The main numbers are…
Claire McCaskill 43, Todd Akin 43
Claire McCaskill 43, John Brunner 43
Claire McCaskill 43, Sarah Steelman 43
Claire McCaskill’s job approval? 42% approve, 49% disapprove.
So, how did this come about? Let’s go to the numbers.
I personally prefer to combine the very/somewhat totals for Liberals and Conservatives on PPP polls to create a wider sample. The realities of how PPP splits by ideology has a way of reducing the number of moderates, so there’ll be quite a few Somewhats who are closer to Moderate than the Verys. But here goes.
Claire McCaskill’s job approval
Liberals (31%): 72-18
Moderates (27%): 50-35
Conservatives (42%): 13-80
Claire v. Akin
Liberals: 71-10
Moderates: 57-30
Conservatives: 12-74
Claire v. Brunner
Liberals: 74-13
Moderates: 55-25
Conservatives: 11-75
Claire v. Steelman
Liberals: 72-18
Moderates: 50-35
Conservatives: 13-80
In other words, people who approve of Claire McCaskill seem to support her, and most of the people who don’t approve of Claire McCaskill do not support her. And when over 1/4th of the voters who you should be winning 4/5ths of are not supporting you, then you have a problem where your base does not like you enough and the people you’ve been focusing on pleasing for 5 years don’t like you either.
Or to put it more bluntly, if the election were held today between Claire McCaskill and one of her 3 opponents who has under 50% name-rec, Claire McCaskill would lose. Which is remarkable, considering the gap between her and her opponents, she shouldn’t be polling 43% and she shouldn’t be tied with every single opponent.
Moderates don’t like Claire McCaskill enough (and they tilt to Dems on the PPP samples, including Obama getting 61% job approval with Ohio Moderates). Liberals don’t like Claire McCaskill enough. And Conservatives don’t like her either, because she’s a Democrat, and no amount of posturing will change that.
One of the wonders of a three-way primary is the possibility that the Republicans will do a lot of the work necessary to get Claire McCaskill elected. But you can’t just depend on your opposition nuking each other.