Unlikely Voter

Conservative views on polls, science, technology, and policy

McInnis steady over Hickenlooper

Spending some time with the nephew so apologies for the late and simpler post. Next week things should be back on track. This evening, we played Sorry! I took a 2-0 lead, he made a rousing comeback to tie it at 3, and then finally I edged him out to slip in for the win.

But for now, the Colorado race for Governor!

 

Read More | May 14, 2010
Peeking in at the Nevada Senate Primary

Republicans think they can knock off another majority leader in Harry Reid. Erick Erickson thinks Danny Tarkanian is the best man to put in that seat. Are Nevada Republicans following along?

 

Read More | May 13, 2010
The Swingometer is here!

Be jealous no more of those Brits with their fancy Swingometers. Now we too have one! Of course, the idea of a uniform national swing makes no more sense here than it did over there, but it can still be fun to play around with. So enjoy the 2010 Swingometer for the US House, for whatever it’s worth.

P.S. It takes a 15.1 swing toward Republicans to change control of the House.

 

Read More | May 13, 2010
Telephone polls on the way out?

Many pollsters rely on random telephone calls in order to get their interviews done. It’s cheaper and easier than having to get people to sit down and do face-to-face interviews, because over the phone a broader range of people can be accessed. The result is a better sample than can be gotten from, say, a shopping mall.

But that ease may be on the way out if people stop owning landlines.

 

Read More | May 12, 2010
Burr shivering in North Carolina

Public Policy Polling updates us on North Carolina and, well, it’s not looking any better for Republican Richard Burr than it did before in PPP’s survey.

In fact, it’s worse, wave year or no.

 

Read More | May 12, 2010
Pennsylvania update

We’re less than a week away from primary election day in Pennsylvania, so let’s take a look at the latest polling news from the House Special election to replace Jack Murtha, the Senate primary for Arlen Specter’s seat, and a surprisingly interesting House race.

 

Read More | May 12, 2010
Using Twitter to replace genuine random sampling?

Some researchers led by Noah Smith at Carnegie Mellon tried an experiment: Could they predict the results of traditional polling, which has as its core feature a genuine random sample of people, with careful monitoring of Twitter?

 

Read More | May 11, 2010
How does Sestak match up against Toomey?

Thanks to Arlen Specter’s collapse, it’s now more than academic to see how Joe Sestak matches up against Pat Toomey in the Pennsylvania Senate rate. So, on to Rasmussen’s poll from the 6th.

 

Read More | May 11, 2010
Specter commits primary suicide

Every single time we’ve been looking at the polls for the Pennsylvania Primary election, Arlen Specter was way ahead of Joe Sestak. Then he commented that he regretted leaving the Republican Party.

Uh oh.

 

Read More | May 10, 2010
Simulating the Senate election via Cook

Building on the work I did on the House races, let’s see what the latest Cook Political Report ratings suggest for the Senate elections in November.

 

Read More | May 10, 2010
Hayworth, Brewer running weak in the General?

Daily Kos and Research 2000 looked back to Arizona. It’s a reasonably comprehensive poll, carpetbombing the general elections for Governor and Senate, as well as looking at the Republican primary for Senate.

Let’s unpack it.

 

Read More | May 7, 2010
A pair of updates from Washington

Dino Rossi is stalling on a decision to enter the Washington Senate race against Patty Murray, but the polls march right on. Two new ones crossed my desk today, one from Rasmussen and another from Elway, and both bring decent to good news for the incumbent.

 

Read More | May 6, 2010
Lynch cruising in New Hampshire

I’m sorry to report that I’m still sick and it’s destroying my productivity. But I can take a minute and mention this University of New Hampshire poll for WMUR on the New Hampshire Governor’s race.

 

Read More | May 5, 2010