Unlikely Voter

The Florida primaries are today, but I’m not posting on them today. That way I have time to address – by popular demand* – all the new generic ballot polls, and see where the Swingometer is landing lately.

As always, I’m using the trusty Real Clear Politics archives to find the polls. So let’s go.

Now that the unpleasantness of the Research 2000 polling is fading from memory, and the Public Policy Polling deal is churning out results, it looks like Daily Kos is again trying to be a hub of political polling. The republishing of the Chris Bowers Senate projections would seem to be part of that.

His methodology has some strong points that I could be in favor of, so I thought I’d give it an in depth look and compare his latest numbers with my own Senate projection based on polling.

Despite a rash of independents and party switches in Florida, tomorrow there are still two meaningful primaries at the top of the ticket. For the Democrats, tomorrow they choose between Bill Clinton-backed Kendrick Meek, and wealthy challenger Jeff Greene for a Senate candidate. Republicans have to decide on a candidate for Governor between former Impeachment star Bill McCollum and wealthy challenger Rick Scott.

With one day to go, let’s check where the polls say both races are headed.

In the Washington Senate primary, those candidates with an expressed preference for Democrats combined for 48.7% of the vote, with Patty Murray leading at 46.4%. Those candidates preferring Republicans combined for 49.7%, with Dino Rossi on top at 33.3%.

And yet, looking at SurveyUSA’s poll, Republicans are coming out of the primary energized and unified, Democrats are depressed, and Independents are ready to try someone new.

I try my best to avoid various forms of bias in my polling analysis on this site, but some polls just look so ridiculous to me that I throw out any fears of confirmation bias and just go in with the plan of tearing the poll apart.

This Braun Research poll for cn|2 of the Kentucky Senate race is one of those polls.

Some Senate seats I’ll worry about all the way to November, but today when I looked at the list of new polls out, I got a flood of races I’m pretty comfortable calling for the Republican, barring any new news of course.

Pew Research released a new poll of American politics and religion. The question on Barack Obama’s own religion will get all the attention, as it shows American belief that he is a Christian peaked before the 2008 election, and belief that he is a Muslim is peaking now.

But to me, the biggest news is at the bottom of the survey, where the national party identification figures are broken down, and how those compare with the last Republican wave in 1994.

Tired of Florida yet? Too bad! Just about every public pollster is hitting the state comprehensively, so like a hanging chad this race will stick around at least until next week. And after Quinnipiac yesterday went contrarian on the primaries, today the firm goes contrarian on the general.

It’s been pretty rough for Sharron Angle since she won the Republican nomination for Senate in Nevada. Republican “allies” and opposing Democrats both have been attacking her, with each repeating the other’s attacks and magnifying them.

So Harry Reid made what I thought was a surprising comeback to take a small lead, after spending months hovering around 40. But Rasmussen’s latest says that the attacks may have hit the point of diminishing returns.

Both Bill McCollum and Kendrick Meek have struck back against their respective challengers Rick Scott and Jeff Greene. Meek has campaigned hard with Bill Clinton, while McCollum has done different things depending on whom you ask.

Regardless though, Quinnipiac shows both candidates on top as the Florida primary nears.

Good afternoon. My life gets much easier when polls agree, and that’s the state of the race for the Senate in Pennsylvania. We have two polls out directly comparing Republican Pat Toomey and Democrat Joe Sestak, as well as a poll on the Governor’s race.

All three favor Pat Toomey by a healthy margin.

PPP has delivered a poll on the Missouri Senate race for Daily Kos, and I’m seeing genuine anger at the results, which are now filtered for those likely to vote in November.

As Kos says, “So what’s going on? Our old friend, the intensity gap.”

I theorized before that Pat Quinn would drag down Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois, with a rout for Governor having reverse coattails for Senate, and now Public Policy Polling seems to show the effects I predicted.

A bad candidate for governor in a negative wave year is a terrible situation for a party to have, but that’s the Democrats in Illinois today.