SurveyUSA (9/30-10/1, likely voters, no trendlines):
Christine Jennings (D): 33
Vern Buchanan (R-inc): 49
Jan Schneider (I): 9
Don Baldauf (I): 3
Undecided: 6
(MoE: ±4.1%)
Polling has been all over the place in FL-13 just in the past month. First good old Vern released an internal that had him up 18. Then Jennings responded with her own showing her back just four. Research 2000 neatly split the difference, calling it a twelve-point race. Neither the R2K nor Jennings polls, though, included Democrat-turned-crybaby Jan Schneider, a three-time loser who seems to be digging her loser’s share directly out of Jennings’s hide.
Vern also poaches Dems directly. He scores a strong 76-11 among members of his own party, while Jennings takes just 62-19 from Dems. And he cleans up with indies, 43-25. Jennings has an extremely tough row to hoe in this district.
The one thing that stands out is at this point old hat for SUSA: voters 18 to 34 are Vern’s best demographic, favoring him by a 57-31 split. I know the preference for Republicans among young voters in SUSA polls has struck SSPers of all stripes as odd if not completely off-base. But perhaps SUSA sees something the rest of us haven’t.
A little history lesson may be in order here. I’ve been reading Rick Perlstein’s utterly awesome Nixonland, which I can’t recommend highly enough. He recounts that when the franchise was extended to 18-to-21-year-olds before the 1972 election, Democrats were convinced that this would be of huge benefit to them. After all, young people had been on the vanguard of the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements and surely despised Tricky Dick. Yet Nixon managed to split the youth vote en route to a massive landslide.
Now obviously, the differences between 2008 and 1972 are too many to count, not least that many Democrats back then completely misunderstood Nixon’s appeal. But either SUSA has made a huge mistake with its likely voter screen, or they’ve correctly identified trends among younger voters this year that most other pollsters have missed. We’ll see.
this is one possible effect that needs to be tracked, whether cell phones are making a substantial difference in polling. we need to compare estimated percentages of youth vote right before the election, actual turnout and the predicted and actual margins of victory. if there’s a substantial difference, the factor may be real.
that Jennings is going to win this time.
Katherine Harris held this seat fairly comfortably.
OTOH, I wish SUSA had polled the Presidential race in this district.
younger people, after the primary season we had no less, and this bears out on election day, I’ll eat my hat.
I think more likely is that SUSA is screwed up completely.
Let’s not forget, KERRY won young people in places like MISSISSIPPI in 2004. If McCain does better, there’s no way he won’t win.