Donna Edwards Up By 8

Here is the first poll of this race. Edwards is leading Wynn by 8.

The information comes to us from Matt Stoller at Open Left. Thanks Matt. This is an internal poll (means it is a candidate's own poll). The pollster is Donna's. You don't leak polls unless you are ahead.

Wynn needs to respond.
If the Wynn camp wants to discount this poll they will either discredit this pollster or need to release their own internal poll. This is a game of chicken.

Wynn has some of the worst reelect numbers I have ever seen.
As Matt points out Wynn had a very low reelect number (32%). An incumbent with a reelect number under 50% is not long for office. There has been a whisper campaign for the past few months -- that Wynn's reelect number against a generic Democrat was under 40%. Lake Research says it is 32%. That adds "ex-" to your title "Congressman" 9 times out of 10.

This explains Wynn's last two weeks of ads and robo calls. It would explain Wynn filing the FEC complaint against Edwards last week. It explains the negative ads.

This poll is already old.
The +/- is 5%, which is on the high side. The poll was conducted on Jan 29 and 30. But released Friday. Making the news -- while hot today -- potentially old. It was done pre-Super Tuesday, pre-FEC complaint, pre-negative TV ads. Still look at Edwards' gain from October to today. She gains 18 points and he loses 10 points. That is a major shift in voters.

Huge pack of undecideds remain.
Concerns are the same that Matt Stoller points out -- neither candidate is above 50%. There are 28% undecideds. Making the claim that candidates, Jason Jennings and George Mitchell, have made for months -- no one is thrilled with the two leading candidates. Which would explain why an internal poll such as this was not released prior to GOTV weekend. It would given a huge boost to the other candidates.

Prince George's County is a dead heat.
That's the WOW of this poll. If Wynn does not take PG by comfortable the new Congressman will be a Congresswoman. Even the most ardent Wynn supporter never expected him to carry MoCo, so winning PG is the key to a Wynn win.

Obama and Clinton are huge to this race.
This poll has 400 likely Democratic voters, which is the normal universe. The universe has changed. Most people figured our Presidential primary would be over on Super Tuesday.

Having a contested Presidential primary is the worst case scenario for Wynn. You have a slew of new voters that may not normally vote in this race showing up on election day. If they are Obama voters they are not his natural voters, even though he beat Edwards to the punch on endorsing the favorite son of PG, Obama.

I witnessed first hand on Monday at the NAACP Debate the impact of a contested Presidential primary. This was in the heart of PG. Wynn country. The overflow crowd was both pro-Obama and pro-Edwards. The Big Mo is on the side of the challenger.

So if you are Wynn you need to suppress voting (legally) and pray that Jack Johnson's machine deliver you a ton of votes.

Will WaPo release a poll as part of its Sunday's news?
I have wondered out loud where is the WaPo on this covering this race. No polls. My roommate got a call from a pollster on Tuesday. If the WaPo is polling for Obama and Clinton it should not be that hard to ask a few questions of those people who reside in CD4. It would be an easy two for one the nation's political newspaper. Sunday would be the perfect day to release.