PPP's 2nd poll on the 2012 US Senate race in Missouri finds pretty much the same thing as the first one. Voters are closely divided on Claire McCaskill's job performance and she polls in the mid-40s against all of her prospective Republican opponents. She does have small leads over them that are largely attributable to their lack of name recognition.
46% of Missouri voters approve of the job McCaskill is doing to 45% who disapprove. Her reviews are almost completely polarized along party lines with 85% of Democrats happy with the job she's doing while 80% of Republicans give her poor marks. The thing of greatest concern for McCaskill should be where she stands with independents- just 36% think she's doing a good job with 51% dissenting.
McCaskill has a small advantage against all 4 Republicans we tested against her. She's up 45-44 on Congressman Todd Akin, 45-42 against former Treasurer Sarah Steelman, 46-40 against failed Congressional candidate Ed Martin, and 45-36 against former Ambassador Ann Wagner.
Less noteworthy than the difference between McCaskill's single point lead against Akin and her nine point advantage against Wagner is that McCaskill's support shows no variation from 45-46% across the four match ups. The Republicans get varying levels of support pretty much directly in line with their name recognition- 44% know Akin, 44% know Steelman, 34% know Martin, and only 26% know Wagner. The GOP field is largely anonymous at this point.
McCaskill's leads, even as small as they are, shouldn't be particularly reassuring for her. There are at least twice as many undecided Republicans as Democrats in each match up, suggesting that once the GOP candidates become better known they will probably catch up to her pretty quickly.
Voters really are simply split right down the middle on McCaskill. She's not unpopular enough to get blown out but she's probably not popular enough to win easily either, unless Republicans really go off the deep end with their nominee. This is going to be an extremely close race, just like the ones the state saw in 2000, 2002, and 2006 for the Senate.
Full results here
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