Cardin Leads Steele by 11

The Baltimore Sun has let the other shoe drop from its poll of Marylanders and the news is that Ben Cardin leads Michael Steele by 11 percent. Once again, the Sun is trying to minimize the good news. The story almost desperately tries to create the drama of a close race by declaring the race "volatile" and Cardin's lead not "insurmountable." However, since the last Sun poll also showed Cardin with a lead of 11 points, the results from the series of Sun polls are the very definition of stable and not volatile.

There are two real stories in this polls. The first is that Steele's recent barrage of very clever, insouciant advertisements has failed to shake up Cardin's support. The second is that Steele is receiving unusually high levels of black support. According to the Sun poll, about one-quarter of African Americans intend to vote Republican. Normally, that result would be enough to tank a Democratic candidacy but Cardin is making it up among whites; Cardin leads Steele by 66-24 among whites.

The race could likely change in two ways. First, Cardin could more successfully link Steele with Bush so that Steele's share of the black vote declines. Cardin's overall lead would naturally increase as a result. While Steele is receiving abnormally high levels of black support for a Republican, only so many African Americans will shift their support away from the Democrats based on Steele's race. I think it unlikely that Steele will get much more black support than he does now unless something truly dramatic occurs.

Second, Steele could convince more whites who normally vote Republican to come home which could make the race tighten. However, that is going to be tough to accomplish as long as he keeps playing down his conservative credentials and Republican affiliation in order to attract African-American Democrats and independents. Indeed, Steele even has signs up claiming he is a Democrat. I suspect Cardin's bland personality and history of representing whites who live in swing regions of the state may help him hold on to these Republican-leaning white voters. To the extent that white support for Cardin is racially based, it will be even harder for Steele to win them back.

Steele may try to run a dual campaign where he has it one way among blacks and one way among whites but that may be difficult to accomplish in such a high-profile contest. Unfortunately for Steele, any moves he makes to attract one constituency are likely to lose him votes among another.