Unlikely Voter

The Illinois Senate race is already set to be an ugly war, only distinguished from France 1916 by the lack of chemical warfare. Both candidates are hated and have baggage that is not going to go away. Either one can win, though, judging by the polling I’ve seen.

But if Republicans rally around a surging Bill Brady while Pat Quinn polls as poorly as Alexi Giannoulias, then that will only help Mark Kirk, just as I expect in nearby Wisconsin.

Even in a wave election, some members of the losing party stand well in their own local elections. However one key trait of a wave election is that the losing party’s base is so discouraged that they fail to show up.

So if this Rasmussen poll is right, I think the nomination of Scott Walker for Governor by Republicans would depress Democrats in Wisconsin, and hurt Senator Russ Feingold’s re-election chances.

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 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.

In an open and credited aping of the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner House battleground polls, Public Opinion Strategies has conducted a massive Senate battleground poll.

Politico has for us the summary and 150 pages of gory, numerical details. I’m going to see what sense I can make of it.

So we had two major polls going into the Colorado primaries: SurveyUSA and Public Policy Polling were on the line.

How’d they do against the actual results of Ken Buck over Jane Norton 52-48, Dan Maes over Scott McInnis 51-49, and Michael Bennet over Andrew Romanoff 54-46?

Colorado voters have primaries to attend to today, but PPP has one last primary poll to give us something to look at before the real polls close.

At-Large House races may get a disproportionate amount of attention and polling, but it is what it is. So Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s polling troubles get the whole country’s attention, while a House incumbent in some other state might barely draw notice.

And the South Dakota At-Large Representative is having serious problems. I just don’t see how she can win this.

Carly Fiorina’s support continues in a band of 38-43 in the new Rasmussen poll of the California Senate race, while Barbara Boxer fails to reach 50.

Boxer strikes me as the Democrats’ counterpart to Richard Burr: She really ought to be doing better, but she’s letting her opponent hang around.

The last we looked in at Florida, the primaries seemed to be settling down. The two key races with remaining primaries, two Republicans running for Governor and two Democrats running for Senate, seemed to be showing clear frontrunners.

Well now a pair of polls have come out checking the general election matchups, but in those I’m seeing no clarity, but just a lot of noise and some confusing, close, three-way races.

While the Pennsylvania Senate race has lived up to my expectations of volatility (Rasmussen has swing from Pat Toomey +8 to Joe Sestak +4 back to Toomey +6 most recently), the race for Governor has been pretty boring.

No matter how many times this race gets polled, Republican Tom Corbett defies the recent partisan trend of Pennsylvania and consistently leads Democrat Dan Onorato, most recently by 11.

SurveyUSA polled Colorado for KUSA and the Denver Post. There is in fact more going on than the chaos of the Republican primary for Governor.

The Democrats also have primaries going on, and SUSA shows movement there, too.

Florida is a large and aggressively contested state. It, of all states, demands the clarity of traditional horserace polling. We have been denied that opportunity yet, though, because the Republicans still need a candidate for Governor and the Democrats still need a candidate for Senate.

Quinnpiac’s poll suggests we may get answers soon, as late entering political novices Rick Scott and Jeff Greene take leads, showing clear daylight between the candidates in each primary.