Unlikely Voter

Yesterday Public Policy Polling came out with fresh results for the Pennsylvania Senate race. Unfortunately they didn’t poll the primary race between incumbent Democrat Arlen Specter and challenger Joe Sestak, it turns out not to matter much just yet.

Pat Toomey, Republican challenger, leads both men at this point.

If we look at a series of five polls of the Wisconsin Senate matchup between Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat, and former Governor Tommy Thompson, Republican, we find a broad range of results.

On no news can we really expect the race to move 16 points in one week? Some of these have to be wrong, but will we ever know which?

Rasmussen Reports has a new Nevada Senate poll out, and the results are looking terrible for Harry Reid. The Democrat is looking likely to be the second consecutive incumbent floor leader for his party to be voted out of office.

Conventional wisdom says incumbents below 50 are vulnerable. Well, two of the three Republicans running to replace him are now above 50, and the third is at 49.

USC and the LA Times polled some of the major California statewide races. The results, provided by pollsters Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and American Viewpoint, seem generally in line with what we’ve seen so far: Campbell and Fiorina are in a close primary race, lagged by DeVore. Boxer can’t reach 50. Whitman cruises in the primary.

The big news to my eye is that Jerry Brown has fallen behind.

It’s late; I spent a lot of time preparing my nationwide modeling software, but here’s a quick look at the Arkansas Senate race, per Rasmussen. It’s a mess.

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.