator from Houston.

"Once his (Noriega's) message gets out statewide, it's good for Cornyn," Klingler said.

The survey by Lake Research of 500 Texans likely to vote in next year's general election found 41 percent disapproved of the job Cornyn has done in the Senate, while 36 percent rate Cornyn as excellent or good.

But only 31 percent of those surveyed said they definitely would vote for Cornyn's re-election. More than half, 53 percent, said they would consider someone else for the Senate. The margin of error for the poll, conducted Nov. 13-18, was 4.4 percentage points.

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This is almost a generic Democrat poll which always skews toward Democrats. Once Noriega is defined by his positions he will be lucky to get 40 percent of the vote. The poll also contained right track wrong track polling which can be highly misleading. For example, many Republicans think Democrat in Congress are on the wrong track at the same time that Democrats who want to lose the war in Iraq think we are on the wrong track because we are winning. That can lead to a high wrong track number, which should have nothing to do with attitudes toward Sen. Cornyn.