The left-wing website Fire Dog Lake has commissioned two polls on incumbent Democratic House members from SurveyUSA. One showed seven-term incumbent Vic Snyder trailing Republican Tim Griffin 56%-39% in Arkansas-2, and Snyder promptly announced his retirement. Now we have another SurveyUSA poll showing Ohio-1 freshman Democrat Steve Driehaus trailing Republican former Congressman Steve Chabot also by 56%-39%.
District voters disapprove of Barack Obama’s job performance by a 55%-42% margin—a pretty negative verdict. Fire Dog Lake seems to be wary of the House and Senate bills’ requirements that individuals purchase health insurance, and the question on that issue in this poll reflects this: 28% favored a health care bill with such a requirement, 28% a bill without such a requirement and 40% opposed any health care bill. Fire Dog Lake makes much of the fact that only 40% are totally opposed, but when respondents are given three possible choices they tend to respond somewhat differently than when they get two choices. The results are interesting but not utterly dispositive.
