The Tea Party’s Pyrrhic Delaware Victory
The latest poll numbers for Christine O’Donnell are abysmal. And Delaware voters aren’t very enamored with the Tea Party movement in general, either.
A new FoxNews poll, conducted Sept. 18 and released Tuesday, shows Democratic Senate nominee Chris Coons leadng Republican Christine O’Donnell by 15 points, 54 percent to 39 percent. Sixty percent of those surveyed said O’Donnell is not qualified to be a U.S. senator, while 59 percent said Coons is qualified.
But the poll’s other questions also reveal an antipathy to the “tea party” among the state’s electorate.
More of the 1,000 likely voters surveyed — 46 percent — disapprove of the job President Barack Obama is doing than the 45 percent who approve. But that’s not translating into support for the tea party wing of the GOP: 40 percent of those surveyed strongly oppose the tea party, and just 21 percent strongly support it.
But here’s the part that’s really gotta hurt:
Likely voters would have backed Rep. Mike Castle, the moderate Republican who lost to O’Donnell, over Coons by a double-digit margin, 48 percent to 33 percent.