Early voting started yesterday in Texas for both party primaries, and one of the surprising things this year (at least for me) was the fact that Republican Senator John Cornyn has a teabagger opponent in the GOP primary. I know the teabaggers have been threatening Republican elected officials with primary challenges to make sure they continue to vote for far-right policies -- but there is no senator in the U.S. Senate with a more right-wing voting record than John Cornyn. It just goes to show that a politician can't be right-wing enough to please Texas teabaggers.But does Steve Stockman (the teabagger candidate) really stand a chance of unseating Senator Cornyn? When Stockman entered the race, most political pundits gave him no chance at all. Now there is a poll on the race that shows Cornyn with a solid 15 point lead in the race. The poll is the Human Events / Gravis Marketing Poll (taken of 729 likely Republican primary voters between February 10th and 12th, with a margin of error of 3.6 points).
What I found most interesting about this poll was the way in which Gravis Marketing introduced its results. The memo discussing those results is titled "Stockman Gaining Against Cornyn In Texas Primary Battle", and Douglas Kaplan of Gravis Marketing said:
"Congressman Stockman is much closer than expected. Cornyn is under 50% with a significant amount still undecided, which is dangerous territory for an incumbent."
Really? That headline and statement makes it sound like the GOP senate nomination is close, and could be won by either candidate. I'm not buying it. If I was a candidate, I would be devastated to be 15 points behind my opponent only a week before voting started -- and that is the position that Stockman finds himself in. This smells more to me like a Stockman supporter trying to put the best spin possible on a bad poll -- and that is probably exactly what this is, since Human Events has long been a far-right-wing fringe publication.
The poll also gauged the approval/disapproval of both candidates, which showed Cornyn's approval numbers much higher and Stockman still virtually unknown to most voters (with 55% saying they didn't know enough about him to approve or disapprove). That's not good for Stockman on the eve of the primary.
The teabaggers may be hoping their candidate can win, but personally, I think it would take a miracle for that to happen. Cornyn is going to win this race going away.
