Unlikely Voter

This new poll of the California races by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and American Viewpoint for USC and the LA Times has been discussed from one side of the Internet to the other, and back again.

But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I let it go without chiming in, now would I? Of course not. So let’s dig in.

The last SurveyUSA poll of the Kentucky Senate race showed Republican Randal Paul running away with it from Democrat Jack Conway. However the new one tells a completely different story in its top line.

When two polls by the same firm of the same race differ by that much, there has to be a story behind the story. Fortunately SurveyUSA’s detailed public reports make it easy to dig in and find what that story is.

I am at a loss as to how to analyze the polling of the race for Governor in Florida. Of the last four polls at Real Clear Politics, Republican Rick Scott leads according to Rasmussen Reports and Ipsos for Reuters, while Democrat Alex Sink leads acccording to Mason Dixon and CNN/Time.

Two polls concluded on the same day (Rasmussen and Mason Dixon) are not supposed to have a thirteen point swing between them, predicting different winners, but they do. So what’s going on?

We’ve already been seeing a slight move toward Democrat Barbara Boxer in the California Senate polling, down from Republican Carly Fiorina’s highs of taking a few leads.

But the new Field Poll release isn’t really new, and really only highlights again how Fiorina has a better chance to win than any California Republican Senate candidate since Pete Wilson.

Carly Fiorina trailed the Republican primary most of the way after Tom Campbell entered. But in the end she got the right endorsements and spent the money it took to get her message out and win.

She’s now going on the air against Democrat Barbara Boxer, a move I think is important because her deficit in SurveyUSA’s new poll is a bit larger than I think it needs to be for her to hang around and win in the end.

A flood of new polls about New York Senate races came out today. Chuck Schumer still looks safe, but the polling is variable on the special election between Republican Joe DioGuardi and Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand.

We’re now beyond the idea that only one poll, one time showed the special election to be competitive. Polls showing a Gillibrand blowout are now the minority.

Being just one man trying to cover 435 House races, 37 Senate races, a few dozen more states electing Governors, plus some of the technical and mathematical aspects of polling, I tend not to post on races that aren’t competitive.

So it’s surprising to me that I now have not one, but two New York polls to discuss today: Quinnipiac on the Governor’s race and Rasmussen on the Senate special election.

Along with West Virginia, Wisconsin I wanted to see more polling in. Rasmussen Reports has been the lone voice up there polling again and again, showing these key races competitive while the rest of the polling world passed on by.

PPP went there for Daily Kos finally, and now we get that critical second opinion on the races to see if they are as competitive as Rasmussen said.

I was going nuts watching West Virginia get almost no polling, even as Rasmussen Reports repeatedly showed the race close. Well I need not pull my hair out any longer, as Public Policy Polling hit the race.

And once again, the theory of a Rasmussen “House Effect” for Republicans is called into question.

So it’s looking like PPP is the only pollster so bullish for Democrats in California, because we’re back to polling that has the race close with the new result from Fox News.

Rasmussen Reports polled the hypothetical three way matchup for Alaska Senate between Republican Joe Miller, Democrat Scott McAdams, and newly minted independent Lisa Murkowski.

This is clearly the best case scenario for Murkowski as she actually won’t be on the ballot, but even in this case, the result is not changed from the previous poll.

Democrat Barbara Boxer just had her best poll in nearly two months, as PPP’s newest is showing her eight points ahead of Republican Carly Fiorina in the California Senate race.

August and early September brought several polls with Fiorina ahead, so this new result is a striking change from that period.

Daily Kos and Public Policy Polling have hinted on Twitter that they have a new Wisconsin poll coming, which I am glad of because I’ve long wanted to see a second opinion in that state, but I’d like to start the week by hitting a pair of polls I missed while I was in Austin over the weekend: Rasmussen Reports on the Wisconsin Senate race and then and then on the race for Governor.