SurveyUSA (9/22-23, likely voters, 10/26-29/2007 in parens):
Tom Allen (D): 39 (38)
Susan Collins (R-inc): 55 (55)
Undecided: 6 (8)
(MoE: ±3.8%)
We’ve all been waiting for something… anything… to happen in this race, and all we’re seeing is a whopping 1-point Allen bounce over the past 10 months. Hard to feel bubbly about this one.
UPDATE: Actually, wait a sec. As andgarden points out in the comments, we’re seeing a classically messed-up youth sample in the crosstabs. Among 18-34 year-olds, Collins has a massive 64%-18% lead over Allen. Again, we’re seeing another SUSA poll with a wildly overstated GOP youth vote. (Just check out the Presidential numbers, where John McNap has a 49-37 lead over Barack Obama among this age bracket, compared to 49-44 for Obama overall.) SUSA really needs to look into this issue.
but I think SUSA got one of its funky samples in Maine this week.
Look at the age figures in the Presidential poll. McCain is supposedly winning 18-34 year olds by 12 points. No, I don’t really believe that.
It would really stink if Allen did lose his own congressional district. But I think he won’t. He sure as heck will not do well in the vast 2nd district (Michaud’s territory).
The poll has Allen winning the youth vote 64-18. If you adjust that number and just give each candidate 50% of the youth vote with no undecides, the race narrows to 52-46 for Collins (all other age groups remaining constant).If you give Allen 60% of the youth vote to Collins’ 40% then the race is 49.5-48 for Collins.
It is pretty clear that this race is MUCH closer than SUSA is polling it at. I will try to check other polling for Maine to see how the youth vote has been distributed in ME in previous polls.
Pollster and 538 have both written pieces in the last week or so suggesting that cell phone users are different than land line users, even when all other demographics are accounted for, and are much more pro-Obama than non-cell phone users. I assume SUSA is not calling cell phones and that this is at least part of their problem.
frankly, i don’t know how one purports to poll 18 year olds without using cell phones. i think that at least among the 18-25 category, owning a land line is rare enough that it severly skews the type of young person who is being polled.
don’t know why this problem would be so specific to SUSA, but it’s a guess..
The cross-tabs may be funky, but there’s no evidence of that tightening in the polls that we were promised after Labor Day. I can only conclude that Tom Allen has run a really sucky campaign.
High on this race throughout but even I’m starting to lose faith.
This poll does have some funky methodology in addition to the youth vote results, there’s only a 1pt. party ID difference although in 06, it was 8 pts. But the overall result seems to be in line with what we’ve seen before.
I think Allen made a mistake in how he ran this campaign. He ran an Obama-like campaign spending a lot of his money building an infrastructure in the other Congressional District. But it was the wrong strategy for this race. He should’ve savaged Collins tying her to Bush at any and every opportunity. Every ad, piece of mailer should’ve had a picture of Collins and Bush,
Hell, even Obama’s numbers aren’t coming in so great up there! So we have New Hampshire and Maine that aren’t impressing me as of late, either with the presidential or the Senate race (although obviously Shaheen is doing better than Allen).
I’ve never been one to think that Collins was going to come down much from her double digits, so I was waiting for the “post-Labor Day-where-Mainers-pay-attention” polls when it would tighten. No ah ah, it ain’t happening. We can’t win them all.
Maine-Sen: Likely Republican / GOP Favored