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.

I theorized before that Pat Quinn would drag down Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois, with a rout for Governor having reverse coattails for Senate, and now Public Policy Polling seems to show the effects I predicted.

A bad candidate for governor in a negative wave year is a terrible situation for a party to have, but that’s the Democrats in Illinois today.

Two major pollsters have announced changes to their methods as we get nearer to election day. Both of these should bring shifts in the polls which may strike us as sudden or dramatic, so be aware.

Just as I make my last post talking about a trend in the Florida Senate polling, Ipsos’ new poll for the St. Petersburg Times shows the opposite result.

[Updated at the bottom at 3PM Pacific Time.]

The Gallup Generic Ballot is a trusted, widely reported resource. I’ve analyzed it extensively, and defended it to others. But yesterday, when I covered the poll’s latest release, Gallup lied. I was lied to, you were lied to, everyone who’s trusted the Gallup name got lied to.

I don’t use the broad categories that some analysts use but if I did it would take a lot for me to move the Pennsylvania Senate race off of “Toss Up”.

Say what you want about Quinnipiac versus Rasmussen, but the latter’s latest doesn’t convince me.

With the help of the Real Clear Politics, here are the last few polls of the Kentucky Senate race. PPP: Randal Paul +1. RR: Paul +25. SUSA: Paul +6. RR: Paul +8, Paul +7. And now we have PPP: Tie.

Why is PPP running so much further toward Jack Conway than the other two pollsters?

Rasmussen polled the Pennsylvania Senate race again, and Pat Toomey still leads.

Can Sestak break through and get another surge like his post-primary unity bounce?

I’ve been saying that the results in North Carolina would be a clear decider between the Rasmussen and PPP likely voter models. New polling has made the difference less dramatic, thanks to a Burr surge, but the difference is still there.

Are we tired of Pennsylvania yet? Of course not! Specifically we now check in on the Governor’s race. Rasmussen has released the first poll since the primary, but I will compare that with the last pre-primary Quinnipiac poll anyway. Tom Corbett and Dan Onorato were obvious likely nominees.

I believe we have as much to learn about Rasmussen’s distinctive modeling as we do about the race itself.

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.

In the North Carolina Senate race we already saw that Rasmussen Reports and Public Policy Polling are showing markedly different figures.

It looks like we’re going to see the same contrast in the Colorado Senate race, as Rasmussen showed Republicans doing well while PPP shows Democrats ahead.

Public Policy Polling updates us on North Carolina and, well, it’s not looking any better for Republican Richard Burr than it did before in PPP’s survey.

In fact, it’s worse, wave year or no.