SurveyUSA (6/6-8, likely voters):
John Yarmuth (D-inc): 57
Anne Northup (R): 40
(MoE: ±3.9%)
There has been some nervousness recently surrounding Yarmuth’s re-election prospects, given Northup’s early fundraising strength and Barack Obama’s weaknesses in Kentucky (even though he actually beat Clinton in KY-03). These poll numbers should certainly calm the nerves a bit.
While Yarmuth should never underestimate Northup’s abilities, this is a reassuring sign that the ground has indeed shifted in Louisville, where Northup has built a long resume of crushing Democratic hopes cycle after cycle until her defeat in 2006.
UPDATE: Like clockwork, the Northup campaign has released their own internal poll showing a closer race. Voter/Consumer Research (6/4-5 & 6/8, likely voters):
John Yarmuth (D-inc): 51
Anne Northup (R): 43
(MoE: ±5%)
The pollster himself acknowledges that even this is “not great news” for Northup, but sounds a predictable note of optimism for her chances despite a national environment that “gotten substantially worse for Republicans since the beginning of the year”.
I like both polls.
I have been one of the most pessimistic about this seat. Happy but defiantly not safe dem hold yet either. Good news though.
I never doubted we’d win this one in November, but I figured it would be closer at this point considering Northup’s high name ID. This is the only district in Kentucky where Obama being on the ticket helps us.
But yeah its still good, I thought it would be a 49-47 type race as of right now so this is very good.
I don’t think either poll is wrong, I just think that, as usual, SUSA pushes leaners more.
I think composite the picture is pretty good. 51% hard and 6% soft support for Yarmuth, 40% hard and 3% soft support for Northup…I can live with that. 🙂
http://dccc.org/blog/archives/…
Nice that they waited till after the primary here, contrary to their other recent addition of Ann Kirkpatrick.
Since the 2006 election, KY-3 has experienced 21,000 new voter registrations (net gain): 17,000 Democrats and 4,000 Republicans. That’s a shift of about 3% within the district towards Democrats. It’s also a bit bigger than for other Congressional Districts within the state.
Not every state has voter registration data by party easily available on the web but those that do seem to be showing a consistent pattern. Democrats seem to be gaining on Republicans throughout the country. It’s true in Kentucky, New York, California, Iowa, and North Carolina. the gains are not uniform and seem to be larger in contested districts recently won bt Democrats. In California, CA-11 (McNerney) saw much bigger gains than the average. In NY, NY-19 (Hall) had the largest pickups.
In some cases, the changes in registration are actually more useful than the absolute raw numbers. Long Island districts show a consistent edge to Republicans by a 3-2 margin (shrinking a small bit now) but consistently elect Democrats to Congress. NY-13 shows a 60,000 registration edge to Democrats but has elected Republicans to Congress over the past 30 years consistently.
If the polls look better than one might expect, part of it is that national gain of 2% or 3% in voter registration and 4% or 5% gain in voter ID. It is not a flat landscape.