Pat Roberts (on right)
PPP's new poll of the Sunflower State, their first since Democrat Chad Taylor announced he was dropping his bid for Senate, confirms that Kansas—
Kansas!—has cemented its position as the most exciting state of the 2014 election cycle. Taylor's status remains uncertain, though: The state Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday morning as to whether Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach should remove his name from the ballot (Kobach's refused to), and election law expert Rick Hasen thinks that Taylor's
likely to prevail.
Fortunately, while we wait for the court to rule, PPP checked in on both possible scenarios—i.e., with Taylor on the ballot and with Taylor off—but in both cases, the news is equally dire for Republican Sen. Pat Roberts. In a three-way race, which is what we still have for the moment, independent businessman Greg Orman holds a 7-point lead:
Greg Orman (I): 41
Pat Roberts (R): 34
Chad Taylor (D): 6
Randall Batson (Lib): 4
Undecided: 15
Unlike SurveyUSA, which recently found Taylor
at 10 percent despite informing respondents that he'd quit, PPP didn't prime the folks they interviewed. Instead, they asked Taylor supporters
after the horserace question above whether they knew he'd dropped out, and 36 percent said they were, in fact, not aware.
That's good news for Orman, because this group of inattentive voters is heavily Democratic (42 percent, versus just 12 percent Republican). That means they're more likely to come over to his side once they learn Taylor's not running, even if his name does formally remain on the ballot. (Of course, it'll be a struggle to get folks who haven't paid attention to the single biggest political story in Kansas in the past month out to the polls, but that's a separate problem.)
And in the event that the Supreme Court does side with Taylor, PPP's numbers show that such a development would indeed redound to Orman's advantage. In a direct head-to-head matchup without Taylor or Batson, the Libertarian, Orman holds a huge 46-36 lead on Roberts, whose job approval rating remains mired at a miserable 29-46, unchanged from his 27-44 score in August. Orman, meanwhile, has seen his standing surge with voters, despite Republican attacks that he's a stealth Democrat who's Harry Reid's willing puppet: His favorability rating has jumped to 39-19, up from 24-12 a month ago.
That won't last, because the GOP has yet to train its biggest guns on Orman, and they most certainly will. But Roberts, despite a peppy debate performance 10 days ago, still hasn't managed to stanch the bleeding. It's hard to get over what's happening in Kansas, which last sent a Democrat to the Senate in 1932, but yeah, it's happening.