Poll: Lugar may be in jeopardy

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - The 2012 GOP primary between Sen. Richard Lugar and challenger Richard Mourdock is still more than six months away, but you can get a sense of what kind of battle it will be in this week's WISH-TV/Franklin College Poll.

Lugar has a big advantage in some areas. When it comes to name identification, more than nine out of 10 voters recognize him, while Richard Mourdock's name registers with only two-thirds of the voters.

Lugar also has a high favorability rating at 59 percent. Mourdock gets a positive response from just 17 percent.

Yet if you place Mourdock's name on the ballot next to his, Lugar fails to reach the 50 percent necessary to keep him in office. Lugar wins support from 49 percent of the Republicans surveyed. Mourdock is at 28 percent.

That 49 percent may be a sign of trouble for Lugar. (The poll has a sample of 228 likely Republican voters, with a margin of error of 6.2 percent.)

"I am delighted with those numbers," Mourdock said when he saw the poll.

Lugar campaign spokesman David Willkie had a different reaction.

"Certainly with all the negaitve ads that have come in from outside money, from outside the state, attacking Dick Lugar," he said, "that … certainly can have an effect."

The outside effect is coming mostly from Tea Party organizations, but they didn't fare all that well in the poll. Only 38 percent support the Tea Party; 46 percent opposed it.

It comes back to Lugar.

"He was mayor of this city," Mourdock said, referring to Lugar’s tenure in the late 1960s and early ’70s, "and he can't get above 50 percent with Republicans. That's huge news and shows he's going to have a very difficult time in the primary next May."

And if Lugar has trouble at home, you could assume he has trouble statewide.