Statewide Poll Roundup

Our inboxes over at SSP World Headquarters are just about filled to the tipping point with new polls that have landed on our desks over the past few days. Let’s go through ’em.

CO-Gov (8/14-16): Public Policy Polling takes another look at the Colorado gubernatorial race, and finds Bill Ritter gasping for air. Ex-GOP Rep. Scott McInnis beats Ritter 46-38, and Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry forces a 40-40 split race. Altogether, not much has changed since April. In the GOP primary, McInnis leads Penry by a 36-15 margin.

CO-Sen (8/14-16): PPP also took a glance at the Republican Senate primary, and found potential candidate Bob Beauprez leading Aurora city councilor Ryan Frazier 41-23, with Weld Co. DA Ken Buck straggling along at 15%. Not tested was former state Sen. Tom Weins, who has indicated his interest in the race.

FL-Gov (8/4-5): Public Opinion Strategies is on the loose for the first time in Florida, polling for the pro-Republican Florida Justice Reform Institute. Testing the gubernatorial race, POS says that Bill McCollum is ahead by 48-37 over Democrat Alex Sink. While most pollsters agree that McCollum has the edge, this is his friendliest margin by several points.

GA-Gov (8/18): State Insurance Commish John Oxendine still has a healthy lead in Rasmussen’s latest Georgia poll over his rabid pack of GOP rivals, with 31% to 13% each for Rep. Nathan Deal and SoS Karen Handel. That’s only a very slight dip for Oxendine since last time, but perhaps new evidence of crum-bummery may stall any momentum for Deal.

In the Democratic primary, ex-Gov. Roy Barnes leads state AG Thurbert Baker by a whopping 42-9 margin; state House Minority Leader DuBose Porter is in third with 7%. Rasmussen has consistently shown Baker with a dramatically lower level of support than we’ve seen from other pollsters. (A Strategic Vision poll from a month ago had Barnes up over Baker by only 46-31.) Someone’s way off.

IA-Gov (7/23-26): The Iowa First Foundation, a pro-GOP 527, paid an undisclosed pollster to test the re-election strength of Democratic Gov. Chet Culver. Culver leads every GOP challenger tested by fairly wide margins (though he’s still under 50%)… except for ex-Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, who crushes Culver by 53-34. Republicans seem to feel pretty good about their chances of luring Branstad into the race.

IL-Sen (“early August”): Supposedly, the Alexi Giannoulias campaign will release an internal poll from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner showing their boy leading Republican Mark Kirk by a margin “outside the margin of error of 3%”.

MA-Gov (7/31-8/3): And speaking of incumbents with a lot to worry about, Gov. Deval Patrick looks to be facing a pretty treacherous path to re-election if you believe a recent survey by Opinion Dynamics (R). State Treasurer Tim Cahill, a Democrat-turned-independent, leads Patrick by 27-25, with former Harvard Pilgrim CEO Charlie Baker, a Republican, close behind at 23%. With Christy Mihos as the GOP candidate, the race sits at 29% Cahill, 27% Patrick, and 21% for Mihos.

NV-Gov (8/17-18): Mason-Dixon gins up a number of permutations for the Nevada gubernatorial race. First, the primaries: for the Democrats, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman leads Nevada Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley by 34-25, with Clark Co. Commissioner Rory Reid (son of Harry) lagging behind at a pitiful 13%. In a two-way race against Buckley, Reid trails by 43-22. Regardless of whether or not Goodman runs (and if he does, it seems more likely that he’ll do so as an independent than as a Democrat), this is good news for Democrats, as Reid is by far the weakest candidate of the batch — and I don’t think it’ll be beneficial for pappy for the Reid name to be so over-exposed in 2010.

Against Gibbons, all three Democrats are on top; Goodman romps by 56-29, Buckley by 50-34, and Reid by 47-35. However, the chances of Gibbons being re-nominated are pretty slim. Ex-state AG Brian Sandoval, who recently resigned from the federal bench and is expected to run in the GOP primary, has an early 33-17 lead over Gibbons. With Sandoval at the top of the ticket, Republican fortunes get a big boost; he leads Goodman by 45-38, Buckley by 44-36, and Reid by 49-32.

NV-Sen (8/17-18): In Nevada’s Senate race, Mason-Dixon finds that Harry Reid should be sweating buckets. Though his best challenger, Rep. Dean Heller, has already ruled out a run (Mase-Dix says he would’ve beaten Reid by 50-40), his lesser-known GOP opponents also give him a pounding. Frequent loser Danny Tarkanian (son of former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian) beats Reid by 49-38, and NV GOP Chair Sue Lowden leads by 45-40, pretty much right in line with a pair of recent internal polls released by the camps of Lowden and Tarkanian. Not good.

48 thoughts on “Statewide Poll Roundup”

  1. Oxendine would definitely be the easiest GOP candidate to beat. He is haunted by numerous ethical scandals and just a general sleazy aura that he carries with him.  

  2. if not impossible to imagin these polls 6 months ago. Things are certainly looking up, but we have a Looooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggggggggg ways to go until we even get close to the actual election, so I will be staying reserved.

  3. Those IA numbers are TERRIFYING if Branstad gets in the race.  Wow, those are some f’ing disgusting numbers on our behalf.

    As for NV, Im really happy to see Rory Reid polling that poorly for the Gov race.  I agree with James, having 2 Reid’s at the top of the ballot would be a baaaaaaadddd idea.  

    It’s too bad Gibbons being the nominee probably wont happen, that’d be such a gimme.  And why on earth Harry Reid polling so poorly?  He’s been a Senator for how long, since the 80’s?  He’s had his fair share of tough races but has he always been this unpopular?  Is his unpopularity tied more so to his Senate Majority leader position or just him never being that popular?

  4. If Terry Branstad runs for gov, I think that Chet Culver should challenge Grassley for the senate seat. Some of the comments coming out of Grassley lately about healthcare are simply unacceptable and its time Grassley gets the boot. In addition, Chet Culver would be winning back his father’s old seat.

  5. the Massachusetts gubernatorial election? It certainly isn’t unprecedented for an independent to win a New England statehouse – it happened in Maine and may happen soon in Rhode Island. Has it ever happened before in Massachusetts?

  6. The whole concept of “better Democrats” seems lost on politicians.

    We need to challenge Paterson and Patrick.  Too late for Corzine sadly.  Reid obviously should be primaried too, but more sadly that ain’t gonna happen.

    Our best “recruits” this year ran to Washington instead of run in Arizona, Kansas and Iowa.  But Team Red get their dream (or at least second best) in Nevada and maybe Iowa.

    Just because a stiff is in office doesn’t mean we have to let him (almost always “him”) get crushed just because he is an incumbent.

  7. with slightly different timing. With Volker’s help (i.e. near 20% interest rates), Reagan was blamed for keeping the economy down in ’82.

    With the turn-around already happening in other countries, I’m hopeful we’ll see a turn-around

    with the associated “halo effect”

    in time for the 2010 elections.

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