If it’s true, it certainly explains why he decided to jump in this week:
Attorney General Jon Bruning said Monday he led Sen. Chuck Hagel by 9 points in a survey last week of likely Republican voters in a 2008 GOP Senate primary contest.
The poll of 404 Republicans was conducted by Bruning’s pollster, Dresner, Wickers and Associates of San Francisco. In a head-to-head matchup, Bruning led by 47 percent to 38 percent.
Nebraskans are “very troubled” by Hagel’s criticism of President Bush and his support for legislation calling for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, Bruning said.
If these results are anywhere close to accurate, it should be setting off alarms in Hagel’s camp. This early and the incumbent is trailing the state Attorney General? Maybe Hagel did far more damage than we realized to his reputation among Republicans.
Does anyone else think that Hagel will just pull a Lieberman and run as an independent if he loses the GOP primary? Unless there’s a strong democratic candidate, I can’t imagine Bruning would beat him a general election.
Nebraska law prohibits someone from running for the same office after losing in the primary. There was some question about this back in 2006, after Osborne lost the primary, and some of his supporters wanted him to run as a write-in candidate. Hagel could attempt a legal challenge to this law, but one has to wonder what good it would do him.