Unlikely Voter

We all expect Donald Trump to get good poll results from Rasmussen Reports. They’ve been giving him good results even when everyone else was showing him far behind. But what if they’re not the only ones now?

Newt Gingrich has now led eleven national straight polls, counting just the latest Gallup tracking, and now covering a span of four weeks. He’s been ahead a month. That’s already four times longer than Herman Cain ever led, and getting close to the span of Rick Perry’s lead, which lasted about five weeks.

But is there any sign of weakness?

I promised last week that Newt Gingrich would get a slot in the next graphic, so here it is. When you finish in second or tied for second in the last two national polls, you’ve earned it.

For the first time in a while though, I can’t really say for sure who’s ahead. I don’t know that the Republicans have a frontrunner right now. Is Herman Cain leading, or Romney? How close is Gingrich? Has Rick Perry faded permanently below the Pauldoza line?

Before the cold that really took me down since Friday (to explain my silence since), we checked in on the pre-debate polling for Herman Cain’s first debate as a major contender.

It turns out that Cain’s momentum had taken him even further ahead of the Tuesday debate, though post-debate polling suggests he took at hit in the national audience.

As always I give the note that any analysis I do of the California Senate race carries an unusual risk of bias because I live here and I have a strong emotional attachment to the outcome.

That said, I’m beginning to notice a pattern in the polling between Democrat Barbara Boxer and Republican Carly Fiorina that suggests serious, late-breaking movement in favor of the Republican. I see it in the way the polls are moving with their methodologies.

It’s crunch time. The lines are being drawn, the late, final strategies are forming, and voting is underway in many places (my own ballot is filled out and ready to mail). Last week all the polls fell into a fairly narrow band and gave Republicans historic gains.

So let’s see if that’s sustained, or if the Democrats are closing it up late.

The directions of the two Republican candidates here in California had been pretty much moving as expected for most of the campaign season. The abortion-friendly Republican Meg Whitman was leading Democrat Jerry Brown, while the abortion opponent Republican Carly Fiorina was falling further behind Democrat Barbara Boxer.

New polling though, such as the latest from Ipsos for Reuters, seems to contradict that.

As I’ve not been shy about saying, I have an emotional attachment to the California Senate race. I live here, I’ve always lived here, and in fact Democrat Barbara Boxer was first elected to the Senate when I was first beginning to follow politics, back when I was 14 years old.

So I knew the television ad campaigns would make or break the race for Republican Carly Fiorina, and sure enough, we’re now seeing a tightening trend in the polling.

It’s technically Tuesday morning early as I write this, but I’m going to use the polls released on Monday, so this will be filed as this Monday’s projection update, as always built with generic ballot polls from Real Clear Politics.

Last week the Republicans fell off from historic gains to a result with a small majority. Let’s see if the trend continues on down or not.

I am at a loss as to how to analyze the polling of the race for Governor in Florida. Of the last four polls at Real Clear Politics, Republican Rick Scott leads according to Rasmussen Reports and Ipsos for Reuters, while Democrat Alex Sink leads acccording to Mason Dixon and CNN/Time.

Two polls concluded on the same day (Rasmussen and Mason Dixon) are not supposed to have a thirteen point swing between them, predicting different winners, but they do. So what’s going on?

Real Clear Politics showed 21 polls yesterday, plus we’re already at 5 today, so I’m grateful that some of them can be done in batches as with this bunch on the Nevada Senate race from Ipsos for Reuters, Rasmussen Reports, and POR for Fox News.

If we color Republican advantages in red, leads for Democrats in blue, and ties in green, then this set is a rainbow of results. Not a full rainbow or a double rainbow though, sorry.

Yesterday we got a pair of polls on the Pennsylvania Senate race, both showing Republican Pat Toomey maintaining what is now a steady lead over Democrat Joe Sestak.

Ipsos for Reuters and Rasmussen show different particulars, but neither overall result is good for Pennsylvania Democrats.

I keep insisting the Ohio Senate race is going to be as drum tight as the Pennsylvania race, but polls like the Ipsos survey for Reuters may force me to re-think that.

Especially when Rob Portman is showing a massive fundraising advantage, a 43-36 lead (MoE 4.3) over Lee Fisher among likely voters is serious news.