Unlikely Voter

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.

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.

It’s slightly old but I know people are interested in this race, so an actual Rasmussen primary poll between Republicans JD Hayworth and John McCain.

McCain leads, but is he doing well?

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.

Rasmussen took a special poll of one particular matchup possibility in the 2012 Presidential race. He looked at Ron Paul against Barack Obama and, surprise, Paul runs very well, trailing the incumbent President 41-42.

How can this be, when Paul was rejected so soundly in the Republican primaries just two years ago? Reading the poll, I’m left to wonder if it was written and paid for by supporters of the Texas Republican.

If the Democrats want to regain a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate they have to win seats in their home turf, and that includes the New Hampshire seat of retiring Senator and Republican Judd Gregg.

Rasmussen carpet bombed this race, which fortunately only has three likely matchups.

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.

Should the Republicans get lucky and take the Senate in November, Patty Murray’s is the kind of seat they will have to win. Washington is friendly territory for Democrats and 2010 should be no exception. However, a poll from late Friday suggests that she may be vulnerable to Dino Rossi and only to the former candidate for Governor.

More confusion is ahead as we look at Rasmussen’s latest treatment of the Colorado Senate race.

If we look at a series of five polls of the Wisconsin Senate matchup between Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat, and former Governor Tommy Thompson, Republican, we find a broad range of results.

On no news can we really expect the race to move 16 points in one week? Some of these have to be wrong, but will we ever know which?

Rasmussen Reports has a new Nevada Senate poll out, and the results are looking terrible for Harry Reid. The Democrat is looking likely to be the second consecutive incumbent floor leader for his party to be voted out of office.

Conventional wisdom says incumbents below 50 are vulnerable. Well, two of the three Republicans running to replace him are now above 50, and the third is at 49.

It’s late; I spent a lot of time preparing my nationwide modeling software, but here’s a quick look at the Arkansas Senate race, per Rasmussen. It’s a mess.