Coats keeps solid lead in Senate race

By Jim Shella, Political Reporter

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Republican Dan Coats continues to hold a large lead over Democrat Brad Ellsworth in the race for U.S. Senate according to a new WISH-TV Indiana 2010 Election poll. When you look beyond the horse race in the battle to succeed Evan Bayh, you find that Brad Ellsworth's message isn't getting through to voters.

The latest results from the WISH-TV Indiana 2010 Election Poll show Dan Coats with an 18 point lead over Brad Ellsworth, 53 percent to 35 percent. Three weeks ago the margin was the same with Coats leading then by 51% to 33%.

"Obviously it was very nice to wake up to see those numbers," said Coats. He enjoys the fact that little changed at a time when Ellsworth targeted him with negative ads that ask, "Can we really trust a Washington lobbyist to be our Senator?" While those ads continue, the favorability rating for Coats has dropped by just 3 percent from 48 to 45. His negatives are up 5 points to 25 percent.

So, Coats keep trying to tie Ellsworth to the unpopular moves in Washington with ads that say think like, "Congressman Ellsworth joined Nancy Pelosi supporting the nearly trillion dollar stimulus bill." While the Ellsworth favorability rating went up 5 percentage points from 23 to 28, his negatives went up more, from 20 to 27. And Ellsworth name ID is still just 75 percent.

Coats says it's all about the anti-Washington sentiment that is hurting Democrats around the country. "The direction that this administration is taking us, and my opponent has supported that, is just not what people want," said Coats. And what the polls says is that the direction of this race was established weeks ago.

We asked the Ellsworth campaign for reaction the WISH TV Indiana poll and a spokesperson said they had none.

WISH-TV commissioned EPIC·MRA to conduct The WISH-TV Indiana 2010 Election Poll. The state-wide survey sample size was 500, with 4.4% +/- margin of error. EPIC·MRA, an experienced survey research firm, has been active in governmental, political, marketing, business and health issues at the state and national levels since 1985. EPIC·MRA polls are regularly cited by national news and media outlets and have been featured on CNN, World News Tonight, Nightline, and National Public Radio.