Unlikely Voter

Sharron Angle polled the “worst” against Harry Reid of the three leading Republicans in the Nevada Senate Primary, but she’s maintaining a lead going into the general election.

I let this one simmer for any unity bounces, so let’s take a look at this new poll.

Wow. Just when I thought both Public Policy Polling and Rasmussen Reports were both showing Richard Burr in good shape, Rasmussen shows his lead down to a single point.

What happened?

I’ve been spoiled. After so many primaries, it’s been a while since I had to deal with a big carpet bomb poll of general election possibilities. But today we have another one, as by request I look at Rasmussen’s latest of the Vermont Governor’s race.

Good afternoon, wherever you may be. My apologies for getting today’s poll goodness out late, especially since it’s one I wanted to post yesterday anyway.

But it turns out that, per Rasmussen, the Wisconsin Senate may yet be a race after all, despite the fact that many of us probably tuned it out once Tommy Thompson declined to run.

I always hesitate to analyze the California Senate polling because I have strong feelings about it. I live here. I was engaged in the primary. But this is key to determining how big of a wave, if any, Republicans see in the Senate, so I must try.

I’ve given enough time for both parties to settle down after the primaries, so here’s Rasmussen’s latest. Boxer leads Fiorina, but this is close.

I know many of my readers are interested in the race for Governor in Texas, so let’s check in on Rasmussen’s latest on that race.

The last time we looked in on Maryland, former governor and Republican Bob Ehrlich had taken his 7 point loss to incumbent Democrat Martin O’Malley, and narrowed the deficit to 6 and then to 3 in the polls.

Now it’s all tied up.

South Dakota has only one House seat, so its House elections are full-fledged statewide affairs, and so we get a rare House poll to look at, from Rasmussen Reports.

Maine still has does not have a runoff primary ahead but so Rasmussen took a look at the general election matchup anyway.

In general I’m giving the recently passed races a little more time, and probably next week you’ll see me again talking about California, Nevada, and other states from last week. But not having covered Maine yet, here’s a first look for us.

I’m not the only one who’s been skeptical of Nate Silver’s dogged attacks on Rasmussen Reports, demanding that they open up their secret sauce just because the firm’s results are less favorable to his preferred political party than other pollsters’ results are.

Mark Blumenthal is on the case, esposing what is fundamentally a hypocritical position by Silver and his site, fivethirtyeight.com.

I know some pollsters have rushed out to take a look at the primary states immediately after Tuesday’s elections, but we all know that those polls tend to have varying unity bounces. Rick Perry’s took a while in fact.

So I’ll let those races simmer a bit and instead look at Illinois today, as Rasmussen polled the Governor and Senate races.

I’ve been saying that the results in North Carolina would be a clear decider between the Rasmussen and PPP likely voter models. New polling has made the difference less dramatic, thanks to a Burr surge, but the difference is still there.

Today we have high profile races in South Carolina, Nevada, California, and Arkansas to look back on and see how well the pollsters’ numbers matched the actual results.

As I’m just one person who lacks the luxury of doing this site full time, I’m not ashamed to work off of Real Clear Politics to make these assessments.