BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain has a double-digit lead over Democratic opponent Barack Obama in Louisiana, according to a new independent poll.
But support for McCain doesn’t necessarily translate into backing for GOP state Treasurer John Kennedy’s campaign against Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, according to the results of the survey released Monday by Southeastern Louisiana University.
“While John McCain appears to have a comfortable lead over Barack Obama in the 2008 race for Louisiana’s Electoral College votes, his electoral coattails do not help fellow Republican John Kennedy in his attempt to unseat” Landrieu, said Kurt Corbello, an SLU political scientist who spearheaded the survey with the Southeastern Social Science Research Center.
McCain had nearly 51 percent support, compared to 38 percent for Obama in the poll.
Meanwhile, more than 53 percent of voters favored a third term for Landrieu, compared to 34 percent backing Kennedy, according to the survey. Nearly 12 percent either refused to say who they supported in the Senate race or were undecided.
The poll of 503 registered voters was conducted from Oct. 20-23. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.46 percentage points.
Corbello cautioned that the results are a measurement of attitudes “two weeks away from Election Day, a time in which many things can happen to alter the patterns that we see.”
Kennedy campaign spokesman Lenny Alcivar disputed the poll’s findings, saying sarcastically that those who did the poll must be “smoking crack … Nobody believes this poll.” Alcivar said Kennedy’s internal polling last week showed Landrieu holding onto a 47 percent to 42 percent lead over Kennedy.
“The poll is certainly encouraging and shows that Sen. Landrieu’s message of fighting and delivering for Louisiana is resonating with voters, but it is still just a poll,” said Landrieu campaign spokesman Scott Schneider. “The only poll that matters will be on Nov. 4.”
——Contact The Daily Reveille news staff at [email protected]