Unlikely Voter

I don’t really think any of the newest polls I’m finding are particularly interesting, so I’ll just mention them all quickly and move on to something that hopefully is interesting.

In my first featured post at Unlikely Voter I illustrated how Marco Rubio went from being far, far behind Charlie Crist in the Republican Primary for the Florida Senate vacancy, to being the overwhelming favorite in the race.

Some wonder if Crist is taking this to heart and weighing and Independent run. Quinnipiac polled that scenario.

Rasmussen took a special poll of one particular matchup possibility in the 2012 Presidential race. He looked at Ron Paul against Barack Obama and, surprise, Paul runs very well, trailing the incumbent President 41-42.

How can this be, when Paul was rejected so soundly in the Republican primaries just two years ago? Reading the poll, I’m left to wonder if it was written and paid for by supporters of the Texas Republican.

Another Senate seat that Republicans would want to take for a shot at the majority is the one currently held by Kirsten Gillibrand, New York Democrat.

However with George Pataki declining to run against her, Democrats seem much more likely to hold the seat, judging by the latest from Quinnipiac.

If the Democrats want to regain a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate they have to win seats in their home turf, and that includes the New Hampshire seat of retiring Senator and Republican Judd Gregg.

Rasmussen carpet bombed this race, which fortunately only has three likely matchups.

I’ll probably regret posting this, but here is The Shirt™ I picked up of the Extended Bell Curve.

Here are a few polls that came out from later Friday to today that I don’t think deserve a full work-up, but are worth mentioning at least.

Should the Republicans get lucky and take the Senate in November, Patty Murray’s is the kind of seat they will have to win. Washington is friendly territory for Democrats and 2010 should be no exception. However, a poll from late Friday suggests that she may be vulnerable to Dino Rossi and only to the former candidate for Governor.

More confusion is ahead as we look at Rasmussen’s latest treatment of the Colorado Senate race.

Yesterday we looked at a poll from Public Policy Polling, but today we have a new poll from Quinnipiac University.

Amusingly enough, while we’ve seen Quinnipiac overcount Democrats in Ohio, their results for Specter and Sestak come in just under PPP’s findings.

Yesterday Public Policy Polling came out with fresh results for the Pennsylvania Senate race. Unfortunately they didn’t poll the primary race between incumbent Democrat Arlen Specter and challenger Joe Sestak, it turns out not to matter much just yet.

Pat Toomey, Republican challenger, leads both men at this point.

If we look at a series of five polls of the Wisconsin Senate matchup between Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat, and former Governor Tommy Thompson, Republican, we find a broad range of results.

On no news can we really expect the race to move 16 points in one week? Some of these have to be wrong, but will we ever know which?

When I see people, and particularly conservatives, discussing why one poll is better than another, I see the sample pool frequently cited as a reason for favoring one or another. Specifically, some poll watchers insist that any poll not filtered for likely voters, instead of just registered voters or even adults, is not useful in a political context.

The dirty secret is that not all likely voters are created equal. Every pollster has his own secret sauce, and we have to be careful when trusting that kind of filtering. It might not be what we expect.