WA-Sen: Murray Leads Rossi By 9

Elway Poll (9/9-12, likely voters, 6/9-13 in parens):

Patty Murray (D-inc): 50 (47)

Dino Rossi (R): 41 (40)

Undecided: 9 (13)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

I’d actually spent some time wondering this weekend when Elway was ever going to get around to polling the Washington Senate race again. (Hmmm. Maybe I need to have more exciting weekends.) Lo and behold, they have done so, and the results have to be pretty heartening to Democrats, who’ve probably been worried about this race in view of seeing Dino Rossi with small leads according to the latest SurveyUSA and Rasmussen offerings.

So who are these Elway clowns who dare challenge the conventional wisdom, the non-Washingtonians among you may be asking? They have probably the longest and most solid reputation among local pollsters, and more importantly, a track record of being right before it’s fashionable to do so. For instance, at this point two years ago in mid-September of 2008, when Rasmussen was giving Dino Rossi a 52-46 lead over Chris Gregoire and SurveyUSA a 48-47 Rossi lead, Elway was seeing a 48-44 advantage for Gregoire. (Gregoire went on to win by 6.)

Elway finds that Murray leads 61-30 in the Democratic stronghold of King County, pretty consistent with her 59% performance in the Top 2 primary… and pretty inconsistent with SurveyUSA’s odd finding that Murray and Rossi were tied in the Seattle metro area (although they may have meant that descriptor to include Pierce and Snohomish Counties as well).

87 thoughts on “WA-Sen: Murray Leads Rossi By 9”

  2. Of course, they make mistakes too, but I’d trust them in WA State over anyone else (like Field in CA, Hibbits in OR, Siena in NY, etc.)

  5. So if their findings conflict with Survey USA’s, I’ll take their poll over SUSA’s f**ked up junk any day. And if Razzy also shows movement toward Murray in their next poll, I’ll move WA-Sen from “Tossup/Tilt D” to “Leans D” in my rankings.

    While we still can NOT take this race for granted, it’s heartening to see Murray bounce back from the brink. 🙂

  7. I didn’t really see a reason why Murray was vulnerable, other than it was a good year for us, but that is counteracted by the Democratic lean of Washington state at both the national and local level.  While Rossi is a good candidate, he did perform worse than expected in 2008.  

    I had this race at Lean D (while many had it as Tossup) and I had this race below WI, CO, NV and CA.  This only confirms that for me.  I even think that CT and WV might surpass WA as targets by election day.

  8. The fact that a DSCC internal shows this much closer in addition to SUSA and Rasmussen (YEah I know), I have trouble believing this poll. I think this race is very close to what the DSCC poll shows.  

  9. Isn’t a bad pollster at all. They are usually actually very accurate. They seem to come up with results much more in line with the rest of the pack than SUSA does. Rass is right wing, but I’ve never thought he wasn’t one of the more accurate and prolific pollsters.

    I guess I just don’t get the dislike of Rasmussen.

  10. You are correct that Elway was the only pollster to give Gregoire a lead in early September 2008, but their final poll of the race had her winning by 12, 51-39. SUSA had Gregoire by 6 in their final poll, and Rasmussen had her up 2. Furthermore, those early September polls were taken during the best period of the ’08 cycle for Republicans–after the convention but before the market meltdown. That very same week, as a matter of fact, was the only week that McCain led Obama after April according to the Pollster.com chart. So it’s very likely that Rossi had a small lead during that time as SUSA and Ras said, and that like all Democrats, Gregoire surged from late September onwards.

    Overall, Elway looked like the outlier in ’08. They were off by D+6 in the final poll, while Ras and UW were both R+4 and SUSA nailed it perfectly. I’m willing to concede that Murray leads this race, but I think that Elway has a Democratic house effect and Rossi is within 4 points of her.

  11. are simply telling us that democrats are starting to coalesce once again(coming home to the party);and hopefully the republicans keep nominating known losers like dino rossi

  12. At this point, whether or not Castle comes out of his primary, the conventional logic that the Delaware race is Safe R or Likely R seems to be shot.  With Washington numbers like this, I’m finding it hard to believe that Rossi can seal the deal anymore.  The only other polling from this race is Rasmussen, and Rossi’s never been a clear winner in his polls either.

    Republican control of the Senate would need ND AR DE IN PA IL CO plus 3 of CA WA WI NV or WV.  Pennsylvania’s still a race Sestak can win, Illinois is just a mess for both sides, and Colorado is plain messy.  Republicans haven’t led in any of the latter 5 except in Rasmussen polling (although I could easily have missed a few), and with WA and NV trending the other way, it’s really hard to imagine pickups in the other 3.  

Comments are closed.