Unlikely Voter

I don’t use the broad categories that some analysts use but if I did it would take a lot for me to move the Pennsylvania Senate race off of “Toss Up”.

Say what you want about Quinnipiac versus Rasmussen, but the latter’s latest doesn’t convince me.

Just as Ohio and Missouri are the top two Republican Senate seats I would predict could flip, Pennsylvania is a top seat held by Democrats I could easily see fall the other way*.

So when Quinnipiac says Joe Sestak tied Pat Toomey again, I’m not surprised a second.

Back in May, I pondered the voter modeling implications of Pennsylvania Governor’s race, noting just how differently Quinnipiac showed the race from some other pollster.

It’s now July though, and Quinnipiac shows effectively no change from back then.

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.

Are we tired of Pennsylvania yet? Of course not! Specifically we now check in on the Governor’s race. Rasmussen has released the first poll since the primary, but I will compare that with the last pre-primary Quinnipiac poll anyway. Tom Corbett and Dan Onorato were obvious likely nominees.

I believe we have as much to learn about Rasmussen’s distinctive modeling as we do about the race itself.

Per Real Clear Politics there were six pollsters who took on the Pennsylvania primary, which Joe Sestak won handily by 8, 54-46 over Arlen Specter.

Let’s see who got it right, and also give credit to a particular pollster where it is due.

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.

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

In my first featured post at Unlikely Voter I illustrated how Marco Rubio went from being far, far behind Charlie Crist in the Republican Primary for the Florida Senate vacancy, to being the overwhelming favorite in the race.

Some wonder if Crist is taking this to heart and weighing and Independent run. Quinnipiac polled that scenario.

Another Senate seat that Republicans would want to take for a shot at the majority is the one currently held by Kirsten Gillibrand, New York Democrat.

However with George Pataki declining to run against her, Democrats seem much more likely to hold the seat, judging by the latest from Quinnipiac.

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.