Last Round of Hill House Polls

Here’s the last batch of 10 of the Hill House polls by Penn Schoen Berland. The sample periods were a mix of Oct. 16-19 and Oct. 19-21, with each sample with a 4.9% MoE. With previous rounds focusing on freshmen, open seats, and sophomores, this one deals with some of the most endangered veterans:

• CO-03: John Salazar (D-inc) 43%, Scott Tipton (R) 47%

• FL-02: Allen Boyd (D-inc) 38%, Steve Southerland 50%

• GA-08: Jim Marshall (D-inc) 37%, Austin Scott 50%

• IN-09: Baron Hill (D-inc) 46%, Todd Young (R) 44%

• IA-03: Leonard Boswell (D-inc) 49%, Brad Zaun (R) 37%

• ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy (D-inc) 45%, Rick Berg (R) 44%

• PA-11: Paul Kanjorski (D-inc) 43%, Lou Barletta (R) 48%

• SC-05: John Spratt (D-inc) 39%, Mick Mulvaney (R) 49%

• SD-AL: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-inc) 45%, Kristi Noem (R) 42%

• TX-17: Chet Edwards (D-inc) 40%, Bill Flores (R) 52%

So, 4 out of 10 isn’t bad, considering the crowd we’re looking at here (including the DOA-for-months Chet Edwards and Allen Boyd). Especially noteworthy is IA-03… who would have thought, even a few months ago, that chronically underperforming Leonard Boswell would be well on his way to re-election and possibly even not the most endangered Iowa Dem?

What’s the overall damage? 31 of the total 42 Hill polls had Republicans in the lead, 4 ties, and 7 Dem leads. (Remember, 2 of those were GOP-held seats.) Mark Penn’s take on what that means overall (remember, we’re talking Mark Penn here, so take with salt as necessary):

“We didn’t even poll in about 15 districts that are already too far gone for Democrats. So that, along with our entire series of polls, points to something in the range of a 50-seat gain for Republicans.”

(I’m wondering what 15 he’s talking about? Considering that they polled NH-01, TN-08, WA-03, WI-07, MI-01, AR-01, CO-04, IL-11, MD-01, NM-02, OH-15, PA-03, VA-02, and VA-05 earlier, that means I can count only AR-02, IN-08, LA-03, TN-06, NY-29, KS-03, and OH-01 in the “too far gone” category. Either he knows something about eight other races that nobody else does, or his math is a little fuzzy. Maybe he’s counting FL-08 and WI-08, but even then he’d still owe us six more.)

79 thoughts on “Last Round of Hill House Polls”

  1. I don’t even know how he gets to 50 in the first place? 31 + half of the 4 ties = 33. Minus the 2 seats Dem are taking from the GOP = 31. Plus the 15 he says they didn’t poll cause they’re “already too far gone” = 46.

    I guess 46 is “in the range of” a 50-seat gain if you want it to be …

    Deduct the 6-8 races you point out that are mysterious about any such 15-seat doomed sample, however, and you’re at a 40-seat gain for Republicans rather than a 50-seat one. Quite the difference.

  2. will forever be nothing to me.  He is really not such a great pollster.  We all know how his “mircotargeting” worked out several years ago. I guess he is just conforming his predictions to go along with the CW.

  3. to see Marshall down by so much, Spratt too. I figure Edwards has to be closer; otherwise the DCCC wouldn’t be wading back into this. The Dakota races match up with my instance, as does the tie in IN-09, but I would have also expect a tie in CO-03.  

  4. to see Marshall down by so much, Spratt too. I figure Edwards has to be closer; otherwise the DCCC wouldn’t be wading back into this. The Dakota races match up with my instance, as does the tie in IN-09, but I would have also expect a tie in CO-03.  

  6. …we’re going to see actual results that vary widely from Penn’s numbers, even in races where he picked the right winner.

  7. has made my day. I know a lot of these suck but Baron Hill leads! I think the lib will get a good amount as well. This is a tossup and could go either way but it is encouraging to know Hill is not DOA. On paper he should stand no chance but he has run a good campaign and if he can survive a year like this then he may be around for awhile. The plan was always to redistrict Hill out of existence but with the 8th going R they would have to seriously endanger Buschon to do that. So they may just leave the districts be. Though if Ellsworth runs again they may just count Buschon as DOA anyway and go ahead with the gerrymander. IDK.  

  8. That margin is off the Dem internal by somewhere right at the edge of the MoE. We’ll see, but it’s a tough district to poll, rural and with lots of Latino and young voters. I’ve never seen a Salazar lose a race at any level (in fact I don’t think they have) and I’d be surprised if the first time was to someone John just beat by 20 points. Even accounting for a big R turnout, that’s a whole lot of changed minds!  

