Rasmussen (9/15, likely voters, 8/7 in parens):
Jeff Merkley (D): 45 (39)
Gordon Smith (R-inc): 46 (47)
(MoE: ±4.0%)
There’s been a decided shift in momentum in the last few weeks in this race: the Merkley internal poll giving him the lead (and giving Smith a catastrophic 61% disapproval rating), a panicky Smith dropping his ‘nice guy’ image to run sleazy attack ads, and Willamette Week pounding away at Smith on the hiring-illegal-immigrants front (with new research released today, interviewing five people who were illegals at the time of employment for the Prince of Peas).
Well, we have some confirmation from a public pollster: Rasmussen, who last month seemed to show a race slipping away from Merkley, shows a huge bounce-back for Merkley, now down just by 1. Significantly, Merkley leads 46-42 among unaffiliated voters.
We at SSP had been suspecting that where there was smoke, there was fire; with confirmation from a public pollster, we feel confident in upgrading this race to “Tossup.”
We’ve got our confirmation. Time to put this into tossup.
Right now it looks as though the race is slipping away from Smith, not Merkley. The same may be happening to Coleman in Minnesota and Dole in North Carolina. Possibly even Wicker in Mississippi. Wouldn’t it be nice if this turn of events continues? Or am I just on one of my mood swings?
I think this issue is helping Democrats all the way down the ticket.
Why did Gov Kitzhaber refuse to run for the senate? Why did he endorse Merkley’s opponent in the primary?
This new lead is probably due to his cross-nomination and endorsement by the new Independent Party of Oregon, which has jumped from 0 to 27,000 members in 18 months and is now larger than all of Oregon’s other minor parties put together. See http://www.indparty.com.