Unlikely Voter

Candidates matter. Even in a wave year, some candidates on the losing side will have no trouble. Dianne Feinstein was an example of that in 1994, and Democrat Ron Wyden appears to be one in 2010, as he is comfortable over Republican Jim Huffman in the latest SurveyUSA poll even as that poll and the Riley poll both have Republican Chris Dudley highly competitive for Governor against Democrat John Kitzhaber.

I normally like to let these races rest a week before I start looking into the polling, but thanks to one pollster sitting on a pre-primary poll to drop the bomb after the primary, I thought I’d hit today the actual first post-primary poll of the race between Democrat Chris Coons and Republican Christine O’Donnell.

SurveyUSA polled the North Carolina Senate race for WRAL, and the result is striking. In fact, it’s entirely unlike any other poll I’ve seen of the race between Republican Richard Burr and Democrat Elaine Marshall.

This poll makes Burr’s last big polling jump look small and timid.

Real Clear Politics showed 21 polls yesterday, plus we’re already at 5 today, so I’m grateful that some of them can be done in batches as with this bunch on the Nevada Senate race from Ipsos for Reuters, Rasmussen Reports, and POR for Fox News.

If we color Republican advantages in red, leads for Democrats in blue, and ties in green, then this set is a rainbow of results. Not a full rainbow or a double rainbow though, sorry.

I’m beginning to think that it may be time to scale back my near-obsessive coverage of the Ohio Senate race. It’s been a rollercoaster, but Democrat Lee Fisher has not shown a lead over Republican Rob Portman since June.

The three new polls out, from Rasmussen Reports, SurveyUSA, and Fox News/POR don’t change that, either.

The last time Public Policy Polling hit the Kentucky Senate race, Republican Randal Paul had squandered a huge lead. Democrat Jack Conway had pulled within 7 in the Rasmussen poll back at the end of June, and he was even tied in the PPP poll of Registered Voters.

PPP (this time for Daily Kos) is polling Likely Voters now, and it’s not good news for Conway.

With Christine O’Donnell’s victory tonight in the Republican Senate Primary, my last Senate projection’s hedge of a 50% Republican victory chance is obsolete. O’Donnell is the winner, and now I’m looking at how that number would look with the straight up matchup of her against Democrat Chris Coons.

Quinnipiac has released this month’s poll for the Connecticut Senate race. Now we turn to those who say Rasmussen’s “House Effect” is repsonsible for Democrat Richard Blumenthal’s surprisingly weak leads against Republican Linda McMahon, because Quinnipiac has the race even closer than Rasmussen does.

With the House update done, it’s time to move on to the new Senate update. Last week the pace of Republican gains slowed, as the GOP gained less than a full seat in my projection since I started running it. But the chance of a Republican majority has climbed every time, so let’s see if that still holds.

If this isn’t the most exciting and competitive year for Republican primaries of all time, it has to be close. Ovide Lamontagne had faded far behind Kelly Ayotte in the New Hampshire Senate primary, but he’s been making a comeback. And now Public Policy Polling has him truly competitive.

And to think he looked like spoiler bait once upon a time!

I said twice before that Christine O’Donnell’s big challenge in the Delaware Republican primary for Senate was that she needed to give the voters a reason to vote for her over the popular Mike Castle. For the whole primary season, she’d failed at that.

Judging by the new PPP poll, she’s very recently had great success. She leads.

Much as Richard Burr has underperformed in the view of many, so too is Democrat Richard Blumenthal having more trouble than expected to shake Republican Linda McMahon in the Connecticut Senate race.

And while it is Rasmussen’s second consecutive single-digit gap that inspires this post, Quinnipiac also has it at 10, a long way from the D+41 of January.

Normally when I’m skeptical of a poll it’s because it’s from a firm I don’t trust or because I don’t think its methodology makes it predictive of the actual election.

But here we have Rasmussen Reports polling likely voters, and it’s by far the best poll I’ve seen for Republican Richard Burr in the North Carolina Senate race against Democrat Elaine Marshall.