Unlikely Voter

After the primary in Nevada, there was no doubt that Democrat Harry Reid had taken a real lead over Republican Sharron Angle, not when he led six polls in a row, and 10 of 12.

Sharron Angle has now matched that run: She’s won 10 of 12 polls, including the last six.

Now that Nate Silver has declared PPP to have a Republican house effect, all eyes turn to CNN to see what kind of house effect they must have.

Has the whole polling world gone Republican? Why does CNN get the results it does? Jon Ralston and Ed Morrissey have questions.

Last week I addressed the new polls by TCJ Research, an arm of The Conservative Journal. Other than the polling operation being new and untested, my biggest complaint was a lack of transparency.

TCJ Research is beginning to answer questions and become more transparent.

Continuing Politico’s apparent strategy of linking to obscure polls that say bad things about Republicans for shock and traffic value in this wave year, the site now reports Joe Miller to be in last place.

For several reasons, one has to discount this poll’s predictiveness of the coming election.

By request, I’ve decided to take a look at just what kind of electorate the Public Policy Polling screening of Likely Voters seems to be predicting. To do this I will use recent PPP polls from two states: California, which went for Barack Obama heavily, and West Virginia, where Obama’s popularity has never been that hot.

Candidates are running out of time to make moves this year. Last week the Republicans stayed just on the edge of gaining seven seats, though I thought some of that was due to some freak polls.

We’ll see now just how freaky they were.

For some time there the polling in the Connecticut Senate race was rather unstable. We were seeing polls with huge swings apart from each other every few days. I really had no clear path for evaluating it than to average the two and give Democrat Richard Blumenthal a medium lead over Republican Linda McMahon.

But including the new Rasmussen we’ve now seen four good polls in a row for Blumenthal. The race appears to be settling.

Good evening. We’re getting so very close to the end here, I may start running these more than once a week to see where they go. It depends on the interest level I see in that.

Last week it was Bloomberg filling in for Newsweek as the odd poll out, but now the original thing is here: Newsweek is back. We’ll see how far down it drags the overall average Republican gain.

Even though the West Virginia Senate race showed that sometimes a national trend can overcome local candidates, the candidates still matter.

The race for Governor in Maryland has turned out to be one of those. For some time the race was close, but while my back was turned it seems that Democrat Martin O’Malley is simply running away from Republican Robert Ehrlich.

As always I give the note that any analysis I do of the California Senate race carries an unusual risk of bias because I live here and I have a strong emotional attachment to the outcome.

That said, I’m beginning to notice a pattern in the polling between Democrat Barbara Boxer and Republican Carly Fiorina that suggests serious, late-breaking movement in favor of the Republican. I see it in the way the polls are moving with their methodologies.

Quick hit to close the weekend: If the Florida Governor’s race isn’t close, as this new Sunshine State News/VSS poll shows in a 45-45 tie, then we’ll know the polls this year were out of calibration.

In particular, if Republican Rick Scott wins handily over Democrat Alex Sink, then the Democrats may have a long night.

I once said that Democrat Stephanie Herseth Sandlin was done. Finished. Had no chance of winning the South Dakota at-large House seat. Was pining for the fjords. Hers was a dead candidacy. She then promptly tied up the race in the polling.

I already have enough egg on my face that I’m genuinely hoping polls like this one hold up, with Republican Kristi Noem ahead, so I can escape without complete embarrassment.

The last time Quinnipiac Uniersity covered the Pennsylvania Senate race, the result was right in the middle of the pack, and inline with every poll from mid-July to early October: a seven point lead for Republican Pat Toomey over Democrat Joe Sestak.

But now, just as PPP came out with its shocking Sestak lead, Q says the race is close.