Unlikely Voter

Here are a couple of quick hits of races we’ve covered recently: The Republican primary for the New Hampshire Senate race, and California general election for Governor.

Do southerners do well in Presidential elections? Two of the last three Democrats to win were southern Governors, and the last two Republicans to win were Texans. That’s all some need to pencil in Rick Perry, two and a half term successor to George W. Bush, as a likely Republican nominee in 2012.

The latest from Rasmussen suggests his run for a third full term won’t be easy, though. The White vote could be an issue.

I don’t really think any of the newest polls I’m finding are particularly interesting, so I’ll just mention them all quickly and move on to something that hopefully is interesting.

Here are a few polls that came out from later Friday to today that I don’t think deserve a full work-up, but are worth mentioning at least.

USC and the LA Times polled some of the major California statewide races. The results, provided by pollsters Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and American Viewpoint, seem generally in line with what we’ve seen so far: Campbell and Fiorina are in a close primary race, lagged by DeVore. Boxer can’t reach 50. Whitman cruises in the primary.

The big news to my eye is that Jerry Brown has fallen behind.

Rasmussen Reports has a new one on the Ohio Governor’s race. Kasich 46, Strickland 45, MoE 4.5. 54% chance Kasich is ahead according to my model, down from the 80s a couple of weeks ago.

This is more consistent with the previous trend and seems to confirm the RealClearPolitics theory that Quinnipiac has a few points of bias toward the Democrats in Ohio polling.

Quinnipiac University released a new poll on the Ohio Governor’s race that has caused a stir. It shows Governor Ted Strickland, Democrat, ahead of former Congressman John Kasich, Republican, while previous polling showed the reverse.

The swing is large at first glance. Should Ohio Democrats be excited? Should Ohio Republicans panic? Let’s unpack this.