SurveyUSA Pre-Debate Poll: Coons 54 O’Donnell 33

Doug Mataconis · · 1 comment

As Chris Coons and Christine O’Donnell prepare for their first debate tonight, yet another poll indicates that this race is a blowout.

Allahpundit notes:

Worth flagging if only because this is the last comparison point we’ll have before tonight’s debate blockbuster. I’m searching for the silver lining in the crosstabs, but … help me out. The pollster’s reputable, the sample is enormous and limited to likely voters, and it’s right in the same range of all the other numbers we’ve been seeing lately — except a bit worse. (This is the first poll, I think, to put the margin at +20.) It was also taken over the last few days, which means the effect of her “I’m not a witch” ad is probably priced in. And it’s consistent with another trend we’ve seen in the Delaware polling, namely, that it’s women voters, not men, who are responsible for the bulk of Coons’s lead. Among men, O’Donnell trails here 49/41; among women, it’s 58/25. There’s a number worth crunching for Nate Silver or Mark Blumenthal or some other statistician with time on his hands today. Is there any wider gender gap in any race this year than the Delaware Senate battle?

I doubt it.

These numbers are likely to change after tonight’s debate. The only question is whether they’ll get better for O’Donnell, even marginally, or worse.