About an hour before the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling released a new poll Sunday night showing moderate congressman Mike Castle trailing conservative activist Christine O’Donnell, 44 percent to 47 percent, in the Delaware GOP Senate primary, Castle predicted, in a most understated way, that he would win on Tuesday.
“I feel good about it. It’s, you know, worrisome obviously, but I feel positive. The polls are good,” Castle told me in a phone interview. “It won’t be an overwhelming victory, but I would imagine we will win by some comfortable margin.”
Castle is relying on goodwill that he believes he's built up with Republican voters over the years as lieutenant governor, then governor, and (since 1993) the state’s lone congressman. But in a year when a number of conservative insurgents have defeated more moderate, establishment-oriented GOP Senate candidates, that goodwill might not be enough. While the more moderate candidates who have won tacked right in their primaries, Castle has essentially chosen to say to conservatives that he is who he is–a moderate who will sometimes vote with them, sometimes against them–and they can take him or leave him. According to the PPP poll, they may just leave him: 55 percent of Delaware Republicans who were polled said he’;s too liberal.
Full story: Mike Castle: I’ll Win, But “It Won’t Be An Overwhelming Victory” | The Weekly Standard