Month: October 2008

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.

Research 2000 for the South Bend Tribune/WSBT TV (9/29-30, likely voters):

Joe Donnelly (D-inc): 53

Luke Puckett (R): 35

Mark Vogel (L): 3

Undecided: 9

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Donnelly’s been on the airwaves for weeks, and his name ID, at 87%, is pretty strong for a freshman. His favorable rating, at 54-33, is also solid.

I don’t think that mosquito-plagued candidate Luke Puckett has much of a shot here. SSP currently rates this race as Safe Democratic.

SurveyUSA (9/30-10/1, likely voters, 9/10-11 in parens):

Al Franken (DFL): 33 (40)

Norm Coleman (R-inc): 43 (41)

Dean Barkley (IP): 19 (14)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

I like SurveyUSA a lot, but their work in Minnesota has been all over the map, often with some weird results for younger voters. This poll is no different; voters aged 18-34 support Coleman by a margin of 44-33-13, that’s down from 48-33-14 for Franken earlier in September. Franken isn’t having an easy time in this race, yes, but I highly doubt that the kids love Coleman that much.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican.

UPDATE: Major warning bell — SUSA just released their Presidential numbers for Minnesota (conducted as part of the same poll as the Senate numbers), and McCain is leading by 47-46. That’s starkly different from the latest CNN/Time poll showing Obama up by 54-43. I’m pretty suspicious of this poll altogether.

(Hat-tip to Minnesota Mike for flagging this one.)

Breaking:

The judge in the criminal trial of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) refused a defense motion on Thursday to dismiss the case against the Senator after the prosecution admitted that it had failed to provide Stevens’ lawyer with evidence that could have aided his defense.

We were on pins and needles waiting for this, because earlier in the day, it looked like the federal prosecutors may have crumbed the play. They better not be so sloppy from now on.

A Capital Survey Research (Gerald Johnson) poll has Mike Rogers leading Josh Segall 44.9 % to 36.4 %. 18.7% of people polled remain undecided. The polling sample was 471 people taken Sep.30-Oct. 1, 2008

with a margin error of  +/-4.5%.

The August poll taken by Capital Survey Research showed Rogers leading 54% to 32.5 % for Segall with only 13.6% undecided.

Segall has improved by 4 points while Rogers has dropped 9 points. We have 5% more undecided from the August poll

A number of thoughts stick out including:

1. Mike Rogers is well under 50%, a clear sign that an incumbent is in trouble.

2. The Bubba Ads did not help Mike Rogers polling numbers.

3. More voters are undecided after seeing ads from both candidates.

4. Rogers went from a substantial 22% lead to a 9%. Segall cutting Rogers lead in more than half is another sure sign that Rogers is in trouble.

5. A serious gas shortage has been reported in the Talladega to Anniston areas. That does not bode well for Rogers.

**Reminder – Josh Segall will also be a guest on The Progressive Electorate Blog Talk Radio Show This Sunday

Earlier in the day, the DCCC released the details of a GQR internal poll showing Democrat Larry Kissell drubbing Robin Hayes by a 54-43 margin in their congressional rematch. To counter that notion, Hayes has released his own internal poll. Let’s take a look.

Public Opinion Strategies for Robin Hayes (9/23&25, likely voters, 8/4-5 in parens):

Larry Kissell (D): 43 (40)

Robin Hayes (R-inc): 46 (50)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Here’s one glaring omission from Hayes’ poll: in August, he released numbers saying that McCain was leading Obama by a 47-42 margin in the 8th District. And now? It looks like those numbers were omitted from his press release — quite possibly because Obama has pulled ahead in his own poll.

We’ve been skeptical of Kissell’s chops for a long time, but this poll — combined with the general Democratic surge in North Carolina — is enough for us to bump our rating of this race from Lean Republican to Tossup.

I think the term “swiftboating” is pretty overused in politics today, but here’s a clear-cut example of GOP Rep. Thelma Drake completely owning the vile tactic.

In two recent ads (see here and here), Democrat Glenn Nye has been touting his work to release an American hostage while serving as a foreign service officer in Macedonia. And here’s what Thelma Drake has to say about Nye’s service:

Drake wondered aloud how a “a very junior member of the State Department” was so instrumental in the rescues and said that so far, her staff had been unable to find news clips or State Department officials to verify the story Nye used on the campaign trail and in commercials.

That’s probably because her staff hasn’t been looking. Enough is Enough digs up a Virginia Pilot article from July 18, 2002:

And thanks to the contacts he’d forged with the Macedonian people and authorities living in the northern part of the country near Kosovo, where some of the fiercest fighting raged, Nye was responsible for evacuating 26 Americans during the height of the crisis.

He also secured the release of an American held by an armed insurgent group. For those efforts, he was awarded a “Superior Honor Award” from the European Bureau of the Department of State. He also got a meritorious honor award from the U.S. embassy in Skopje for his contacts and analysis of the ethnic Albanian political community.

The article is legit — I confirmed it with a Lexis-Nexis search. Drake’s been trying desperately to land a hit on Nye, but so far she’s been firing blanks. She was last seen questioning Nye for maintaining a D.C. residence while serving in Iraq, an attack that backfired with local media.

0 for 2, Thelma.

The Women’s Campaign Forum is running a pretty cool contest. They’re allowing members and supporters to decide the recipient of PAC contributions.  The first place candidate will receive a $3,000 PAC contribution and the second place candidate will receive a $1,500 PAC contribution.

Currently it’s pretty close, with Sam Bennett (PA-15)leading Vic Wulsin (OH-2).

Bennett: $10,451

Wulsin:  $7,814

The contest runs until October 7th.  We’ll see who can energize their online supporters more.  

You can vote at the following site:

http://www.democracyengine.com…

Securing the votes in Congress to pass real immigration solutions into law isn’t going to be easy. The next President – no matter who wins – will need to lead his own party first to get it done.

Senator Obama would surely have an uphill climb, even with a Party Platform that favors comprehensive reform. But, given an enforcement-only Party Platform and the policy positions of most Republicans in Congress, Senator McCain may need to scale a brick wall to bring his party on board!

Nevertheless, both candidates continue to talk about reform (at least in Spanish).

Well, we’ve already heard enough rhetoric- we want a roadmap. We’re asking the Senators how they will unite their own parties to pass real immigration solutions into law.

We’re saying, Show America the Immigration Reform Roadmap during the next presidential debate on October 7th!

Resources

The Republican Platform

The Democratic Platform

Rasmussen (9/30, likely voters, 7/28 in parens):

Scott Kleeb (D): 38 (34)

Mike Johanns (R): 52 (60)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

A 26-point gap becomes a 14-point gap in two months.

A little bit of spark left in this one? This is Johanns’ weakest performance since Rasmussen started polling this race (although Kleeb’s been higher — with a 44% performance in May). Also, while Johanns still posts higher favorable numbers than Kleeb, they’re not quite as monster-sized as they have been in the past: 59-34, down from 70-27 in July. Kleeb’s favorable/unfavorable rating has climbed up to 52-32, a fair spot better than his 48-37 rating in July.

A tough race, but it’s still worth watching.