I normally like to let these races rest a week before I start looking into the polling, but thanks to one pollster sitting on a pre-primary poll to drop the bomb after the primary, I thought I’d hit today the actual first post-primary poll of the race between Democrat Chris Coons and Republican Christine O’Donnell.

Before the primary, and especially before the primary got nasty, O’Donnell was running at about a 10% win probability. This Rasmussen poll is worse for her than that, as it puts the race at a 92/8 split for Coons. Coons leads the poll 53-42 (MoE 4).

In particular, the primary has lifted O’Donnell’s Very Unfavorable rating all the way up to 38%, putting her total favorability situation below zero at 42/54/5. Coons meanwhile, having coasted in the primary, sits at 58/34/8.

At this point I think Coons has one job, and O’Donnell has two. Coons has to race to redefine himself as voter attention returns to him. O’Donnell must redefine Coons and unify the Republican party after the primary. Interestingly enough, for O’Donnell the two tasks might be accomplished simply by attacking Coons.

From Unlikely Voter