Another Poll Shows Liz Cheney Way Behind Mike Enzi

Wyoming Welome Sign

A new poll from Public Policy Polling shows Liz Cheney facing a big uphill fight in her bid to unseat Senator Mike Enzi:

PPP’s new Wyoming poll finds that most voters in the state see Liz Cheney as an outsider…and as a result she starts out at a significant deficit in a primary contest with Mike Enzi.

Overall only 31% of Wyoming voters consider Cheney to be a ‘Wyomingite’ to 50% who do not. By a 50/28 margin they think it would be more appropriate for Cheney to run for the Senate from Virginia than Wyoming. Even Republican primary voters share, by a 45/33 spread, the sentiment that Cheney should be running in Virginia instead of Wyoming.

Cheney starts out at a 54/26 disadvantage in her primary challenge to Enzi. She only has a narrowly positive favorability rating with GOP primary voters at 40/34, while Enzi is quite popular with a 66/24 approval rating. The two actually are pretty close among voters describing themselves as ‘very conservative,’ with Enzi leading just 43/37. But his 68/14 advantage with moderate Republicans and 52/26 edge with ‘somewhat conservative’ ones make it uncompetitive overall.

Former Democratic Governor Dave Freudenthal continues to be a very popular figure in Wyoming, with a net +33 favorability rating at 55/22. So it says something about the difficulty Democrats face in national elections in the state that despite that popularity he still trails Enzi by 23 points in a hypothetical match up, 54/31. Enzi has a 47 point lead over Gary Trauner, who ran competitive campaigns for the House in 2006 and 2008, at 66/19.

The only scenario in which Democrats could be competitive for this seat- and it’s very far fetched- is one in which Freudenthal decided to run and then Cheney somehow defeated Enzi in the primary. Freudenthal would actually lead Cheney 45/42 in a hypothetical match, likely due to her under water 33/43 favorability rating with the overall electorate. Cheney would still lead Trauner 49/31.

Even if by some chance Enzi decided to retire, Cheney would be far from the favorite in an open seat Senate contest. Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis, who has a 55/25 approval rating with Republican primary voters, would start out leading her 41/34.

As I noted when the first poll of this race came out last week, it’s still very early in this process. It is possible that Cheney’s attacks on Enzi’s incumbency will start resonating with voters, or that Enzi will make some kind of mistake that will hurt his campaign. Barring any of that, though, this doesn’t look good for Cheney at al.

FILED UNDER: 2014 Election, US Politics, , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. gVOR08 says:

    As Doug says, it’s very early. And misquoting John Paul Jones, Cheney has not yet begun to spend.

  2. Caj says:

    She is probably so far behind because she’s in that undisclosed location when her old man used to hang out! Especially when it came to fighting for his country! That brave patriot had better things to do like send other people’s kids to wars that he just loved getting us into!!

  3. PJ says:

    Question is, on what issues would she be worse than Enzi?
    Obviously wouldn’t want to see the spawn of Cheney in Congress, but some seem to believe that she would be better choice than Enzi when it comes to social issues.

  4. Andre Kenji says:

    Question is, on what issues would she be worse than Enzi?

    Torture and war.

  5. C. Clavin says:

    Do you think she has sex with her old man? Or is his heart too weak?

  6. Moosebreath says:

    “By a 50/28 margin they think it would be more appropriate for Cheney to run for the Senate from Virginia than Wyoming.”

    As I said before, the winner of this race will be the popcorn makers.