Poll Analysis and Election Projection
New York Magazine was trying to be sympathetic to the popular polling figures on its own side of the political, but let out a secret in the process: Public Policy Polling cooked the books all along.
With the House update done, it’s time to move on to the new Senate update. Last week the pace of Republican gains were halted entirely as the party gave back the half seat it gained the week before. The chance of a Republican majority also dropped back to 4%. With the events of the last week I expect that to go down even further, but let’s see how much it sends up to be.
It’s Monday, so it’s time to head over to Real Clear Politics and round up the most recent Generic Ballot polls to come up with a new projection of the House.
Last week’s said Republicans +58. Let’s see where we are now.
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.
TEA Party-driven politics get the bulk of the attention this year, but Democrats have targets of their own and Michele Bachmann, challenged by DFL candidate Tarryl Clark, is one of those targets.
However so far she is doing fine if SurveyUSA’s latest is to be believed.
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.
SurveyUSA polled the North Carolina Senate race for WRAL, and the result is striking. In fact, it’s entirely unlike any other poll I’ve seen of the race between Republican Richard Burr and Democrat Elaine Marshall.
This poll makes Burr’s last big polling jump look small and timid.
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