THREE MARTINI LUNCH: MAY 12, 2014

Jim and Greg like that Tim Geithner was honest about the White House asking him to lie, dislike polls showing Mark Pryor well ahead of Tom Cotton, and rip Secret Service leadership for diverting personnel from protecting the president.



Poll: Mark Pryor leads GOP challenger for Senate in Arkansas...by 11 points?

Question mark in the headline because...I can't quite believe it. I can believe that a two-term Democratic incumbent, whose father served as governor and senator, would be ahead of a little-known congressman at this stage. I can also believe, a la the Standard, that Pryor's lead is inflated because the sample's tilted too heavily towards Democrats (30/23) in what's become a reliably red state. But even a smaller margin in party ID would have him ahead fairly comfortably - in Arkansas, where Obama's job approval stands at a rosy 33 percent and where John Boozman annihilated another Democratic incumbent four years ago.

What's interesting about the subsamples isn't how unusual they are but how unusual they aren't. Despite Arkansas's conservative bent, Cotton's facing a lot of the same problems that Republicans are facing nationally.

Somehow there are more Republicans in Arkansas willing to vote for the Democrat this year, with some analysts predicting a GOP wave, than there are Democrats willing to vote for the Republican. Pryor's also considerably more popular than Cotton is, with a favorable rating of 50/35 among registered voters compared to the challenger's 38/39. And this isn't the only poll lately to show Pryor with a double-digit lead; here's how RCP's tracker looks since February.

Also read:

Keystone, Possible Runoff Create Long Slog for Landrieu

New Hampshire poll: Obama tanks, Shaheen and Brown in statistical dead heat