Democrats Lisa Blunt Rochester and Bryan Townsend have opened up a slender lead in their party's primary for Congress, according to a poll released Tuesday that found more than half of voters have yet to decide who to support.
The landline and cell phone poll was commissioned by The News Journal and publicmind, a professional polling and research service affiliated with fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. The poll, conducted July 20-24, surveyed 715 Republican- and Democrat-leaning residents across the state who identified themselves as registered voters.
The Democratic primary for Congress has multiple candidates within the margin of error, which was 5.3 percent for the sample of 344 Democrats polled. Rochester, a former state labor secretary, and Townsend, a state senator representing the Newark area, both received support of 11 percent of those polled.
Nine percent of voters said they plan to support Mike Miller, followed by 6 percent for businessman Scott Walker and 4 percent for U.S. Marine Corps veteran Sean Barney. Democrat Elias Weir, who registered his campaign right at the deadline, did not reach 1 percent in the poll. Given that Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-to-1 in Delaware, the winner of the Democratic primary will be the favorite in November's general election.
Krista Jenkins, director of publicmind, said a high number of uncertain voters coupled with the significant percentage of Delawareans not yet paying attention to the race will give each of the candidates a chance to distinguish themselves in the final weeks before the primary.
"It suggests to me that it remains very much an open race," Jenkins said. "It is very much a name recognition game."
The poll found 66 percent of Republicans and Democrats are paying little or no attention to the race. More than 50 percent of self-identified Republicans and Democrats polled said they don't know who they will be voting for in their respective Sept. 13 primary.
Jenkins said the number of Delawareans disinterested or undecided in such a high-profile seat is unusual.
"It suggests to me that the focus is so much on the presidential race at this point, it is taking all the oxygen out for these races that are further down the ballot," Jenkins said.
rhet ruggerio, a Delaware lobbyist who ran mayoral campaigns for former Mayor James Baker, said the low interest and high number of undecideds goes along with have little name recognition among the candidates in the race.
"In this case name recognition is low for all the candidates," Ruggerio said. "It is still a situation where people are not paying much attention to this thing. There will be interest. It is just a matter of when."
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