Unlikely Voter

I only found two polls to look at for the Utah Senate primary between Mike Lee and Tim Bridgewater, but they were pretty far apart from each other.

Let’s see who was closer.

Yup, Joe Sestak and Pat Toomey are tied again, says Public Policy Polling.

The only way I saw Toomey keeping his previous lead was if the Job Offer controversy heated up and implicated Sestak in wrongdoing. It seems clear to me that the whole thing has blown over, and now the electorate has shifted back toward the tie I expect it to be from now to November.

With the election tomorrow, I thought I’d take a look at two recent polls of the Utah Senate primary between Tim Bridgewater and Mike Lee, the top two vote getters in the GOP convention.

Sometimes polls can differ, but this is a huge difference. I’m looking at one poll Dan Jones & Associates conducted for Deseret News and KSL-TV, and another that Wenzel Strategies did for the Senate Conservatives Fund.

Each one shows a different leader.

I always hesitate to analyze the California Senate polling because I have strong feelings about it. I live here. I was engaged in the primary. But this is key to determining how big of a wave, if any, Republicans see in the Senate, so I must try.

I’ve given enough time for both parties to settle down after the primaries, so here’s Rasmussen’s latest. Boxer leads Fiorina, but this is close.

The Elway Poll has updated us on the Washington Senate race. And while the Republicans have yet to decide who will be the standard bearer against Patty Murray, Dino Rossi is getting all the attention.

That said, Elway shows Murray below 50 against all leading Republicans, who each gained 6-8 points against her.

Elections in Nevada give the voter the choice to vote for “None of These” candidates listed. Every poll I see of the Illinois Senate race suggests to me that if Illinois put that option on the ballot, None of These would win.

The next bit of evidence for the pile: PPP’s latest poll of the race.

The latest Washington Poll from the University of Washington is out, and now that the dust has settled around Dino Rossi’s entering the race, he’s still close to incumbent Patty Murray.

In fact, her lead has been cut in half from last time.

I know some pollsters have rushed out to take a look at the primary states immediately after Tuesday’s elections, but we all know that those polls tend to have varying unity bounces. Rick Perry’s took a while in fact.

So I’ll let those races simmer a bit and instead look at Illinois today, as Rasmussen polled the Governor and Senate races.

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.

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.

Before we look at some of today’s primary races, here’s Rasmussen’s from a few days back on the Missouri Senate race.

John McCain barely won the state from Barack Obama, and apparently the Senate race is just as close.

We’re in for the long haul in the Pennsylvania Senate race, because I honestly do expect this one to be in the toss-up range from now to Election Day, but that doesn’t mean we don’t get to check in on the polls obsessively the whole time looking for clues.

Today: Rasmussen updates on the race.

I keep saying that multiway races are volatile. When voters are spread out in more directions, the sums are smaller and it’s easier for big changes to happen.

Suffolk University’s latest on the Nevada Senate primary for the Washington Times seems to be another example of this effect. Sue Lowden has gone from first to last, and Sharron Angle now leads.