More News

Mfume leads Cardin, Steele in Senate race, a new poll shows

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

Former congressman Kweisi Mfume has pulled ahead of U.S. Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin in the race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, according to a new Washington Post poll.

The poll shows Baltimore resident Mfume leading Cardin (D-Dist. 3) of Baltimore among registered voters, 31 percent to 25 percent, with 32 percent undecided. The Post poll — taken June 19 to 25 — surveyed 902 registered voters and has a sampling error of 3 percentage points.

The Democratic primary is Sept. 12.

‘‘While we are encouraged by the numbers, we are in no way being overly enthusiastic about it,” said Mark Clack, communications director for the Mfume campaign. ‘‘What the poll shows is that as we move throughout the state, people are responding positively to Mr. Mfume’s message.”

Matthew Crenson, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University, said the Cardin campaign should be worried. Cardin, a party favorite and 10-term member of Congress, has wide leads over Mfume in fund-raising and endorsements, but the poll shows that people have not yet embraced his campaign.

Cardin ‘‘is definitely not where he wants to be right now and he is not where everyone expected him to be,” Crenson said.

Democratic primary voters are attracted to Mfume, he said, because his message against the war in Iraq and other Bush administration policy is stronger than Cardin’s.

‘‘Voters want someone in the Senate who will express their dissatisfaction dramatically and forcefully,” Crenson said. ‘‘Voters are angrier than Cardin appears to be.”

The poll showed that ethnicity plays a role in the Senate race. Mfume, who is black, gets 72 percent support from black voters while Cardin, who is white, gets 82 percent of his backing from white voters, according to the poll.

Both Mfume and Cardin would beat Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele (R) in November’s general election, according to the poll. Among registered voters, Cardin leads Steele, an African American, by 10 points while Mfume leads him by three points. Mfume and Steele are tied among likely voters.

The Cardin campaign is continuing to seize on its general election appeal as the reason why Democrats should vote for Cardin in the primary. Cardin’s camp has said he is the only Democratic candidate who can match Steele in fund-raising and ground troops.

Ken Morley, Cardin’s campaign manager, pounded home that theme in an e-mail to supporters on Sunday.

‘‘Ben Cardin is not only the most experienced candidate to serve Maryland in the Senate, but he’s also the only Democrat who we can count on to defeat Michael Steele this November,” Morley wrote.

The poll showed that support for other Democrats running for Senate — American University professor Allan J. Lichtman of Bethesda, businessman Joshua B. Rales of Potomac and lobbyist Dennis F. Rasmussen — is in single digits.