Lautenschlager's numbers tell grim story

The latest bad news for Atty. Gen. Peg Lautenschlager is that "time apparently doesn't heal all wounds," as Spivak and Bice put it in their report on a recent poll.

Lautenschlager's numbers are in the toilet.

The good news, of sorts, is that her name recognition is high. The bad news is that people may know who she is, but they are not ready to say they'll vote for her for reelection next year. In fact, they pretty much say they won't.

A dismal 12% of respondents said they definitely plan to vote for her. Another 15% said they probably would. That's 27% -- a long ways from 50.

Worse yet, 23% said they definitely will vote for someone else, and another 21% said they probably will vote for someone else.

Do the math: 27% to reelect, 44% against. And another 19% who say it depends on the person. Many of those, presumably, are Democrats who hope they will have another choice. They might vote for someone else in a primary, but probably would vote for Lautenschlager against one of the Republicans who want her job.

Her effective name recognition -- those who know enough about her to have an opinion about her -- is 78%. They split evenly, 32-32 on favorable-unfavorable ratings, but the "very unfavorable" number is almost twice as high as the "very favorable" (18-10).

A rule of thumb used to be that an incumbent with a reelect number less than 50% was vulnerable. But these days, a number in the 40s is considered OK. Lautenschlager's 27 doesn't even approach being OK. It's a campaign on life support. From all reports, she is in denial and insists that she will run and win reelection. But if she faces the facts, she will pull the plug, serve out her term and leave office with dignity, rather than go out a loser.

The second shoe everyone is waiting for is her finance report, but that is almost irrelevant. No amount of money is going to repair the self-inflicted damage she has suffered. It's time to move on.

UPDATE: Lautenschlager reports $140,000 in the bank. She says this is the best fundraising period she'd ever had, but she's never been much of a fundraiser. Republicans Bucher and Van Hollen each have about half of what she does, but neither has been at it very long.