Unlikely Voter

This is it. Today’s is my final survey of the Generic Ballots. This is the last time this year I’ll ask Swingometer about the 2010 House elections.

Last week Republicans took their second straight week of a 57 seat projected gain. Will they hit 60? Will they fall below the 1994 benchmark instead?

After the primary in Nevada, there was no doubt that Democrat Harry Reid had taken a real lead over Republican Sharron Angle, not when he led six polls in a row, and 10 of 12.

Sharron Angle has now matched that run: She’s won 10 of 12 polls, including the last six.

Now that Nate Silver has declared PPP to have a Republican house effect, all eyes turn to CNN to see what kind of house effect they must have.

Has the whole polling world gone Republican? Why does CNN get the results it does? Jon Ralston and Ed Morrissey have questions.

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.

It’s crunch time. The lines are being drawn, the late, final strategies are forming, and voting is underway in many places (my own ballot is filled out and ready to mail). Last week all the polls fell into a fairly narrow band and gave Republicans historic gains.

So let’s see if that’s sustained, or if the Democrats are closing it up late.

Since Democrat Joe Manchin, West Virginia Governor and Senate candidate, literally shot a copy of the “Cap and Trade” bill that DC Democrats tend to support, it’s been clear that Republican John Raese’s easy days of running against Barack Obama were going to get harder.

But the new Orion Strategies poll for Marshall University of the race just isn’t credible.

I still have the Washington Senate race as one of the four closest, despite Republican Dino Rossi taking a decent lead over Democrat Patty Murray in recent polling. This is why: both candidates have been capable of rattling off good polls, and one new result at any time can come out in favor of either candidate.

October marches on, and so does the House generic ballot polling. Last week Republicans were on the rebound and this week every single generic is showing Republicans back on top, as has not been the case lately.

So let’s see what the damage is.

Good evening. We have a great deal of new polling that’s flooded in. Much of it is interesting too, so rather than pick and choose which polls I’ll cover in depth and which I will omit, instead I’ll give a quick look at all the good ones.

We’ve got Senate races in Nevada, Connecticut, West Virginia, Ohio, New York, Missouri, and Delaware, plus races for Governor in Illinois, Rhode Island, New York, Hawaii, and Florida. I told you it was a lot.

It’s October. The baseball games start to count for more, and in the National League where men are men, and players play on the field, the games become riveting managerial duels. Yes, I know I just lost readers. My Dodgers are home now and I can say what I want.

The polling is also getting more exciting though, as even the Gallup Poll is moving to a Likely Voter model. Let’s see where we are versus last week’s 49 seat Republican gain.

Wisconsin is traditionally the most Progressive state in America. Progressives win there. Progressives have long won there. Progressives have won there even in years when they lost in much of America. Wisconsin even went in for the La Follette-founded Progressive Party, making it a highly successful third party within the state for about a decade.

So I’m just at a loss for words as to how a conservative Republican can lead a progressive Democrat by double figures in the new Rasmussen poll.

It’s technically Tuesday morning early as I write this, but I’m going to use the polls released on Monday, so this will be filed as this Monday’s projection update, as always built with generic ballot polls from Real Clear Politics.

Last week the Republicans fell off from historic gains to a result with a small majority. Let’s see if the trend continues on down or not.

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?