Last updated on February 14th, 2013 at 08:10 am
A new Survey USA poll of the state of Kansas found that John McCain leads Obama 49%-39% in the state, and even if Obama chose Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his running mate, John McCain would still be leading the state.
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius currently enjoys a 62% approval rating in her state. She has not had an approval rating under 60% since April 2006, but when she is added to the ticket with Barack Obama, she does not help him at all in the state of Kansas. In a matchup of potential tickets, Obama/Sebelius trails McCain/Romney by 11 points. The Democrats also trail McCain/Huckabee by 7 points. They trail McCain/Lieberman by 4 points and McCain/Pawlenty by 4 points.
Sebelius does fare better in Kansas than any other Democratic possible ticket measured. Depending on the matchup, McCain and his running mate leads an Obama/Edwards combination by anywhere from 2-12 points. An Obama/Hegal ticket trails by 17-25 points, and an Obama/Rendell ticket trails by 17-24 points. Kansas is such a dark red state that even adding a popular incumbent Democratic governor to the ticket does not ensure that Obama won’t lose the state by double digits in November.
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Sebelius is one of the rising national stars in the Democratic Party, but if she interested in being Barack Obama’s running mate, numbers such as in this poll, don’t do her any favors. Preferably, the Obama camp would ideally like to select a running mate who could tilt their state into the Democratic column this fall.
Sebelius may have broader appeal outside of the state of Kansas to voters in November, but if Obama selects an incumbent governor for a running mate, then he/she should be able to deliver their state. However, I believe that nothing short of selecting Jesus Christ himself as his running mate would convince the voters in the state of Kansas to vote Democratic this November.
Read the full poll results right here
