Unlikely Voter

Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst wants to be the next Senator from Texas. All he should have to do is win the Republican primary. The last Democrats to represent Texas in each Senate class were Lloyd Bentsen and Lyndon Johnson.

It’s looking good for him too, but not as good as it could be.

It’s that time again, when we start looking at the Congressional elections of this cycle. The House is a mess to project thanks to redistricting, so let’s start with the Senate this year.

It’s early though, so I’m calling my initial projection a “naive” projection, because I don’t know who the candidates are going to be, not yet.

I know I’m a week late to this; I had a busy two weeks there and am only now catching up this week. I do believe this poll is worth a mention anyway, though. But the Club for Growth polled Republicans in Indiana, the site of arguably the biggest TEA party primary loss in 2010, on their choice for Senator in 2012.

The conventional wisdom has always been that incumbents under 50 are vulnerable. But what do they say about incumbents under 40?

While I do find it amusing that the final Fox poll and the final PPP poll of Washington favor the opposite of what their respective biases are supposed to suggest (Fox shows Murray +2 and PPP shows Rossi +2), today I am content to wait for returns and find what I can in them.

Because starting tomorrow the offseason work begins.

And with my final survey of the House Generic polling done, it’s time to make my final survey of the Senate polling this year, now that it’s already election eve.

Last week the range of possibilities seemed to narrow. I expect that to continue, but let’s see.

After the primary in Nevada, there was no doubt that Democrat Harry Reid had taken a real lead over Republican Sharron Angle, not when he led six polls in a row, and 10 of 12.

Sharron Angle has now matched that run: She’s won 10 of 12 polls, including the last six.

Continuing Politico’s apparent strategy of linking to obscure polls that say bad things about Republicans for shock and traffic value in this wave year, the site now reports Joe Miller to be in last place.

For several reasons, one has to discount this poll’s predictiveness of the coming election.

By request, I’ve decided to take a look at just what kind of electorate the Public Policy Polling screening of Likely Voters seems to be predicting. To do this I will use recent PPP polls from two states: California, which went for Barack Obama heavily, and West Virginia, where Obama’s popularity has never been that hot.

Candidates are running out of time to make moves this year. Last week the Republicans stayed just on the edge of gaining seven seats, though I thought some of that was due to some freak polls.

We’ll see now just how freaky they were.

For some time there the polling in the Connecticut Senate race was rather unstable. We were seeing polls with huge swings apart from each other every few days. I really had no clear path for evaluating it than to average the two and give Democrat Richard Blumenthal a medium lead over Republican Linda McMahon.

But including the new Rasmussen we’ve now seen four good polls in a row for Blumenthal. The race appears to be settling.

As always I give the note that any analysis I do of the California Senate race carries an unusual risk of bias because I live here and I have a strong emotional attachment to the outcome.

That said, I’m beginning to notice a pattern in the polling between Democrat Barbara Boxer and Republican Carly Fiorina that suggests serious, late-breaking movement in favor of the Republican. I see it in the way the polls are moving with their methodologies.

The last time Quinnipiac Uniersity covered the Pennsylvania Senate race, the result was right in the middle of the pack, and inline with every poll from mid-July to early October: a seven point lead for Republican Pat Toomey over Democrat Joe Sestak.

But now, just as PPP came out with its shocking Sestak lead, Q says the race is close.

I’m adding a fifth seat to my four close Senate battleground seats. I’d previously listed West Virginia, Washington, Illinois, and Nevada as the key battleground for the Senate as we approach election day, but it’s increasingly difficult for me to see a difference between Washington and California.

So, the race between Democrat Barbara Boxer and Republican Carly Fiorina joins the list.