WA-Sen: Murray Leads Even According to SurveyUSA

SurveyUSA for KING-TV (9/19-21, likely voters, 8/18-19 in parentheses):

Patty Murray (D-inc): 50 (45)

Dino Rossi (R): 48 (52)

Undecided: 3 (3)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

Aside from the occasional Rasmussen poll showing a small Dino Rossi lead, most of Rossi’s strength in polling this cycle has come from SurveyUSA (who’ve, rightly or wrongly, become something of our preferred punching-bag among pollsters in the last few months). Well, SurveyUSA still seems to be outlying to the right by a few points, among the latest round of polls (also from Elway, CNN/Time, and Rasmussen), but they’re also moving along with a definite movement in the Democratic direction in this race in the last few weeks, to the extent that even they’re now showing a Patty Murray lead. Check out the movement in visual form (cheating slightly, by dialing the smoothing up to “more sensitive”):

Part of the flip in Murray’s favor may be that SurveyUSA actually got some young people to pick up their phones this time: Murray leads Rossi 54-46 among the 18-34 set. Rossi’s only pocket of strength left is those cynical members of Generation X (he leads 55-41 among the 35-49 demographic). Rossi also leads 54-41 among self-described “Independents” (kind of a silly question, since there’s no party registration in Washington), although he’s down 63-33 among self-described “moderates,” suggesting that “moderates” tend to identify pretty strongly Democratic these days, at least in Washington.