Unlikely Voter

Even in a wave election, some members of the losing party stand well in their own local elections. However one key trait of a wave election is that the losing party’s base is so discouraged that they fail to show up.

So if this Rasmussen poll is right, I think the nomination of Scott Walker for Governor by Republicans would depress Democrats in Wisconsin, and hurt Senator Russ Feingold’s re-election chances.

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.

I keep insisting the Ohio Senate race is going to be as drum tight as the Pennsylvania race, but polls like the Ipsos survey for Reuters may force me to re-think that.

Especially when Rob Portman is showing a massive fundraising advantage, a 43-36 lead (MoE 4.3) over Lee Fisher among likely voters is serious news.

In an open and credited aping of the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner House battleground polls, Public Opinion Strategies has conducted a massive Senate battleground poll.

Politico has for us the summary and 150 pages of gory, numerical details. I’m going to see what sense I can make of it.

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?

Another buzzer beater poll to look at: local Republican oriented firm Landmark Communications polled the Georgia runoff primary for Governor between Karen Handel and Nathan Deal.

This time, the advantage goes to deal. Can’t we get any consistency in primary polling this year?

Colorado voters have primaries to attend to today, but PPP has one last primary poll to give us something to look at before the real polls close.

Mason Dixon polled the Georgia Republican primary for Governor for the Georgia Newspaper Partnership, to see who might face Roy Barnes in November.

With the runoff tomorrow, it’s looking good for Karen Handel as she leads Nathan Deal, despite the problems we’ve seen with primary polling this year.

At-Large House races may get a disproportionate amount of attention and polling, but it is what it is. So Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s polling troubles get the whole country’s attention, while a House incumbent in some other state might barely draw notice.

And the South Dakota At-Large Representative is having serious problems. I just don’t see how she can win this.

Carly Fiorina’s support continues in a band of 38-43 in the new Rasmussen poll of the California Senate race, while Barbara Boxer fails to reach 50.

Boxer strikes me as the Democrats’ counterpart to Richard Burr: She really ought to be doing better, but she’s letting her opponent hang around.

The last we looked in at Florida, the primaries seemed to be settling down. The two key races with remaining primaries, two Republicans running for Governor and two Democrats running for Senate, seemed to be showing clear frontrunners.

Well now a pair of polls have come out checking the general election matchups, but in those I’m seeing no clarity, but just a lot of noise and some confusing, close, three-way races.

There’s something to be said for consistency. And no matter who hires Greenberg Quinlan Rosner to gauge the House outlook for Democrats, bad news seems to come back.

That consistency continues with GQR’s poll of “voters,” both likely and not, for Citizen Opinion, H/T to Liberty Central.

Some may recall when I questioned the recent Gallup generic ballot results with sharp language. I caught them passing off a poll of adults, with the shift toward the Democrats that usually entails, as a poll of registered voters. It got national media attention.

It’s clear to me the message was received, because now in the first release after my criticism, the poll has in just two weeks shown a remarkable 9 point swing toward the GOP.