Here comes the real campaign

We're headed into October now which means we're into the final phase of the 2014 election cycle.  And so a new PPP poll is out.  In the headliner race, Bill Cassidy holds a slight lead over Mary Landrieu in a hypothetical runoff. But he still isn't polling over 50% there. 

Then PPP focuses on likely voters:

There has been a lot of speculation about how turnout might influence the dynamics in a December runoff election, and on that front we find something that is at least a little disturbing for Democrats. 89% of likely voters for November also say that they will definitely vote in a runoff election if there is one. Among those voters Cassidy's lead expands to 50/45. Among the 11% of voters who say just they will probably vote, that the chances are 50/50, or that they will probably not vote Landrieu leads by 13 points at 40/27. Making sure those folks actually come back out in December will be key to her chances.

So that's discouraging for Mary.  Although I should also highlight this Wa-Po article from last week about the reliability of "likely voter" surveys before the final week of a campaign.

“Registered voter” polls can mislead as predictors of Election Day outcomes since even among the registered, prospective Democrats vote less often than Republicans. The differential in turnout between registered Democrats and registered Republicans is not necessarily a constant, however; the partisan disparity can vary with the two partisan groups’ relative enthusiasm and interest in the current election. Likely voter polls are designed to adjust for this enthusiasm differential.

But when applied early in the campaign, likely voter polls can exaggerate how much difference it makes for an election weeks ahead. Moreover, early likely voter polls are more erratic because counting fewer respondents leads to more sampling error. And when the relative enthusiasm of prospective Democratic and Republican voters oscillate over time, early likely voter polls make it seem like underlying voter preferences change more than they really do. (Also see this recent blog post.)

In any event, Mary will run first in the primary.  Rob Maness, despite this winning alligator and Palin photo-op is still a non-factor. 

Other fun items from the poll:  Nobody cares about Landrieu's "keg stand" thing,  David Vitter leads Mitch Landrieu head-to-head for Governor, oh and Everybody Hates Bobby.

Bobby Jindal remains one of the most unpopular Governors in the country- only 34% of voters approve of the job he's doing to 55% who disapprove. Just 20% of voters in the state think he should run for President in 2016, to 68% who think he should sit it out. Even among Republicans only 29% think Jindal should seek the White House. Jindal trails Hillary Clinton 46/45 in a hypothetical match up for President in the state and Jindal would even hurt the Republican ticket in Louisiana if he was the Vice Presidential candidate- 28% say that would make them more likely to support the GOP candidate to 42% who say it would make them less likely to. Topping it all off, Louisianans say by a 47/43 spread that they'd rather have Edwin Edwards as their Governor than Jindal.

 Anyway, there's much more. Check it out.