Unlikely Voter

By request, I’ve decided to take a look at just what kind of electorate the Public Policy Polling screening of Likely Voters seems to be predicting. To do this I will use recent PPP polls from two states: California, which went for Barack Obama heavily, and West Virginia, where Obama’s popularity has never been that hot.

As always I give the note that any analysis I do of the California Senate race carries an unusual risk of bias because I live here and I have a strong emotional attachment to the outcome.

That said, I’m beginning to notice a pattern in the polling between Democrat Barbara Boxer and Republican Carly Fiorina that suggests serious, late-breaking movement in favor of the Republican. I see it in the way the polls are moving with their methodologies.

I’m adding a fifth seat to my four close Senate battleground seats. I’d previously listed West Virginia, Washington, Illinois, and Nevada as the key battleground for the Senate as we approach election day, but it’s increasingly difficult for me to see a difference between Washington and California.

So, the race between Democrat Barbara Boxer and Republican Carly Fiorina joins the list.

The directions of the two Republican candidates here in California had been pretty much moving as expected for most of the campaign season. The abortion-friendly Republican Meg Whitman was leading Democrat Jerry Brown, while the abortion opponent Republican Carly Fiorina was falling further behind Democrat Barbara Boxer.

New polling though, such as the latest from Ipsos for Reuters, seems to contradict that.

As I’ve not been shy about saying, I have an emotional attachment to the California Senate race. I live here, I’ve always lived here, and in fact Democrat Barbara Boxer was first elected to the Senate when I was first beginning to follow politics, back when I was 14 years old.

So I knew the television ad campaigns would make or break the race for Republican Carly Fiorina, and sure enough, we’re now seeing a tightening trend in the polling.

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.

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.

So it’s looking like PPP is the only pollster so bullish for Democrats in California, because we’re back to polling that has the race close with the new result from Fox News.

Democrat Barbara Boxer just had her best poll in nearly two months, as PPP’s newest is showing her eight points ahead of Republican Carly Fiorina in the California Senate race.

August and early September brought several polls with Fiorina ahead, so this new result is a striking change from that period.

Opinion Research polled California, Florida, and Kentucky for CNN and Time. The results seem off from those of other recent polls. Let’s find out why.

Yes, it’s the tiniest of all possible leads, but Republican Carly Fiorina has taken another polling lead over Democrat Barbara Boxer. Up until now we’ve had a discrepancy in the polling, in which SurveyUSA had Fiorina ahead but everyone else had Boxer ahead. I wondered how long that gap would last.

Apparently the answer was “one week.”

We’re seeing a real discrepancy in the California Senate polling. SurveyUSA’s last two results were Republican Carly Fiorina ahead 5 and and now 2, while Rasmussen Reports has had Democrat Barbara Boxer up 5.