Unlikely Voter

NPR had a poll done of what they call the 60 most competitive House seats held by Democrathttp://unlikelyvoter.com/wp-admin/options-media.phps, as well as the 10 most competitive held by Republicans. However the poll wasn’t done seat by seat, but rather in three groups: The top 30 of the Democrats, the bottom 30 of the Democrats, and the 10 Republicans.

Let’s see just how far each group is swinging compared with 2008, and try to guess what that means for the country.

The latest Washington Poll from the University of Washington is out, and now that the dust has settled around Dino Rossi’s entering the race, he’s still close to incumbent Patty Murray.

In fact, her lead has been cut in half from last time.

Maine still has does not have a runoff primary ahead but so Rasmussen took a look at the general election matchup anyway.

In general I’m giving the recently passed races a little more time, and probably next week you’ll see me again talking about California, Nevada, and other states from last week. But not having covered Maine yet, here’s a first look for us.

I’m not the only one who’s been skeptical of Nate Silver’s dogged attacks on Rasmussen Reports, demanding that they open up their secret sauce just because the firm’s results are less favorable to his preferred political party than other pollsters’ results are.

Mark Blumenthal is on the case, esposing what is fundamentally a hypocritical position by Silver and his site, fivethirtyeight.com.

I know some pollsters have rushed out to take a look at the primary states immediately after Tuesday’s elections, but we all know that those polls tend to have varying unity bounces. Rick Perry’s took a while in fact.

So I’ll let those races simmer a bit and instead look at Illinois today, as Rasmussen polled the Governor and Senate races.

I’ve been saying that the results in North Carolina would be a clear decider between the Rasmussen and PPP likely voter models. New polling has made the difference less dramatic, thanks to a Burr surge, but the difference is still there.

Daily Kos has dropped Research 2000 as the site pollster going forward, citing Nate Silver’s poor marks for the firm’s results. I’m glad of this.

Today we have high profile races in South Carolina, Nevada, California, and Arkansas to look back on and see how well the pollsters’ numbers matched the actual results.

As I’m just one person who lacks the luxury of doing this site full time, I’m not ashamed to work off of Real Clear Politics to make these assessments.

PPP’s latest on the South Carolina Governor’s race doesn’t even cover the Democrats. The assumption must be that Vincent Sheheen has it wrapped up, I suppose.

So, on to the Republican side, where Nikki Haley hopes to win an absolute majority and avoid a runoff.

Before we look at some of today’s primary races, here’s Rasmussen’s from a few days back on the Missouri Senate race.

John McCain barely won the state from Barack Obama, and apparently the Senate race is just as close.