Unlikely Voter

Previous polling has shown Republican Chris Dudley to be in good shape in the Oregon race for Governor, so I’ve wondered if Democrat Ron Wyden would show weakness in his re-election campaign in the state.

Rasmussen’s latest suggests it is not the case, as Wyden is ahead more than comfortably right now.

Franklin & Marshall College is back with a new poll of the Pennsylvania races, file courtesy of Real Clear Politics, but I don’t trust the results.

It’s not just that the result seem to shade a bit more to the Republicans than I’m used to seeing, though. It’s that the numbers overall are just so low that it has me wondering.

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.

So 538 moved to the New York Times this morning and in the process made Marco Rubio the favorite finally.

But seriously, my issue with Nate Silver today comes from the old site and specifically, his primary night commentary.

As if the big Swingometer update wasn’t enough, I’m not done projecting the House today. Taking a cue from Patrick Ishmael I’m going to simulate today the elections based not just the latest seat-by-seat Cook Political Report ratings, but also on those of Congressional Quarterly’s, the Swing State Project’s, and Larry Sabato’s.

Swingometer right now says R+52 from 2008. Ishmael right now also says R+52, though from right now and not from 2008. I expect these popular analysts still to be too cautious to project a big Republican win, but let’s find out.

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.