Louisiana’s Democratic incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is beating GOP candidate Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) in the latest poll in the state, leading him 36 percent to 32 percent.
The Tea Party-backed Col. Rob Maness trails both candidates with just 6 percent, according to the new WAFB-TV poll.
Though Landrieu is currently leading, Cassidy would defeat her if he got into a runoff against her, according to the poll–which will happen if no candidate gets 50 percent of the vote. The poll, according to WAFB-TV, shows that 43 percent would favor Cassidy in the runoff, while just 40 percent would favor Landrieu.
Interestingly, however, Landrieu’s favorability ratings are much higher than Cassidy’s.
“Respondents were also asked their opinion of both Cassidy and Landrieu,” WAFB-TV wrote. The analysis explained that “26 percent said they have an extremely or very favorable opinion of Cassidy while 21 percent said somewhat favorable and 35 percent said not very favorable.”
“For Landrieu, 34 percent said they had an extremely or somewhat favorable opinion of her, 13 percent said somewhat favorable, and 46 percent said not very favorable. Some respondents declined to answer certain questions,” WAFB-TV continued.
The poll serves as a checkpoint to which candidates will be invited to the final debate; every candidate over 5 percent received an invite, which means each candidate did. The local media outlet confirms that all three have indicated that they will attend the Oct. 29 debate at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Multi Quest International conducted the poll of 605 registered voters from Oct. 14 through Oct. 19.