Unlikely Voter

Having attended a speech of Nikki Haley’s in Atlanta last year, her run for Governor of South Carolina is one I’ve followed. Living here, I’ve also watched the California Senate race. Both situations seemed to be stable: Haley was stuck in fourth, while in California Tom Campbell was staying ahead of second place Carly Fiorina.

Then Sarah Palin intervened, and both Haley and Fiorina shot into first place in new polls. Now we have confirmation of both events. Sarah Palin carries respect in the Republican Party.

In the North Carolina Senate race we already saw that Rasmussen Reports and Public Policy Polling are showing markedly different figures.

It looks like we’re going to see the same contrast in the Colorado Senate race, as Rasmussen showed Republicans doing well while PPP shows Democrats ahead.

One more day until the big primary election in Pennsylvania, and two big races to watch. Who replaces Jack Murtha? Who faces Pat Toomey in November?

Let’s dig in.

I have an exciting new iPhone® app in progress. In fact, I’m so excited about it that I could hardly sleep last night, and worked way too much on the iPhone Swingometer instead.

So perhaps the lack of sleep is the reason I’m drawing a total blank on how to jazz up PPP’s latest on the Republican side of the Kentucky Senate Primary.

Public Policy Polling updates us on North Carolina and, well, it’s not looking any better for Republican Richard Burr than it did before in PPP’s survey.

In fact, it’s worse, wave year or no.

We’ve already seen that Republicans are in fair shape in the New Hampshire Senate race, but it appears that the state could also return to its historical norm of sending Republicans to the House, according to the latest from PPP.

One race: North Carolina Senate general between Republican Richard Burr and prospective Democrats Cal Cunningham and Elaine Marshall. Two polls: Public Policy Polling and Rasmussen Reports. Two markedly different results: Rasmussen shows Burr nearly 10 points higher than PPP does.

What’s going on?

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.

Public Policy Polling looked into the special election in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District, the seat vacated by the late Jack Murtha.

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.

Yesterday we looked at a poll from Public Policy Polling, but today we have a new poll from Quinnipiac University.

Amusingly enough, while we’ve seen Quinnipiac overcount Democrats in Ohio, their results for Specter and Sestak come in just under PPP’s findings.

Yesterday Public Policy Polling came out with fresh results for the Pennsylvania Senate race. Unfortunately they didn’t poll the primary race between incumbent Democrat Arlen Specter and challenger Joe Sestak, it turns out not to matter much just yet.

Pat Toomey, Republican challenger, leads both men at this point.