Things get worse for Cornyn

Some interesting news from the DSCC: Hamilton Beattie & Staff has a new poll, and it happens to be about John Cornyn. In news that can't be much of a surprise to anyone, John Cornyn can't get above 50% against a generic Democratic candidate among 800 likely voters. What may surprise you is that he has incredibly low name ID — 39% of respondents didn't know enough about him to rate his as favorable or unfavorable. Details and PDFs inside.

The following is from the memo that accompanies the poll results and chart which shows you all the bad news for Senator Cornyn.

Key Findings

1. George W Bush has a negative job rating in Texas (47% positive – 51% negative) and the voters are nearly evenly split on whether their family would be better off with a Democrat or Republican majority in the US Senate (41% Democrats – 43% Republicans).

2. A strong plurality of voters in Texas believe the country is headed in the wrong direction (34% right direction – 49% wrong direction). President Bush’s job rating on handling Iraq is even more negative (41% positive – 58% negative).

3. Republican John Cornyn has lower than expected name recognition for an incumbent US Senator, with 39% of the electorate unable to rate Cornyn either favorably or unfavorably. Overall he is 41% favorable – 19% unfavorable.

4. Senator Cornyn’s generic reelect versus a Democrat is under 50% (47% Republican John Cornyn - 38% Democratic candidate; 15% undecided).

What this says, essentially, is that Cornyn's incumbency is vulnerable based on his approval ratings, but that it is critically vulnerable due to the fact that he doesn't have an established political base. No one knows who he is, people are souring on Republicans even in Texas, and — surprise! — Texans don't detest Democrats nearly as much as they used to.

Cornyn is vulnerable, certainly, but the name ID thing makes it worse than I imagined it would be for him. I wonder if he might face a Republican primary challenger?