Unlikely Voter

When Sharron Angle came out of the Republican primary in Nevada, oddly enough she was vulnerable. She got no unity bounce, instead taking a stream of attacks from Republicans nationwide. As a result, Harry Reid went on the air for the knockout.

He didn’t get it. Even the new Mason Dixon/LVRJ poll has stabilized.

Rasmussen Reports has two new polls out: one on the race for Governor between Democrat Jerry Brown and Republican Meg Whitman, and the other on the Senate race between Democrat Barbara Boxer and Republican Carly Fiorina.

I don’t think the results they show are compatible. If one is right, I think the other is wrong.

The new Rasmussen Reports poll of Missouri suggests that with the clarity brought by the primaries, support is coalescing around Roy Blunt, and he appears to be running away from Robin Carnahan in the Senate race.

To think I once considered this seat a toss up, too.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Two major pollsters have announced changes to their methods as we get nearer to election day. Both of these should bring shifts in the polls which may strike us as sudden or dramatic, so be aware.

Some may have questioned why, in my new Senate projection, I had Florida at a 55% chance to win for Republican Marco Rubio, when much of the polling has shown newly minted independent Charlie Crist with tiny leads.

It’s because I saw this new poll from Mason Dixon which not only covered the primary the Democrats are holding, but the consequences of that primary on the general election.

It’s now been nearly two months since I made a projection of the US Senate elections. Since then we’ve had a number of primaries, television ads, polls, and other developments, so let’s see where we stand now.

SurveyUSA polled the California statewide races for San Francisco’s KPIX, a television station for one of the most safe cities in the state for Democrats. This is Nancy Pelosi’s own district here. Any bias introduced into this poll won’t be from the right.

So it’s notable when this poll shows Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman ahead of Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown.

In my estimation, Missouri Republicans have underperformed. The state doesn’t strike me as especially friendly to Democrats, and failed to swing for Obama, but Republicans there ought to do better than they have.

I think Roy Blunt may be opening the kind of lead I expect in that state, after months of concern and close polling.

So we had two major polls going into the Colorado primaries: SurveyUSA and Public Policy Polling were on the line.

How’d they do against the actual results of Ken Buck over Jane Norton 52-48, Dan Maes over Scott McInnis 51-49, and Michael Bennet over Andrew Romanoff 54-46?