Unlikely Voter

Today we have high profile races in South Carolina, Nevada, California, and Arkansas to look back on and see how well the pollsters’ numbers matched the actual results.

As I’m just one person who lacks the luxury of doing this site full time, I’m not ashamed to work off of Real Clear Politics to make these assessments.

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.

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.

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.

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.