Is the bug man in trouble back in the district?
While I’m all for running a well-financed challenger against DeLay in 2006 (and in every election thereafter, for that matter) I’ve always figured it was pretty unlikely he’d actually get run out of office by his constituents. But maybe not.
A new Houston Chronicle poll conducted by Zogby found that 40% of his constituents have a less favorable opinion of him now than they did last year. Meanwhile, only 11% said they thought better of him.
It is true, reports the Chronicle, that “half of the respondents gave DeLay a somewhat or very favorable rating. Yet 49 percent said they would vote for someone other than DeLay if a congressional election in the 22nd District were at hand; 39 percent said they would stick with him.”
Now, lest anyone get the wrong impression, I’m not saying DeLay’s defeat is likely, let alone inevitable. But this poll does suggest that you don’t need to make too many heroic assumptions to come up with a scenario in which a solid challenger could unseat him.
And, of course, there’s still 18 months for DeLay to threaten federal judges, commit more corrupt acts and rope the members of his caucus into rewriting more of the ethics rules to keep him in the clear. So he might become more unpopular still.
