Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm whose track record in recent special elections has been pretty good, has some very alarmed things to say in his Twitter account on Democrat David Weprin’s prospects in next Tuesday’s special election in the New York 9th congressional district. “My pretty straight forward take on the first night of our NY-9 poll: Dems in BIG trouble. Deserves the caps.” Sounds like the result is even more dire than the Magellan poll showing Republican Bob Turner leading Weprin 45%-40% and the Siena Research Institute poll showing Turner up 50%-44%. The Democrats’ House campaign committee is buying $500,000 in TV ads for Weprin over the next several days, but presumably the district’s large number of Orthodox Jews won’t be watching tonight or all day tomorrow. By the way, for those Democrats who want to explain a possible loss as due only to Weprin’s weak performance as a candidate (he thought the national debt was $4 trillion, not $14 trillion), Democratic pollster Jensen tweets, “Also Weprin may not be good candidate but if he loses it has a lot more to do with Obama’s unpopularity in the district than his flaws.” Jensen also points out that Obama had 51% national approval when Democrats won the special election in the Upstate New York 26th congressional district in May (Osama bin Laden was killed May 1) and that he has 42% national approval today.
