Unlikely Voter

I’m sensing great interest in recent Washington polling. The Elway Poll I’m going to ignore for now, as I’ve picked it apart in the past, and Real Clear Politics had a note on it as well, so I’ll look more closely at the new Rasmussen Reports poll, which shows Democrat Patty Murray retaking the lead from Republican Dino Rossi.

If I’m going to break my rule and talk about Delaware right away, then I might as well do the same and cover the new Rasmussen poll on New Hampshire, which is the first post-primary poll of that Senate race between Republican nominee Kelly Ayotte and Democrat Paul Hodes.

For a while there it wasn’t sure we’d get this matchup after all, but here we are.

Candidates matter. Even in a wave year, some candidates on the losing side will have no trouble. Dianne Feinstein was an example of that in 1994, and Democrat Ron Wyden appears to be one in 2010, as he is comfortable over Republican Jim Huffman in the latest SurveyUSA poll even as that poll and the Riley poll both have Republican Chris Dudley highly competitive for Governor against Democrat John Kitzhaber.

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.