I'm surprised to see that McMahon is actually doing better than the two Republican candidates that actually are fit for office.
McMahon isn't doing better than Shays. There's a typo in the original post. Murphy leads Shays 43%-39%, not 49%-39%.
PPP also polled hypothetical Bysiewicz and Tong races. Both would be a disaster for Democrats. Bysiewicz loses to Shays and Simmons and only beats McMahon by 1 point. Tong gets beaten by all 3 - though an obvious lack of name recognition explains a lot for him. Voters just don't like Bysiewicz - she is fairly well known and her favorables are more under water than McMahon.
