Unlikely Voter

Last June the big shock in the polling world was when Daily Kos dropped Research 2000 as its pollster, and then convincingly demonstrated that Research 2000’s polls were faked. So it’s not surprising that in a settlement now reached, Research 2000 is paying Daily Kos cash installments, despite admitting no wrongdoing.

For months the Cook Political Report has been releasing charts of competitive House races at a rate of about one per week. We’re 16 days into July, though, and the last one to come out was on June 24.

Why is that? Did everyone go on vacation, or is Cook having to re-run every race without Research 2000 polls? I’m not a subscriber, but judging by this Senate update which I’m told is disavowing R2k makes me think.

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?

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.

There are ledes, and there are ledes. This one at Daily Kos literally dropped my jaw:

I have just published a report by three statistics wizards showing, quite convincingly, that the weekly Research 2000 State of the Nation poll we ran the past year and a half was likely bunk.

The report appears to deliver, too.

Daily Kos has dropped Research 2000 as the site pollster going forward, citing Nate Silver’s poor marks for the firm’s results. I’m glad of this.

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.

Research 2000 very much wants you to know that they do polls for newspapers in St. Louis, Lexington, Fort Wayne, South Bend, and Reno. They don’t want you to think of them primarily as doing polls for left-wing activist outlets Daily Kos and now Democracy for America, the group founded to continue the work of former Presidential candidate Howard Dean.

Someone should tell Daily Kos and Nate Silver this though, as they beat the wardrums against R2k competitor Rasmussen Reports, that R2k is trying to look less partisan, not more.

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.

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.

Daily Kos and Research 2000 looked back to Arizona. It’s a reasonably comprehensive poll, carpetbombing the general elections for Governor and Senate, as well as looking at the Republican primary for Senate.

Let’s unpack it.

It’s late in the day but I know this race is drawing plenty of interest, so here goes.

Daily Kos and Research 2000 hit the PA-12 Special Election. This makes two consecutive polls from sources that lean toward the Democrats. But do Republicans have reason to complain?

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.