Unlikely Voter

All the talk in your typical Senate analysis this year has assumed Republican Mike Castle will beat Democrat Chris Coons in the Delaware Senate race, but the fact is there’s still a GOP primary in progress.

It’s forgivable to forget about that primary when polling of the primary is scarce, and PPP and Rasmussen hold Coons under 40, but let’s extrapolate from the PPP poll to the primary.

It seems like most of the third party and independent spoilers this year are harming Democrats, but the Constitution Party’s Tom Tancredo is clearly hurting Republican Dan Maes in the Colorado Governor’s race, currently throwing the lead to Democrat John Hickenlooper.

But two new polls on that race, from Magellan Strategies via Real Clear Politics and Rasmussen Reports are so different that I think we need to see why that is.

I know the whole world has discussed this poll to death already, but I think it deserves mentioning. In fact I would have yesterday but Gallup got in the way.

But here it is: Rasmussen suddenly shows Republican John Raese competitive with Democrat Joe Manchin in the West Virginia Senate race.

I’ve had my ups and downs with Gallup (one might say the relationship is like the plot of the Gallup generic ballot itself!), but since they’ve been solidly running registered voter surveys again, the numbers have looked reasonable.

But now they’re shocking us from the other direction by showing the Republicans having their largest ever lead in the generic ballot survey, showing a larger edge than even today’s Rasmussen’s GOP +6 (notwithstanding the alleged House Effect of the latter).

There was a time when I thought about Nikki Haley’s campaign for governor every day. I’d scramble to find whatever polling I could get my hands on and read the news to try to explain any trends I might be seeing in the polls.

Now, though, the South Carolina Governor’s race joins that of Republican Brian Sandoval’s in Nevada as non-competitive barring a major event (or for Haley, another dirty trick).

When Sharron Angle came out of the Republican primary in Nevada, oddly enough she was vulnerable. She got no unity bounce, instead taking a stream of attacks from Republicans nationwide. As a result, Harry Reid went on the air for the knockout.

He didn’t get it. Even the new Mason Dixon/LVRJ poll has stabilized.

Previous polling has shown Republican Chris Dudley to be in good shape in the Oregon race for Governor, so I’ve wondered if Democrat Ron Wyden would show weakness in his re-election campaign in the state.

Rasmussen’s latest suggests it is not the case, as Wyden is ahead more than comfortably right now.

Franklin & Marshall College is back with a new poll of the Pennsylvania races, file courtesy of Real Clear Politics, but I don’t trust the results.

It’s not just that the result seem to shade a bit more to the Republicans than I’m used to seeing, though. It’s that the numbers overall are just so low that it has me wondering.

Rasmussen Reports has two new polls out: one on the race for Governor between Democrat Jerry Brown and Republican Meg Whitman, and the other on the Senate race between Democrat Barbara Boxer and Republican Carly Fiorina.

I don’t think the results they show are compatible. If one is right, I think the other is wrong.

The new Rasmussen Reports poll of Missouri suggests that with the clarity brought by the primaries, support is coalescing around Roy Blunt, and he appears to be running away from Robin Carnahan in the Senate race.

To think I once considered this seat a toss up, too.

So 538 moved to the New York Times this morning and in the process made Marco Rubio the favorite finally.

But seriously, my issue with Nate Silver today comes from the old site and specifically, his primary night commentary.

The Florida primaries are today, but I’m not posting on them today. That way I have time to address – by popular demand* – all the new generic ballot polls, and see where the Swingometer is landing lately.

As always, I’m using the trusty Real Clear Politics archives to find the polls. So let’s go.

Some Senate seats I’ll worry about all the way to November, but today when I looked at the list of new polls out, I got a flood of races I’m pretty comfortable calling for the Republican, barring any new news of course.