AR-01/Talk Business & Hendrix College: Crawford (R) to pick up seat for the GOP

[Tender Branson]

48% Rick Crawford (R)
32% Chad Causey (D)
  4% Ken Adler (G)
16% Undecided

(For Undecided Voters only) Now please tell us which candidate you are leaning towards. The candidates are Republican Rick Crawford, Democrat Chad Causey and Green Party candidate Ken Adler. Please tell us which candidate you are leaning towards:

30% Rick Crawford (R)
23% Chad Causey (D)
  8% Ken Adler (G)
39% Undecided

630 Likely Voters, MoE=4%, August 17

...

Not since Reconstruction has a Republican been elected to Congress from the 1st District, a traditionally Democratic region covering 26 counties in eastern Arkansas.

Because of the unprecedented nature of the results, Talk Business and Hendrix conducted a second, smaller poll on Thursday and got the same results.

That poll was of 481 likely Arkansas voters.

...

http://arkansasnews.com/2010/08/23/poll-crawford-leads-causey-by-16-points/

[Tender Branson]

If we factor in the leaners its:

53% Rick Crawford (R)
36% Chad Causey (D)
  5% Ken Adler (G)
  6% Undecided

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Impressive. I didn't think the Democrats could fail this badly in Arkansas, but I guess renominating Blanche Lincoln is enough evidence. I hope they poll AR-04, I'd love to see how Mike Ross is doing against his joke of an opponent.

[DrScholl]

Crawford might win, but I don't see him winning by that much. We'll see what happens, but I wouldn't count Causey out just yet.

[Sam Spade]

Part of the problem is that Woolridge endorsed Crawford after the primary.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Part of the problem is that Woolridge endorsed Crawford after the primary.

He hasn't endorsed Crawford (yet), but two of his aides did (which isn't much different, I guess).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

All of your seats are marginals now

[Torie]

I am still somewhat confused as to why Dem support among Arkansas whites has collapsed so suddenly. I don't think switching out Clinton for Obama is a wholly sufficient explanation. I wonder if a bunch of yellow dogs have just died off over time, with no replacements. But then I was confused why the Dems held on so long to an usually high share of Arkansas whites, vis a vis their collapse elsewhere in the rebel states (outside of selected zones, where a bunch of folks with graduate degrees showed up, and "corrupted" the local populace, sometimes of course being Yankees).

In short, I just don't understand Arkansas. Who does around here?

[DrScholl]

I'm anxious to see how the numbers will break down after the election, it might give us some more insight.

While I would certainly not attribute Democrats loss of vote share in Arkansas to Clinton's loss in the primary, I'm inclined to think it was a big part of it. Obama got only 1% less of White Male voters than Kerry got in Arkansas, but he received a huge 10% less of White Female voters than Kerry did. In addition, John Kerry did remarkably well in AR-1, AR-2 and AR-4 for a northern, fairly liberal Senator, while Obama got steamrolled. The Clinton factor was not the only reason for Obama's poor performance, but it was the main one, IMO.

Arkansas Democrats have held on a long time because they are economically liberal and Arkansas is a farm subsidy state.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Well I wasn't expecting this.

[ajc0918]

Green Party is popular in Arkansas right, because the democrats are so conservative?

[Sam Spade]

Part of the problem is that Woolridge endorsed Crawford after the primary.

He hasn't endorsed Crawford (yet), but two of his aides did (which isn't much different, I guess).

Ya, my mistake.  Anyway, point being, there is far from any Democratic unity here.

[Sam Spade]

I am still somewhat confused as to why Dem support among Arkansas whites has collapsed so suddenly. I don't think switching out Clinton for Obama is a wholly sufficient explanation. I wonder if a bunch of yellow dogs have just died off over time, with no replacements. But then I was confused why the Dems held on so long to an usually high share of Arkansas whites, vis a vis their collapse elsewhere in the rebel states (outside of selected zones, where a bunch of folks with graduate degrees showed up, and "corrupted" the local populace, sometimes of course being Yankees).

In short, I just don't understand Arkansas. Who does around here?

Dems have been more successful in Arkansas for a long time than most of the rest of the South recently because of Republican institutional weakness in the last 20-25 years, if anything else.

In other news, Arkansas is still a Southern state.  Who would have thunk it?

However, if JJ's theory about the next realignment is to ever come to fruition, the most likely angle that such a scenario occurs in can be found within the tale of Arkansas.  I can't say that I didn't see such a scenario occurring two years ago and warned about it in my own cryptic and bombastic way because the way the economy was going to play out after 2008 made such a scenario ever so slightly possible, but the possibility of it coming to pass is presently appearing to be surprisingly strong in comparison the relative impossibility of long-term prediction.

[/cryptic prediction]