Two New Polls and Favorable/Unfavorable Numbers for Allen

Given the sparsity with which this race has been polled its amazing how many polls have come out lately. Two new ones were released this weekend, both more or less confirming Dailykos' Research 2000 one. The first is from Critical Insights who also polled the race in the spring, then showing a 57-32 Collins lead. The fall 2007 shows the race as

Maine
52% Susan Collins
33% Tom Allen

First Congressional District
49% Susan Collins
36% Tom Allen

Second Congressional District
56% Susan Collins
30% Tom Allen

Favorable

The most suprising thing about the numbers is not the margin; that has been fairly constant. The thing of interest is Tom Allen's numbers. His inability to get much above 36% in his own congressional district is not a good sign since he has nearly 100% name id there. He was elected on the same day in 1996 as Susan Collins, and it it must be disturbing to be trailing her by 13 points in his own district. It also indicates a degree of weakness on the part of Allen personally, indicating that he does have negatives. Again we lacked a question on views of Tom Allen. Luckily SurveyUSA did ask that question, and as a result we discover the amazing fact that Allen shockingly already has higher negatives statewide than Collins.

Maine
55% Susan Collins
38% Tom Allen

Fav/Unfav/Neutral/Unfamiliar
Susan Collins 48/25/25/2
Tom Allen 34/29/26/11

Southern Maine
54% Collins
41% Allen

Fav/Unfav/Neutral/Unfamiliar
Susan Collins 52/25/22/1
Tom Allen 42/30/22/5

Northern Maine
56% Collins
35% Allen

Fav/Unfav/Neutral/Unfamiliar
Susan Collins 43/25/28/4
Tom Allen 25/27/30/18


The most stunning thing in these numbers is again Allen's weakness in Southern Maine where there is only a negligible difference in name id between the candidates. As i mentioned when i looked at Cumberland county earlier, Allen needs to come out of here with 54% or 55% of the vote to have a shot. He is polling at 41%. And those numbers assume Collins is held below 55% in the second district, something that is also not happening. Is the race impossible for Allen? More problematic are his negatives, which are the only real part of his numbers that are seeing movement and now are almost even with his positives. This is a serious issue because in many cases this far out, those numbers are better indicator of performance than horse race ones. And they are indicating that Mainer's are not liking what they see of Allen politically.