Unlikely Voter

The Illinois Senate race keeps going back and forth. Republican Mark Kirk led a while, then Democrat Alexi Giannoulias took it back, but now having won three consecutive polls including PPP’s latest, it seems that Kirk is definitely on top again.

It’s so close though that the polling of third party candidates is a serious issue. It may not matter in the end, though.

I clearly remember the time when Democrat Richard Blumenthal’s military record became a national story. As surprising to some as the story it self was, it was noteworthy that the polls barely budged at the uproar. Blumenthal maintained massive leads against all the Republican prospects.

My how things have changed in that Connecticut Senate race since Republican Linda McMahon won the nomination.

Democrat Patty Murray had a great week earlier this month. The Elway Poll and the CNN/Time poll both coming in and giving her nine point leads over Republican Dino Rossi changed some feelings about the race.

But SurveyUSA already came in since to show the race closing, and now Fox News/POR coming in similarly, it’s pretty easy to say the race is close to a tie now.

Some states get seven or eight polls of their Senate races. West Virginia has had two: Public Policy Polling and Rasmussen Reports. And honestly it seems that we were lucky to get PPP to jump in there.

But now that Rasmussen’s latest is out, it’s official: Republican John Raese leads all the current polling over Democrat Joe Manchin.

Any political party must work as a team to win. While the primary process will become at times a competitive and even divisive, any inability to set those feelings aside and back the nominee will give the party trouble.

A few Republicans this cycle know what kind of trouble that is, but none has more than Dan Maes against Democrat John Hickenlooper for Colorado Governor. He got opposition from the national party, and he’s collapsed in the polls.

With the House update done, it’s time to move on to the new Senate update. Last week the pace of Republican gains were still stuck as the party was pushed way back into six seat territory, and the chance of a majority change teetered at 1%. Will that chance fall off the map entirely? Let’s find out.

This new poll of the California races by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and American Viewpoint for USC and the LA Times has been discussed from one side of the Internet to the other, and back again.

But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I let it go without chiming in, now would I? Of course not. So let’s dig in.

The last SurveyUSA poll of the Kentucky Senate race showed Republican Randal Paul running away with it from Democrat Jack Conway. However the new one tells a completely different story in its top line.

When two polls by the same firm of the same race differ by that much, there has to be a story behind the story. Fortunately SurveyUSA’s detailed public reports make it easy to dig in and find what that story is.

I am at a loss as to how to analyze the polling of the race for Governor in Florida. Of the last four polls at Real Clear Politics, Republican Rick Scott leads according to Rasmussen Reports and Ipsos for Reuters, while Democrat Alex Sink leads acccording to Mason Dixon and CNN/Time.

Two polls concluded on the same day (Rasmussen and Mason Dixon) are not supposed to have a thirteen point swing between them, predicting different winners, but they do. So what’s going on?

We’ve already been seeing a slight move toward Democrat Barbara Boxer in the California Senate polling, down from Republican Carly Fiorina’s highs of taking a few leads.

But the new Field Poll release isn’t really new, and really only highlights again how Fiorina has a better chance to win than any California Republican Senate candidate since Pete Wilson.

Carly Fiorina trailed the Republican primary most of the way after Tom Campbell entered. But in the end she got the right endorsements and spent the money it took to get her message out and win.

She’s now going on the air against Democrat Barbara Boxer, a move I think is important because her deficit in SurveyUSA’s new poll is a bit larger than I think it needs to be for her to hang around and win in the end.

A flood of new polls about New York Senate races came out today. Chuck Schumer still looks safe, but the polling is variable on the special election between Republican Joe DioGuardi and Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand.

We’re now beyond the idea that only one poll, one time showed the special election to be competitive. Polls showing a Gillibrand blowout are now the minority.

Being just one man trying to cover 435 House races, 37 Senate races, a few dozen more states electing Governors, plus some of the technical and mathematical aspects of polling, I tend not to post on races that aren’t competitive.

So it’s surprising to me that I now have not one, but two New York polls to discuss today: Quinnipiac on the Governor’s race and Rasmussen on the Senate special election.