| Nebraska Senate: Nelson Over 50% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Survey of 500 Likely Voters November 16, 2005
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November 23, 2005--Incumbent Democrat Ben Nelson currently tops the 50% against two leading challengers in his bid for re-election to the United States Senate. The latest Rasmussen Reports Election Poll finds Nelson leading political newcomer Pete Rickets by a 52% to 29% margin. Ricketts, the former CEO of Ameritrade, launched the first campaign ads of the season last week. He has the ability to contribute millions of dollars from is own pocket to fund the campaign if needed. Former GOP Party Chairman David Kramer trails Nelson 57% to 25%. The Republican Primary competition appears to be reducing support for the individual GOP candidates at this time. One-fourth of Ricketts supporters say they would vote for Nelson over Kramer. Fifteen percent (15%) of Kramer supporters currently prefer Nelson over Ricketts. Nebraska is among the most solid Republican states in the nation. President Bush carried the state by more than 30 points in Election 2004. Nelson won his seat with 51% of the vote six years ago in a campaign against Don Sternberg. Sternberg is running again this year but was not included in the Rasmussen Reports poll. During 2006, Rasmussen Reports will poll every Senate and Governor's race at least once a month. Competitive races will be measured more often. This will include weekly and daily updates in the fall of 2006 for key races. A summary of our latest Election Polls can be found on the Rasmussen Reports home page. [More Below] Senator Nelson faces a challenge that is different from most of his colleagues in the Democratic Party. He is running for re-election in a state where George W. Bush remains popular. The President has a 61% Job Approval Rating in Nebraska. If the election becomes a referendum on President Bush, that would benefit whichever candidate wins the Republican nomination. Republican Governor Dave Heineman is even more popular than the President with a 79% Job Approval rating. Nelson is viewed favorably by 70% of Nebraska voters and unfavorably by 22%. For Ricketts, the numbers are 39% favorable, 29% unfavorable and 32% with no opinion. Kramer is viewed favorably by 32%, unfavorably by 33%, and 35% have no opinion. Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information. Rasmussen Reports was the nation's most accurate polling firm during the Presidential election and the only one to project both Bush and Kerry's vote total within half a percentage point of the actual outcome. During Election 2004, RasmussenReports.com was also the top-ranked public opinion research site on the web. We had twice as many visitors as our nearest competitor and nearly as many as all competitors combined. Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, has been an independent pollster for more than a decade.
The telephone survey of 500 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports November 17, 2005. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 4.5 percentage points at the midpoint with a 95% level of confidence (see Methodology). |
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