Unlikely Voter

While the Pennsylvania Senate race has lived up to my expectations of volatility (Rasmussen has swing from Pat Toomey +8 to Joe Sestak +4 back to Toomey +6 most recently), the race for Governor has been pretty boring.

No matter how many times this race gets polled, Republican Tom Corbett defies the recent partisan trend of Pennsylvania and consistently leads Democrat Dan Onorato, most recently by 11.

SurveyUSA polled Colorado for KUSA and the Denver Post. There is in fact more going on than the chaos of the Republican primary for Governor.

The Democrats also have primaries going on, and SUSA shows movement there, too.

After an exciting and unpredictable (thought not often in a good way) primary season, it seems that Nikki Haley has reason to relax some.

Not that she can quit campaigning, but a large lead over Vincent Sheheen makes it clear that the earlier nastiness has long been put to bed in South Carolina.

I’ve been staring slack-jawed so long at Russ Feingold’s surprising difficulties in Wisconsin, that I completely neglected to see that there’s a close race for Governor going on in that state, too.

Wisconsin has long been the state most friendly to progressives in America. Could Republicans win the top two statewide races there, without the benefit of an anomaly like the Paul Wellstone funeral?

Florida is a large and aggressively contested state. It, of all states, demands the clarity of traditional horserace polling. We have been denied that opportunity yet, though, because the Republicans still need a candidate for Governor and the Democrats still need a candidate for Senate.

Quinnpiac’s poll suggests we may get answers soon, as late entering political novices Rick Scott and Jeff Greene take leads, showing clear daylight between the candidates in each primary.

I was discussing the Real Clear Politics ratings of the House with Moe Lane on Sunday, so I thought I might as well run some simulations based on those ratings.

In fact I did these twice: once for my usual scale, and once for Moe’s own probabilities for each category.

When Ron Johnson showed a lead over Russ Feingold in the Wisconsin Senate polling, it could have been a fluky outlier result. The incumbent Democrat could still have been safe.

Rasmussen again has Johnson ahead, though, so that theory is ruled out. The lead is tiny, but looks real.

Opinion Dynamics did a generic ballot poll for Fox News, so we welcome Fox to the Swingometer today. Also polled is the President’s performance on the issues.

I see on the issue of “Race Relations” Barack Obama has +16 net approval at 50/34. I wonder if that will change after his statements on The View yesterday.

I’ve seen a few Republicans express serious doubts about Carly Fiorina after the latest California Senate poll from Public Policy Polling, but I think close inspection of that poll should give one pause before putting too much weight on its results.

Besides, the other new poll, from the Public Policy Institute of California, deep down is as bad for Barbara Boxer as the Republicans could ever hope for.

Up and down, up and down, that’s the story of Richard Burr’s fight against challenger Elaine Marshall. I’m sure he’s much happier to lead than to trail but when he keeps hanging in the mid-40s, and Marshall keeps hanging around in the upper 30s, he’s in a position where he could be knocked off.

Civitas has a new poll out and the story still hasn’t changed.

The big, scary to Republicans headline over at Hotline is Ayotte’s Unfavorable Ratings Rising in UNH Poll.

I’m sure it’s true, but that’s what happens in contested primaries such as the one right now for Republicans in the New Hampshire Senate race. Right now, Bill Binnie’s fans don’t like Kelly Ayotte much, her fans don’t like him much.

We’re now at three polls in a row, counting the new Rasmussen, that show Chris Dudley ahead of John Kitzhaber in Oregon.

Even without a third party candidate mucking up the poll, the Democrat just can’t pull ahead.

Today is apparently the day for House races, because we have another one to look into: the North Dakota at-large race.

We’ve looked at this race before, and it wasn’t promising for incumbent Democrat Earl Pomeroy, but right now he seems to be closing into Republican challenger Rick Berg.