Don’t look now but Liddy Dole is leaking votes to Chris Cole, the Libertarian Party nominee from Huntersville. That’s the conclusion of SurveyUSA poll conducted last week for WTVD.
The poll had a margin of error of 4% and found Dole leading Democrat Kay Hagan 46-41 with Cole at 7%. But voters are not smitten with their duopoly party choices. The SurveyUSA analysis:
Libertarian Christopher Cole gets 7% today, which, when combined with another 5% of voters who are undecided, makes the Senate race today fascinating to watch and difficult to handicap. Compared to a SurveyUSA poll released four weeks ago, on 07/15/08, which did not include Cole by name, Hagan is flat, Dole is down. Cole gets 11% of male votes today, siphoning key votes Dole needs to win. Cole gets 12% of young votes today, siphoning key votes Hagan needs to win. Cole gets 9% of the white vote today, cutting Dole’s lead from 30+ points to 20 points. Though Dole holds 82% of the GOP base today, that’s down from 90% in July. 1 in 5 NC Independents today vote for Cole, which takes key votes away from both candidates.
To me the indy vote is an even bigger indictment of Hagan’s campaign which has lurched around trying to pin a target on Dole rather than go flat out and sell Hagan. Then again, there is not much to sell in a machine Demo candidate from a corrupt state party. If Cole had any money at all, he could hit 10% against this crew.
