It’s very promising. Any candidate needs 50% to win outright. I just wish Rob Maness was doing better.
Worth reading
To summarize, since the late 1980s its been accepted conventional wisdom that an incumbent polling below 50% near election day is going to lose; that they haven't made the case for their reelection and the undecided votes will end up breaking in favor of the challenger.
The article deconstructs this CW quite a bit, with a helping hand from Nate Silver (ok FRiends, contain your groans and jeers, please). Here's what the article says:
Indeed, Silver's earlier data suggests that the "incumbent rule" is viable even earlier in the cycle than today. In April, he compiled a lengthy list of incumbents' polling data from January to June of 2006, 2008 and 2009. These polls showed that a third of incumbents who polled below 50 percent in polls even at this early time in the cycle went on to lose in the fall, while nearly 2/3 of those below 45 percent lost in November. Only one of the incumbents who was above 50 percent lost: George Allen.
So, basically, even by Nate Silver's standards Moon's little girl is in deep, deep doo-doo. The question is whether Dems will try to pull a Torricelli bait/switch and yank her from the ticket at the last minute and replace with someone who might have a better chance. But is there any Dem in LA at this point who would?