Cost of Scandal

Is Foleygate affecting the campaign? You bet it is.

Fox News reports that "House Republican candidates will suffer massive losses if House Speaker Dennis Hastert remains speaker until Election Day, according to internal polling data from a prominent GOP pollster."

Tom Reynolds (R-NY), chair of the National Republican Campaign Committee, is now behind his Democratic challenger, Jack Davis, according to a Survey USA poll. As recently as September 29th, Reynolds was ahead. A few interesting things here: The district has 18 percent more Republicans than Democrats. The undecideds in the new poll are no larger than the difference between the candidates. Finally, the Green Party candidate, who had 8 percent in the September poll, was thrown off the ballot in the interim.

Two-thirds of Americans who are aware of the scandal (i.e., everyone who is not a hermit) believe that Republicans tried to cover it up.

As if that weren't bad enough, a new Battleground USA report from George Washington University--research for which was conducted from September 24-27th (Foley resigned on the 29th)--shows that 49 percent of respondents would vote for the Democrat if the election were today (or, rather, the day they were polled), versus 41 percent for the Republican candidate, with only 10 percent undecided. Those polled felt that things in the nation are going in the wrong direction by a margin of 62 to 31 percent. Only 24 percent of respondents were optimistic or satisfied about the nation's direction. Forty-six percent of respondents said that Democrats in Congress would be better at solving the nation's problems, as against 38 percent who said Republicans--what's significant here is that the margin has hardly changed since February, reflecting deep and lasting doubt about the GOP. And remember, that was before the latest scandal.