by the Left Coast Rebel

Before the anti-Vietnamese, racist comment made by Loretta Sanchez to Univision, I was relatively unaware of the tight race in California’s 47th Congressional district.

One of the first things I thought when I read about conservative, Vietnamese American Van Tran (left) running against 6 term Democratic incumbent Loretta Sanchez was polling.

“Is the race competitive,” I thought.

Real Clear Politics references an American Action (a Republican-oriented group) poll done last month that shows the Van Tran/Loretta Sanchez essentially a statistical dead heat:

-CA-47: Republican Van Tran trails Democratic incumbent Loretta Sanchez 45 percent to 43 percent.

Here is the polling memo from American Action:

Our polling, conducted for American Action Forum on August 23-26 & 28-29, 2010, with 400 likely general election voters, shows a competitive contest in the district. Despite Representative Loretta Sanchez having 96 percent name ID (with a 46 to 44 percent favorable-unfavorable rating) compared to challenger Van Tran’s 67 percent (26 to 18 percent favorable), Sanchez leads on the ballot by just a 45 to 43 percent margin.

Beyond the ballot test, the key results from the survey are:

1. The economy is the most important issue in this district, although government spending and illegal immigration are also important. In response to an open-ended question, 50 percent of voters name the economy as the most important issue (11 percent say illegal immigration). When presented with seven options in a closed-ended question, 30 percent of voters say “creating new jobs” is most likely to affect their vote for Congress, 19 percent say “controlling government spending,” and 17 percent say “addressing illegal immigration.”

2. Voters associate nearly all of the tested positive characteristics with Tran. Voters say “will fight to keep taxes low” (38 to 20 percent), “will work to get government spending under control” (35 to 18 percent), “has new ideas that will change our country for the better” (34 to 20 percent), “will promote policies that are good for the economy” (32 to 27 percent), and “is honest and trustworthy” (27 to 26 percent) better describe Tran than Sanchez. Sanchez has a 29 to 27 percent advantage on “will do the right thing to fix the health care reform bill.”

3. Sanchez’s votes for bailouts are her greatest tested weakness. Forty-four percent of voters say they would be much less likely to vote for Sanchez because she “voted for bailouts of auto companies and the housing industry, which could cost taxpayers over a trillion dollars” (19 percent say they would be somewhat less likely to vote for her and 31 percent say it would have no real effect on their vote).

4. Voters in the district have a narrowly favorable view of Barack Obama, and a strongly unfavorable view of Nancy Pelosi. President Obama draws a 48 to 47 percent favorable to unfavorable rating, while Speaker Pelosi draws a 26 to 51 percent rating.

Like many races across the nation, this one seems to be ‘too close to call’ and centers on obvious recurring themes in the national mood.

Visit Van Tran‘s website here. Discussion over at Memeorandum.