  10. Many of the results were close. And the GOP candidate only led in 31 of the 42 polls. I call BS on Penn’s “analysis”. Why, oh why, did Hillary Clinton ever hire this jerk?

  11. I’ve heard a new radio ad against Zaun paid for by DCCC and seen plenty of their tv ads this week. I think Boswell is ahead, but maybe not by 12.

    Kind of mind-blowing that Boswell could win while Loebsack could lose.

  12. is just engaging in that whole storyline “The Republicans are definitely going to take over the House” without bringing the evidence to back it up. It’s the same thing pundits and prognosticators have been engaging in all year. Ergo, Charlie Cook all the way back in February 2010.

    http://voices.washingtonpost.c…

    Now, I may be a simple country lawyer, but whenever some one says one of the political parties is going to wrest control of the House from the other party, I actually like to see the hardcore evidence that backs up that claim. So that it can either be accepted as true, or cross examined and found to be untrue.    

  14. Only because it seems as if the GOP is hitting the target some places and missing it in others. It takes a certain combination of seats for big gains and I think the GOP isn’t quite there and is likely head to a 1-2 seat majority in the House.

  17. that the GOP did not do as well in the special elections that they should have won.  For instance, I just knew that Critz was going to lose but he won.  I am not talking about the HI race because that was special and I just cannot imagine the Tea Baggers being a factor in that CD.  

    Also, Deeds in VA pissed a lot of people off.  Wilder would not endorse him and even greenlighted blacks in VA not to go out to vote for him.  He blew Obama off until the very end.  He also ran a pathetic campaign whereas Warner won when Bush was at the height of his popularity.  Same with Coakley and a lackluster performance…(but this was a senate race).

    Is the GOP really that great at turnout to pull off that many wins?  I know that their voters are “enthusiastic” whatever that means but a vote is a vote once you get the person to the polls.  

    I guess you could say that it does not require that much coordination when it is more like 435 indvidual races versus one race countrywide. But they have some people working who are not experienced at politics and therefore, not experienced at GOTV.  

    Who is running their GOTV? Just thinking out loud here…

  18. Regarding that DCCC ad buy, state Senator Chap Petersen, whose district includes some or all of VA-11, blogs on his “Ox Road South” personal blog:

    I’d say the Congressional election in the 11th CD is very close.   Despite having a decided edge in the debates that I’ve attended, Congressman Connolly is fighting a headwind this year.  I’ll just leave it at that.

    This doesn’t sound too good, and the panicky part of me wants to interpret it to mean Connolly might even be behind, but then I remember that what people write doesn’t always match what they’re thinking, as we all are a bit imprecise and don’t realize how our word choice comes across sometimes.

    Meanwhile, Ben Tribbett, who owns the “Not Larry Sabato” blog, tweets:

    Fimian is running one of the worst campaigns ever seen in NoVA- and is still in the race because Gerry isn’t likeable enough 2 put him away.

    Ben’s comment has to be taken with a grain of salt for 2 reasons.  First, Ben has a lot of childish and petty personal grudges against various Democratic elected officials, and Gerry Connolly is one of them.  Ben’s grudges badly pollute and distort his perspective on the people he holds them against, so his comment on Connolly’s likeability shouldn’t be accepted at face value.  Second, Ben is routinely prone to extreme hyperbole.  So his description of Fimian’s campaign shouldn’t necessarily be accepted at face value.  With these caveats in mind, I still include this here because Ben does have political connections and hears things from insiders, so there MIGHT be some value to this.

    Ultimately I’ll be very surprised if we lose VA-11, but I no longer know what to expect and I’m TRYING to brace myself for ugly surprises, as hard as it is.

  19. Two things:

    1) This poll began back on Oct 16. Since then Mulvaney’s been hit hard on SC-05 airwaves over his Edenmoor problem and his libertarian voting record on Social Security.

    2) The AA share in this poll is only 22%. African Americans make up 31% of registered voters in the Fifth District. In ’08, SC-05 turnout was 33% AA. No one thinks it’ll be this high again, but it will be more than 22%.

    The Spratt campaign’s more recent tracking polls show the race a dead heat — which given the DCCC’s new $255K ad buy — seems far more inline with what we’re seeing here in SC.

  20. AR-02, IN-08, LA-03, TN-06, NY-29, KS-03, OH-01, OH-16, TX-15, ND-AL, MS-01, WI-08, FL-08, FL-02, FL-24, AZ-01 are 16 too far gone seats where the Republican has a strong edge.

Comments are closed.