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.

Quick, more lightbulbs

Full PPP Poll out tomorrow. (Get marshmellows). The other teasers: Brunner up, Steelman/Akin down, Mitt 3rd in the caucus.

Just wait until the voters hear about Dave Spence’s fraternity leadership. That’ll get Spence ($2.3M on hand/$65K spent) past Randles ($5K on hand/$58K spent) for sure.

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum will be in Cottleville, Missouri tomorrow afternoon for a “major address” which will propel Santorum towards winning a majority of the 0 delegates distributed by Missouri’s February 7th Republican Primary. Santorum will likely lead in Public Policy Polling’s poll for the February 7th primary, which is a hilarious display of Mittose Intolerance from some Republicans.

Santorum will be at St. Charles Community College at 2:30pm to talk about jobs, the economy, the social issues he obsesses about, and why Colleges (like the one he’s speaking at) are used to indoctrinate students. He may also wear a sweater.

This Santorum event is not being held in Cynthia Davis’ district, it’s being held one district to the East (Doug Funderburk’s district). Gotta admire their focus on targeting parts of Missouri that have elected Santorum-esque candidates before. Plus, both Santorum and Cynthia Davis are coming off of big losses in their last electoral pursuit.

If you cross paths with Rick Santorum while he is in Missouri, do not look him in the eyes or feed him after Midnight. It’s for your own good.

Brad Lager pulled in $733K in the 4th quarter. But if we go to a chart, we find that 2 donors made up over 2/3rds of that total (500K total), and that 17 donors made up 95% of that 733K. So the donors who didn’t give $5K or more donated $33K to Lager

Peter Kinder raised $118K in the Q4. So thanks to big money, an incumbent just got outraised by a 6:1 margin. Kinder has $1.3M on hand right now and still thinks he could run for Governor one day.

Former State Rep Judy Baker of Columbia is entering the Lt. Governor field. Presumably she knows fewer people who are willing or able to drop $250K on a campaign contribution.

Update: I dug into the 1K-5K (no donations were made between $2501 and $4999). So the 1-5K made up $28500 and donations under $1K made up $4770.44. The 1% (0.65%) to Brad Lager are donors who donated less than $1K to him in the last quarter.

In chart form-

Previously on ShowMeProgress:

Campaign Finance: Add big contributions, stir, voila, instant campaign! – part 2

Campaign Finance: Add big contributions, stir, voila, instant campaign!

The Redistricting and Re-Redistricting of the Senate got shot down today by the Missouri Supreme Court due to having too many splits of Jackson and Greene Counties and the attempted replacement of the first Map. The MO Supremes also directed the Congressional Redistricting case to a trial court with a deadline of February 3rd.

So, the Senate Maps are going to another Citizens Commission, and the candidate filing opens on February 28th. Really. (Some dispute as to what is next, KY3 says a judicial commission, even after the decision overruled their ability to revise their map.)

Remember, the map being rejected for violating the Missouri Constitution was drawn by judges. Oops.

Read Teichman v. Carnahan

I’m guessing someone was asleep when the balanced budget requirement in the Missouri Constitution was brought up in that economics class. Perhaps Dave was busy any of the first 3 times that a balanced budget was passed under Jay Nixon. But you know, Dave Spence just wants more jobs for Missouri, and if his forthrightness about his educational background is any indication, he’s concealing details about the jobs as well.

Meanwhile in electoral politics, Dave Spence’s primary opponent Bill Randles released his college transcripts. The images are on Flickr, because this isn’t fun enough already. Although it’s a double-edged sword for Randles as it’s another opening for the media to mention that Randles went to Harvard Law with President Obama.

No word on if Randles will release scanned images on Flickr proving his knowledge of Missouri’s Constitution

Source

On his campaign website, Republican Dave Spence, the plastics guru running for governor, says he “earned a degree in Economics” from the University of Missouri.

That may be true – but it is not entirely accurate.

According to the university, Spence’s degree is not in economics. It is in home economics.

Well, if Spence keeps twisting the truth like this, he’ll be cooked.

I think Dave will need a better line to bail out of this than..

“I was not the greatest student in the world,” Spence said. “I’ll make fun of myself: I was a 60-watt bulb in a 100-watt society.”

He may be a 60-watt Dave, but he has a 2 megawatt campaign treasury to modify his bio and make it accurate, right?

Oh. Well, he’ll get around to it. It takes time to make your alpha packaging accurate packaging.

from Tony Messenger on Twitter:

Republican Mitt Romney announces Missouri endorsements from Jim Talent, Tom Schweich, Tom Dempsey, Tim Jones, and Sam and Jeff Fox.

Talent endorsed Romney in 2008 as well (presumably Romney’s 2008 state director will not return to that job in 2012)

Tim Jones endorsed Giuliani for a period of time, before switching to McCain after Giuliani’s “vacation in Palm Beach” strategy failed to work.

The support of Jim Talent, Matt Blunt, Rod Jetton, Bryan Pratt, Jason Crowell, and Ron Richard was good for 3rd place and 29% for Romney in 2008. So maybe Jim Talent, the Auditor, the Floor Leader, Tom Dempsey and others can get Mitt over 30% this time.

Romney’s strongest areas in 2008 were Cape Girardeau, St. Charles County, Columbia/Jeff City, Jackson County, Buchanan County. So Romney’s key to victory is getting his group of suburbanites to outvote the SW Missouri Huckabee voters and the voters who are skeptical of Multiple-choice Mitt.

Missouri Republicans still on the draft board (with their 2008 endorsements listed) include Kit Bond (Giuliani), Steven Tilley (Giuliani), Jo Ann Emerson (Giuliani), Peter Tweeter Kinder (Thompson), and John Danforth (McCain).

So when it comes to picking candidates 9 months from election day. Missouri’s prominent Republicans had a mixed record in 2008.