Research 2000 for the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel (10/16-18, likely voters):
Mike Montagano (D): 40
Mark Souder (R-inc): 45
Bill Larsen (L): 4
(MoE: ±4%)
Hot diggity dog, those are some exciting numbers, and they closely mirror a Montagano internal showing Souder ahead by 44-39.
The same poll has McCain ahead of Obama by 53-38. In an accompanying article about this poll, the News-Sentinel spun that result as bad news for Obama. But when you consider that Bush won this district by a 68-31 margin in 2004, that’s an incredibly good result.
Both the DCCC and NRCC are spending heavily to pull this one over the finish line, which is pretty remarkable for an R+16 district. This will be one of the earlier reporting districts on election night, so if Montagano can pull out a win, it’s going to be a big night. And even if he loses but comes close, that still won’t bode well for the GOP.
(Hat-tip: Blue Indiana)
UPDATE: Turns out there’s an even more recent poll of this district, by Howey/Gauge (10/23-24, likely voters):
Mike Montagano (D): 44
Mark Souder (R-inc): 41
(MoE: ±5.7%)
That MoE is a bit wide, but Souder can’t be comfortable at all with numbers like these.
This is one where the DCCC has done an ok job on, they probably should have already spent an additional $400,000 like yesterday, rather than multi-million dollar buys in generally easier victories. If you’re going to go in to a district like this one, then make a buy that will take the seat, not just come close. I see they’re getting ready for another ad, so hopefully it will be huge. It would be awesome to take this district.
She’s only down by 16, about the same margin as Obama. The IN gubernatorial polls have been all over the place, though the presidential polls have been remarkably constant.
I think this district, Josh Segall, Judy Feder, Tom Perriello, Alice Kryzan, Annette Taddeo, and Dennis Shulman will probably be the early indicators of what kind of night this is going to be nationwide. If we win a majority of these, then we might be looking at a 40-50 seat pickup in the House.
put everything into this district. I think we can win.
… he will most likely win Indiana next Tuesday. Remember we need to flip from basically 60-40 Republican to 50-50 or better — and this district is an area I think we can pick up more than the needed share of that.
And the reason the Fort Wayne News Sentinal probably framed this in terms of bad news for Obama is that it is a very, very conservative paper that endorsed McCain saying that while he wasn’t conservative enough, he was the more conservative candidate. Fort Wayne’s other paper (they’re one of the few cities their size that has two major papers), the Journal Gazette, is probably the most consistently liberal sizable daily newspaper in the state. Think of the Times/Post difference in Washington and you get a sense of how far apart Fort Wayne’s two papers are.
with all the talk about a late night and a close race (still possible of course), i’ve been thinking about how the night will go.
my expectation is that the first news of the night will be IN – pres too close to call (for the first time in decades), KY – McCain wins, McConnell too close to call, IN frosh win (Hill, Donnelly, Ellsworth), Souder TOO CLOSE TO CALL and i’m hoping the boswell/guthrie remains too close to call as well.
in 06, the news that yarmuth won early told me most of what i needed to know about that election.
Montagano LEADING Souder 44-41?
Whoa. That’s even more awesome than the others.
I am still of the opinion that Judy Feder is more likely to flip her seat than Tom is (although I believe that both have a very good chance on November 4), just because the 10th CD here in Virginia is probably the fastest-changing electorate in the nation. Obama will win the district by 10 points if current polling is to be believed; if 90% of Obama voters pull the lever for Judy, she probably wins.
With Obama and Warner (especially) at the top of the ticket, we have a legitimate chance of four House pickups here in VA, but I imagine they will all be tight if we flip ’em. Tom has probably run the best race out of them all, but VA-05 is the most difficult district of the four.
I too was surprised by the Bloomberg/Shulman endorsement. Hopefully that has some effect.