Unlikely Voter

On the heels of a Rasmussen poll suggesting Democrats should worry about Senator Barbara Boxer’s re-election chances, comes worse news from Field for the three term incumbent.

The raw numbers: Campbell 44/Boxer 43, Fiorina 44/Boxer 45, DeVore 41/Boxer 45, 3.7% Margin of Error. My model’s win percentages: DeVore 29%, Fiorina 44%, and Campbell 55%.

The California Republican primary race to determine Barbara Boxer’s challenger is getting heated. And while all of us in the state have our biases and preferences, here’s what my cold, hard math says about Rasmussen’s latest poll.

Today I use a poll of a primary race between two Democrats to illustrate my initial model of a horserace election poll. Until the general election season begins in earnest, the primaries are all we have and I intend to use them as a warmup.

I wanted to see how my single-poll model looks when I apply it to the history of a race, and selected the Florida Republican Senate primary between former Speaker Marco Rubio and Governor Charlie Crist.

Rasmussen Reports polled all three likely California Senate matchups of Republicans against Senator Barbara Boxer, but only one candidate’s electability is routinely called into question: Assemblyman Chuck DeVore’s. Just how unelectable is he, according to Rasmussen? This poll serves as a fine example of how my individual poll analysis is going.