Polling health care in CD28

Daily Kos/Research 2000 conducted a series of polls in various Blue Dog Congressional districts, one of which was Rep. Henry Cuellar’s CD28. The results are here. To the question “Do you favor or oppose creating a government-administered health insurance option that anyone can purchase to compete with private insurance plans?”, the result was 53% in favor, 40% opposed. It shows Cuellar, who won with over 68% of the vote in 2008 (significantly outperforming Barack Obama in doing so; I don’t have exact figures, but just eyeball the county by county canvass for each and it will be clear) with a lower approval rating than Obama, mediocre re-elect numbers, and a nontrivial number of people who say they’d be less likely to support him if he opposed a public health insurance option. I’ll be delighted if these numbers, or anything else, make Cuellar feel pressure to do the right thing on health care reform, but color me skeptical of the idea that he might be in any actual electoral danger regardless of what he does. The Republicans have never run a viable candidate against him, and I don’t expect that to change next year, and he’s more than proven his mettle in primaries. Again, I hope this result gets noticed in his district, and helps keep him on track, I just wouldn’t count on much more than that. The other results:

Arkansas 4 (Mike Ross)
Georgia 12 (John Barrow)
Michigan 1 (Bart Stupak)

Kos’ writeup is here, and the FiveThirtyEight post that sparked these polls is here. I note with interest that Nate Silver projects a net favorable result for the public option in CD32, which is NRCC Chair Pete Sessions’ district. I hope the DCCC is paying attention, since the potential to give Sessions a headache ought to be irresistible. The less comfortable a position he can be put in, the better. Texas Kaos has more.

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