Unlikely Voter

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.

I’m beginning to think that it may be time to scale back my near-obsessive coverage of the Ohio Senate race. It’s been a rollercoaster, but Democrat Lee Fisher has not shown a lead over Republican Rob Portman since June.

The three new polls out, from Rasmussen Reports, SurveyUSA, and Fox News/POR don’t change that, either.

For a long while I thought the Ohio Senate seat the one Republican held seat most likely to turn over to the Democrats, but that time is long gone. The numbers have shifted in Ohio. Democrat Lee Fisher hasn’t led Republican Rob Portman in a poll since June. Add in that incumbent Governor Ted Strickland is fading in his re-election bid against Republican John Kasich, and the environment created just might be too negative for Fisher to come back.

According to Rasmussen’s latest, Rob Portman is holding a steady level of support in the Ohio Senate race. However the surge of support that Lee Fisher took after his primary win seems to be receding, which leaves Portman alone on top with a clear lead.

I keep insisting the Ohio Senate race is going to be as drum tight as the Pennsylvania race, but polls like the Ipsos survey for Reuters may force me to re-think that.

Especially when Rob Portman is showing a massive fundraising advantage, a 43-36 lead (MoE 4.3) over Lee Fisher among likely voters is serious news.

Since I tried to tell Rob Portman his business, and suggested he was emphasizing the wrong issues in his campaign, two polls have come out covering the Ohio Senate race. Both by Rasmussen, the late June poll had Portman up 4, and now Rasmussen’s July poll has Portman up 6.

I clearly picked the wrong moment to speak up!

Last week I was all over Rob Portman, explaining my theory for why he was having trouble with Lee Fisher in the Ohio Senate race, and trying to tell him how to run his campaign.

I believe his answer would be that he leads this new Rasmussen.

We have two new polls to look at on the Ohio Senate race, one from Quinnipiac University and the other from Public Policy Polling.

The results are very similar, so I think it’s pretty safe to say that for the moment, Lee Fisher leads Rob Portman, though by a hair.

The University of Cincinnati is very proud of its Ohio Poll branding, and the new version is out. It’s an interesting blend of a poll in that it asks all adults some questions, then filters to likely voters and asks them other questions.

The Ohio Senate race shows an interesting finding, the Nevada Senate race solidifies, and Georgia gets carpet bombed in today’s quick hits.