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.
Republican Pat Toomey has been rather comfortable in the Pennsylvania Senate polling. He hit double digits in the last Rasmussen poll a week ago, and Democrat Joe Sestak hasn’t led a poll since one weird outlier in the middle of May. For PPP to show Sestak up today is definitely surprising, and noteworthy, but it’s possible this is an outlier.
Since Democrat Joe Manchin, West Virginia Governor and Senate candidate, literally shot a copy of the “Cap and Trade” bill that DC Democrats tend to support, it’s been clear that Republican John Raese’s easy days of running against Barack Obama were going to get harder. But the new Orion Strategies poll for Marshall University of the race just isn’t credible.
Later today I will find out what my Senate projection says are the four closest Senate races are, but for now, here are what I think those four currently are, and the latest polling on each: Illinois between Democrat Alexi Giannoulias and Republican Mark Kirk, Nevada between Republican Sharron Angle and Democrat Harry Reid, Washington between Democrat Patty Murray and Republican Dino Rossi, and West | Read More »
Good evening. We have a great deal of new polling that’s flooded in. Much of it is interesting too, so rather than pick and choose which polls I’ll cover in depth and which I will omit, instead I’ll give a quick look at all the good ones. We’ve got Senate races in Nevada, Connecticut, West Virginia, Ohio, New York, Missouri, and Delaware, plus races for | Read More »
The Illinois Senate race keeps going back and forth. Republican Mark Kirk led a while, then Democrat Alexi Giannoulias took it back, but now having won three consecutive polls including PPP’s latest, it seems that Kirk is definitely on top again. It’s so close though that the polling of third party candidates is a serious issue. It may not matter in the end, though.
Along with West Virginia, Wisconsin I wanted to see more polling in. Rasmussen Reports has been the lone voice up there polling again and again, showing these key races competitive while the rest of the polling world passed on by. PPP went there for Daily Kos finally, and now we get that critical second opinion on the races to see if they are as competitive | Read More »
I was going nuts watching West Virginia get almost no polling, even as Rasmussen Reports repeatedly showed the race close. Well I need not pull my hair out any longer, as Public Policy Polling hit the race. And once again, the theory of a Rasmussen “House Effect” for Republicans is called into question.
Last month there was a real shift in the California Senate polling. After the primary Babs Boxer was terribly underperforming her past elections, but she was at least ahead consistently. But starting in August, Carly Fiorina started taking leads. Some say that the new PPP poll is reason to worry, but I don’t. PPP is a generally honest, reliable pollster in my experience, but that | Read More »
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 | Read More »
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.
All the talk in your typical Senate analysis this year has assumed Republican Mike Castle will beat Democrat Chris Coons in the Delaware Senate race, but the fact is there’s still a GOP primary in progress. It’s forgivable to forget about that primary when polling of the primary is scarce, and PPP and Rasmussen hold Coons under 40, but let’s extrapolate from the PPP poll | Read More »
Public Policy Polling jumped out ahead to poll the Alaska Senate race even as Republican Lisa Murkowski tries to drag out her primary defeat at the hands of Joe Miller. PPP also checked up on what might happen if Murkowski somehow were able to dislodge the Libertarian nominee and take that party’s line on the ballot in November.
The Florida primaries are today, but I’m not posting on them today. That way I have time to address – by popular demand* – all the new generic ballot polls, and see where the Swingometer is landing lately. As always, I’m using the trusty Real Clear Politics archives to find the polls. So let’s go.
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