Unlikely Voter

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.

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.

Despite a rash of independents and party switches in Florida, tomorrow there are still two meaningful primaries at the top of the ticket. For the Democrats, tomorrow they choose between Bill Clinton-backed Kendrick Meek, and wealthy challenger Jeff Greene for a Senate candidate. Republicans have to decide on a candidate for Governor between former Impeachment star Bill McCollum and wealthy challenger Rick Scott.

With one day to go, let’s check where the polls say both races are headed.

In my estimation, Missouri Republicans have underperformed. The state doesn’t strike me as especially friendly to Democrats, and failed to swing for Obama, but Republicans there ought to do better than they have.

I think Roy Blunt may be opening the kind of lead I expect in that state, after months of concern and close polling.

I was discussing the Real Clear Politics ratings of the House with Moe Lane on Sunday, so I thought I might as well run some simulations based on those ratings.

In fact I did these twice: once for my usual scale, and once for Moe’s own probabilities for each category.

In the runup to the Nevada GOP primary, Mason-Dixon and the Las Vegas Review-Journal understated Sharron Angle’s support by 8 points, and cut her 14 point win almost in half to 8.

Now the pair releases their first post-primary poll. Are they gauging Angle’s support accurately this time?

In sports there’s an old saying that I like to quote: “It’s not a rivalry until both sides win.” I’m thinking it’d be wise to extend that to political polling, and say that a race isn’t truly close until both sides have led.

In that case, the Maryland Governor’s race is truly close now.

David Vitter appears to be safe. The latest Rasmussen poll of the Louisiana Senate Race has been sitting here for days on my computer, but I just hadn’t gotten around to posting it because it doesn’t appear to be a competitive race.

But let’s get it over with.

I need to make more direct links to Real Clear Politics. I rely on them heavily for their poll aggregation. I just load up the Recent Polls page and I get post ideas all the time.

So here’s a direct link: RCP points out that in the latest Rasmussen poll of the Kentucky Senate Race, there really isn’t any change. The race is stable, with Randal Paul on top.

Via Real Clear Politics we see that Magellan Strategies polled the Arizona Senate Primary.

It’s looking very good for John McCain, and JD Hayworth needs a lifeline, quickly.

(It’d help if I get the state name right, wouldn’t it?)

Via Real Clear Politics we now turn to this Magellan Strategies poll of the New Mexico Governor’s race. New Mexico is a swingy state, capable of going with either party for Senate, Governor, or President, that swung sharply against Republicans in recent years.

But right now the race for Governor is nearly even.

We’re less than a week away from primary election day in Pennsylvania, so let’s take a look at the latest polling news from the House Special election to replace Jack Murtha, the Senate primary for Arlen Specter’s seat, and a surprisingly interesting House race.

I found today’s polls to be dull, so I wanted to do something I found fun and maybe even interesting this morning. I wrote a simple, very crude simulator to project the Senate results based on the Real Clear Politics race categories. RCP rates races Safe, Likely, or Leaning for one party or the other unless it’s a Toss Up.

Here’s what I found.