Research 2000 for Daily Kos (9/30-10/1, likely voters):
Steve Driehaus (D): 46
Steve Chabot (R-inc): 44
Other: 4
(MoE: ±5%)
Very nice numbers for Driehaus; in fact, they’re the mirror image of a recent SurveyUSA poll showing Chabot up by two. One key difference between R2K’s poll and SUSA is their estimation of the African-American vote: SUSA pegged black turnout at 28%, while R2K places it at 30%. This district is 28% black, so that number may or may not be on the optimistic side.
Both polls find Chabot taking about 20% of the African-American vote — a pretty high score for a Republican in this day and age, but also one that could potentially come down as the DCCC moves into full bombardment mode.
In any event, an incumbent sitting in the mid-40s in a year like this is in a dangerous place. It’s no small wonder that the NRCC is spending $2.2 million on this race and MI-07 in an effort to hold the line.
Bonus finding: Obama leads McCain by a 53-39 margin in this district.
SSP currently rates this race as a Tossup.
OH-01, VA-02, NC-08, NC-Sen, GA-Sen, LA-04 (is that on election day anymore?), MS-Sen, maybe NE-02 and OH-15. Is that it? Any of the Florida districts?
I wonder if grouping the contested districts this cycle would show them to be whiter than the country as a whole. I’m sure they would, just because of the existence of so many minority-majority districts per the Voting Rights Act, but even leaving those aside, I wonder if the contested districts are whiter than the non-contested, non-CBC/CHC districts in Congress.
Man, life would be fun if I knew statistics. I could probably still do something useful in excel. The good datafiles are from the census bureau?