SSP Daily Digest: 11/2

• Poll Closing Times: In case you haven’t seen it already, check out our handy map of poll closing times and key races across the country. Also, we’ll be accepting entries in our predictions contest until 6pm Eastern. Reach for that golden chocolate babka!

• Weather: Forecasts today call for plagues of locusts in Arizona, frogs falling from the sky in Illinois, periodic blood showers in Pennsylvania, hellfire and brimstone in Ohio. Partly sunny in California.

• AK-Sen: The rumor mill over the last few days has had the NRSC turning its attentions back to Lisa Murkowski, whom they’d once shunned, seeing her as their best plan for holding Alaska as Joe Miller seems to lag. (Of course, they may have semi-consciously been doing that for weeks, running ads hitting Scott McAdams instead of hitting Murkowski.) Miller, for his part, is dismissive, saying he didn’t need them to win the primary.

DC Dems are finally showing some interest here… maybe it was a conscious decision to avoid the taint of Washington in this race, or more likely it was just being blind to the possibility of a pickup here until the last moment. Bill Clinton is robocalling on McAdams’ behalf, and the DSCC finally rolled out a TV ad here over the weekend (anti-Murkowski, not anti-Miller). Here’s what’s probably motivated them: the final Hays Research poll, this time on behalf of the DSCC (instead of the IBEW like the last ones). Its results: Miller 27, McAdams 26, “another candidate you have to write in” 25, and undecided 21. That’s close. With the specter of analyzing tens of thousands of write-in ballots for intent, and the attendant legal challenges, it will almost assuredly be weeks before we have a winner in Alaska. UPDATE: Just got late word of yet another poll here, from yet another local pollster: Dittman. I don’t know who, if anyone Dittman is working for, but they’re pretty Murkowski-friendly results: Murko 37, Miller 26, McAdams 22.

• DE-Sen: Despite having essentially no chance of winning, somehow Christine O’Donnell got more media coverage than any other candidate this cycle, according to a Pew study. (Thanks, Gawker!) Of course, it’s hard not to, when she provides us with so much good material, as with her closing argument fail: she’d planned on 30-minute blocks of TV time on the local Fox affiliate and on public access, but somehow neither happened, owing to miscommunication and flat-out never getting around to purchasing the time on Fox. A remarkable end to a remarkable campaign.

• PA-08: I imagine you’ll be hearing a lot of stories today and in the following days about voter “suppression” (from the Dems) and “fraud” (from the GOP), but we’re already getting a jump on it in the 8th: both sides are alleging irregularities in absentee ballots. 8,000 ballots have been sequestered at the Bucks County courthouse already, so assuming the margin is less than that, here’s another one we can already expect to find its way into court.

And here are a few more straggler polls:

• NC-Sen (PPP): Richard Burr (R-inc) 52%, Elaine Marshall (D) 40%

• NH-Sen, NH-Gov (UNH): Kelly Ayotte (R) 54%, Paul Hodes (D) 36%; John Lynch (D-inc) 49%, John Stephen (R) 41%

• ID-01 (Greg Smith): Walt Minnick (D-inc) 48%, Raul Labrador (R) 38%

• Fox/Pulse:

• CO-Sen, CO-Gov: Ken Buck (R) 50%, Michael Bennet (D-inc) 46%; John Hickenlooper (D) 47%, Tom Tancredo (C) 44%, Dan Maes (R) 6%

• IL-Sen, IL-Gov: Mark Kirk (R) 46%, Alexi Giannoulias (D) 42%, LeAlan Jones (G) 6%; Bill Brady (R) 44%, Pat Quinn (D-inc) 38%, Scott Lee Cohen (I) 6%, Rich Whitney (G) 4%

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle (R) 48%, Harry Reid (D-inc) 45%

• OH-Gov: John Kasich (R) 48%, Ted Strickland (D-inc) 44%

72 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 11/2”

  2. Yes, how stupid of O’Donnell to have somehow managed not to pay for her final infomercial, instead letting the media talk about her for free. Now she’ll just have to take the money she would’ve paid and instead use it for living expenses as she’s traditionally used campaign donations.

  3. The [R] after his name will be worth a 10% bump over his current polling number. He’ll probably be in the low 40’s when it’s all said and done.  

  5. But I’ll decline entering the contest.

    Specifically because it’d cause me to have to make a prediction about Alaska.  And I just don’t feel comfortable predicting a race in which I, to some extent, have invested some emotion in.

    I’ll also not pay attention to any liveblogging of the races, or any reports about them, tonight.  Unless I’m going to the local Dems’ watch party, but that seems unlikely at this point.

  6. Everyone’s expecting us to lose some 50-70 seats.

    Don’t despair.  Every seat we hold, among these, is a net gain.

    And at the very least, we end the cycle with significantly thicker bench in Alaska.

  7. I think Strickland is going to win. I really don’t know why…everyone has pretty much wrote him off, but I get this feeling he’s going to pull it out tonight.

  11. http://publicpolicypolling.blo…

    In this post PPP shows clearly their point about Obama.

    “Tuesday, November 2, 2010

    Obama a big drag

    …

    There’s a lot of good Democrats tonight- both incumbents and challengers- who are going to lose and it won’t be because of anything they did wrong.

    …”

    This is not right. Many democratic candidates, many, are a lot more unpopular than Obama. And this if we believe PPP’s numbers.

    Well, I think they find tell this, just now, since many months. Then, it is not a surprise for me. But still, hard read this.

    PPP a big lack of loyalty.  

  13. I don’t think this got posted anywhere.  Not even sure why it was released, seems kind of pointless.

    Scott   49(46)

    Sink    45(49)

    http://www.sunshinestatenews.c…

    It shows Scott with a net favorable rating (46/45) which I find hard to believe.  Sink is at 42/49 which I could believe, but it also shows a tie in the early voting.  So this doesn’t change much for me.  I still think Scott has a small edge, but won’t be shocked if Sink pulls it out.

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