Unlikely Voter

Some have expected Republican Randal Paul to fall in the polls against Democrat Jack Conway since accusations emerged that he would have opposed the original Civil Rights Act. SurveyUSA’s poll for the Louisville Courier-Journal and WHAS seems to confirm that expectation.

Up until now, Kelly Ayotte has been leading the Republican primary for Senate in New Hampshire by enough that I haven’t paid a whole lot of attention to her opponents.

But if Magellan Strategies is right in its latest poll, that’s changing.

The University of Cincinnati is very proud of its Ohio Poll branding, and the new version is out. It’s an interesting blend of a poll in that it asks all adults some questions, then filters to likely voters and asks them other questions.

Having attended a speech of Nikki Haley’s in Atlanta last year, her run for Governor of South Carolina is one I’ve followed. Living here, I’ve also watched the California Senate race. Both situations seemed to be stable: Haley was stuck in fourth, while in California Tom Campbell was staying ahead of second place Carly Fiorina.

Then Sarah Palin intervened, and both Haley and Fiorina shot into first place in new polls. Now we have confirmation of both events. Sarah Palin carries respect in the Republican Party.

Yesterday the word came down that Dino Rossi is in fact entering the Senate race against Patty Murray in Washington. Additionally, we have a University of Washington poll for May on the race that also came out the same day.

Let’s see how he’s starting out.

Two polls on the California Senate Republican primary caught my attention today. I’ve been holding off posting on this race with my poll analysis hat on, because I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to be even handed enough.

But these two polls, coming as they are 15 days before election day, are interesting enough that I have to try. They could hardly be more different.

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.

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.

One more day until the big primary election in Pennsylvania, and two big races to watch. Who replaces Jack Murtha? Who faces Pat Toomey in November?

Let’s dig in.

I have an exciting new iPhone® app in progress. In fact, I’m so excited about it that I could hardly sleep last night, and worked way too much on the iPhone Swingometer instead.

So perhaps the lack of sleep is the reason I’m drawing a total blank on how to jazz up PPP’s latest on the Republican side of the Kentucky Senate Primary.

In Rasmussen’s latest peek in to the New Hampshire Senate race we little movement in May.

Republicans think they can knock off another majority leader in Harry Reid. Erick Erickson thinks Danny Tarkanian is the best man to put in that seat. Are Nevada Republicans following along?