Republican Pat Roberts, a senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, faces an uphill struggle to win his fourth Senate term from Kansas, say two polls over the weekend. One has the race tied and the other has independent Greg Orman ahead by 10 points. Roberts’ aides attack Orman as an unsavory wealthy businessman.
“Going after a candidate’s business record is an unusual turn for Republicans, considering they’re typically the ones fending off rich-guy attacks. But it’s the hand they’ve been dealt and they are playing it,” says Politico. “Orman’s emergence also puts Democrats in the peculiar position of at least tacitly backing the candidate of the 1 percent. Not that there’s another alternative.”
Orman led Roberts by 10 points, 48-38, with 9 percent undecided in an NBC News/Marist poll. NBC quoted Marist pollster Lee Miringoff with this assessment of Roberts: “He’s in a great deal of trouble out there. He’s got high negatives, his intensity of support is low, he’s losing independents by more than two to one. His to-do list is rather large in the remaining time before Election Day.” Roberts and Orman are tied at 40 with 17 percent undecided, according to a poll by CBS, New York Times and YouGov.
Said FiveThirtyEight, “YouGov’s poll is the first to show anything other than a lead for Orman since the Democrat, Chad Taylor, dropped out of the race in early September. Still, it was counterbalanced by Orman’s strong result in the Marist poll.”
Pollster’s tracking model puts the race at Orman 43, Roberts 39. It says Roberts’ support was in the low 40s in early July while Orman, then at 11 percent, surged into contention.
NBC said Joni Ernst had a 2-point lead in its poll of Iowa voters, within the margin of error of +/-3.5 points, so it called the race a dead heat with Democrat Bruce Braley.