Only days after formally entering the race for Washington state governor, Attorney General Rob McKenna appears to be riding high on on issue some worried thought might bristle the sentiments of Washington’s blue state voters. New polling suggests that his involvement in efforts to deconstruct portions of Obamacare will not diminish support for his candidacy.
A SurveyUSA/KING-TV poll conducted Tuesday—one day prior to McKenna’s official announcement—asked 502 registered voters in Washington if the attorney general’s participation in the multi-state lawsuit challenging the individual coverage mandate in the federal healthcare law would affect their willingness to support his candidacy to succeed Gov. Christine Gregoire. Of the responses, 22% reported no change in their support for McKenna and 36% said his participation in the suit made them more likely to support him for governor. Forty percent said they were less likely to support McKenna.
Even among Democrats polled, 18% counted themselves with the ‘more likely to support’ camp, a figure that correlates roughly with McKenna’s crossover appeal. If the 2008 McKenna Democrats overlap significantly with this group, this poll is a green light for McKenna to continue talking about healthcare as it relates to the state’s long-term fiscal woes.
SurveyUSA reports a margin of error of +- 4.5% for the poll.
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[photo credit: flickr]
The PI reports on a different poll that, of course, shows the lawsuit could hurt McKenna.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2011/06/09/poll-mckennas-obamacare-lawsuit-could-hurt-him-in-gov-s-race/
Interesting enough, Seattlepi.com was actually reporting the same poll, just spinning the results to highlight the 40 percent who reported they were less likely to support McKenna because of his involvement in the lawsuit. I tend to stick with my own analysis, that the larger portion of respondents — those who either are rallying to McKenna because of the suit, or those for whom the suit doesn’t affect their opinion — is more important when it comes to predicting the motivations of a majority of voters.