According to a Public Policy Polling survey released Tuesday, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) holds a comfortable 10 point lead over U.S. Representative Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the primary challenger in her 2014 re-election race.
The poll finds Landrieu leading a hypothetical head-to-head matchup with Cassidy by 50 to 40 percent, with 10 percent undecided. Landrieu would also hold a 50 to 37 percent lead over Republican Rob Maness, and a 50 to 36 lead over Republican state senator Elbert Guillory.
The results stand in contrast to a Harper Polling survey released Monday, which found Cassidy leading Landrieu 47 to 45 percent, within that poll’s margin of error. Harper Polling is a Republican firm, while Public Policy Polling is Democratic.
The PPP poll finds that Landrieu is fairly popular in the Pelican State. Voters approve of her job performance by a 46 to 43 percent margin; while those numbers are underwhelming in a vacuum, they are solid for a Democrat in a state that Mitt Romney won by 17 points in the 2012 election. Landrieu benefits from solid support among the opposition party; she would win 23 percent of Republicans against Cassidy and Guillory, and 22 percent against Maness, accounting for her leads over all three candidates.
Louisiana uses a nonpartisan “jungle” primary, meaning that all candidates appear on the ballot together, regardless of party affiliation. If no candidate wins a simple majority of votes in the first round of balloting, the top two candidates advance to a runoff election. According to the PPP poll, Landrieu and Cassidy are almost certain to meet in a runoff; with all four candidates on the ballot, Landreiu leads with 47 percent, followed by Cassidy at 20 percent, Guillory at 6 percent, and Maness at 2 percent.
The full results of the PPP poll can be seen here.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons
