Tag: Research 2000

Research 2000 for WCAX-TV (2/14-16, likely voters, no trend lines):

Deb Markowitz (D): 43

Brian Dubie (R): 41

Undecided: 16

Doug Racine (D): 38

Brian Dubie (R): 43

Undecided: 19

Peter Shumlin (D): 35

Brian Dubie (R): 45

Undecided: 20

Matt Dunne (D): 36

Brian Dubie (R): 44

Undecided: 20

Susan Bartlett (D): 30

Brian Dubie (R): 48

Undecided: 22

(MoE: ±5%)

On the surface, those are pretty encouraging numbers for Republican Brian Dubie, but bear in mind that a disproportionate amount of undecided voters in every one of the above match-ups come from the Democratic column. Dubie, the current Lt. Governor, is the strongest nominee that the GOP could cough up here, but there’s no doubt that he’s riding high on superior name recognition right now.

And, in case you need a scorecard:

Deb Markowitz: SoS (1999-Present)

Doug Racine: Lt. Governor (1997-2003), ’02 Gubernatorial nominee, state Senator (2007-Present)

Peter Shumlin: State Senator (1993-2003, 2007-Present), ’02 Lt-Gov nominee

Matt Dunne: State Representative (1993-1999), state Senator (2003-2007), ’06 Lt-Gov nominee

Susan Bartlett: State Senator (1993-Present)

(Hat-tip: Darth Jeff)

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (2/8-10, likely voters)

Evan Bayh (D-inc): 55

Dan Coats (R): 35

Undecided: 10

Evan Bayh (D-inc): 53

John Hostettler (R): 37

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±3.2%)

Looks like the Republicans aren’t quite putting Indiana into highly competitive play the way they thought they would, with the entry of former Senator Dan Coats to the race. Coats not only trails Evan Bayh by 20, but my suspicions from yesterday were confirmed: long-forgotten establishment figure Coats doesn’t match up against Bayh as well as ex-Rep. John Hostettler — whose 12 years in the House (washed in with the wave in 1994, and washed out with the wave in 2006) revealed him as a quirky ultra-right-winger and an incompetent campaigner — does.

Dan Coats’ rollout as Senate candidate over the last week is already on track to be legendary in its badness, but I don’t think that alone can account for these numbers. Much of it may be that, after 12 years out of the Senate (and 18 years since having run for anything), nobody remembers Coats; there are genuinely middle-aged people who may have lived in Indiana their whole lives and still never had a chance to vote for Coats. Coats (38/34 approval) is actually less-known than Rep. John Hostettler (40/33), who only represented 1/9th of the state but at least had the virtue of sticking his foot in his mouth often enough to make sure he got in the news. Meanwhile, while Bayh certainly isn’t a favorite among the netroots, he’s doing just fine at home, with 61/33 approvals. (UPDATE: In an attempt to change perceptions and get some footing in Indiana, Dan Coats is taking one for the team and actually… gasp… renting a house in Indianapolis.)

RaceTracker Wiki: IN-Sen

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (2/1-3, likely voters, 7/13-15 in parentheses)

Paul Hodes (D): 39 (38)

Kelly Ayotte (R): 46 (39)

Undecided: 11 (23)

Paul Hodes (D): 46

Ovide Lamontagne (R): 36

Undecided: 13

Paul Hodes (D): 45

William Binnie (R): 35

Undecided: 15

(MoE: ±4%)

Kelly Ayotte (R): 36

Ovide Lamontagne (R): 27

William Binnie (R): 4

Undecided: 33

(MoE: ±5%)

John Lynch (D): 59

Jack Kimball (R): 13

Undecided: 26

(MoE: ±4%)

The toplines in Research 2000’s new poll of the New Hampshire Senate race aren’t that noteworthy; they fall right in line with most other recent polls of the race, which have given Republican ex-AG Kelly Ayotte a 5 or 7 point lead over Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes. The trendlines aren’t very appealing, but they go back to July, and think about everything (mostly bad for the Dem brand) that’s happened in the last half a year; at any rate, Ayotte’s gain has only come out of the undecided column.

What’s very intersting about this poll is the GOP primary, about which we have precious little information so far. Ayotte has been running a startlingly substance-free campaign, leaving her to get squeezed both on the right by Ovide Lamontagne, favorite of national movement conservatives, and perhaps on the left (though it’s hard to tell, since Ayotte hasn’t given us any benchmarks) by businessman William Binnie, who seems to be operating in traditional New England moderate mode.

The only poll we’ve had about the primary prior to this one is a Kelly Ayotte internal from Tarrance from last month, where she led Lamontagne 43-11, with Binnie at 5 and Bender at 3. That poll seemed pretty optimistic to me from the outset, and now we have some confirmation from an independent pollster that Ayotte’s in a real fight here. With 33% still undecided, there’s still plenty of time for Lamontagne to torpedo Ayotte — especially if he can pick up national-level institutional backing, from the Club for Growth, the tea partiers, and their ilk. And considering that Lamontagne loses convincingly to Hodes in the general, I sure hope these groups are taking notice. (For what it’s worth, Ayotte is starting to go on the air, with her first radio spot, suggesting that she may be starting to notice that she can’t sleepwalk her way to the nomination.)

There are also numbers from the gubernatorial race, one of the few uncompetitive ones anywhere in the country. Centrist Democratic incumbent John Lynch has a 57% generic re-elect, and thumps GOP businessman Jack Kimball in a head-to-head. (Kimball may lose in the primary to social conservative activist Karen Testerman, but either way, this race doesn’t look like it’ll be on anyone’s radar come November.)

RaceTracker Wiki: NH-Gov

• AR-Sen: Despite the seemingly imminent entry of Rep. John Boozman into the GOP field in the Arkansas Senate race, soon-to-be-former-frontrunner state Sen. Gilbert Baker says he’s staying in the race. The alternative would be to run for Baker, who represents Little Rock suburbs, to run for the open seat in AR-02 instead – but there he’d face a tough primary against Beltway GOP favorite Tim Griffin, who’s already established a solid fundraising foothold. (Some of the seven dwarves in the GOP field, who seem concentrated in the state’s right-leaning northwest, may be interested in switching to Boozman’s open seat in AR-03, though.) And unbelievably, yet another Republican is interested in getting in the Senate race: former NFL player Jim Lindsey is readying for a bid. Lindsey is a real estate developer and former University of Arkansas trustee.

• AZ-Sen: Sarah Palin is still dancin’ with the one who brung her. She announced yesterday that she’ll appear on behalf of John McCain, who plucked her from near-obscurity and is now needs a favor of his own as he’s facing a primary challenge from the right from ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth. Needless to say, this provoked a lot of disappointment from her supporters among the teabagging set, who would prefer to see her stab McCain in the back and then field dress him.

• CO-Sen: With right-wingers filled with antipathy toward establishment choice ex-Lt. Gov. Jane Norton, there’s been a lot of casting about for an alternative. Weld County DA Ken Buck seems more and more like he’ll be that guy, as he’s been making common cause with the Paulists, who are now planning to pay for a statewide advertising campaign on Buck’s behalf. Meanwhile, on the Dem side, primary challenger Andrew Romanoff is trying to energize his sleepy campaign with a big hire – pollster Celinda Lake, whose previously sterling reputation got driven off a cliff with her handling of the Martha Coakley campaign.

• CT-Sen: There’s not much left to see for the 2010 race, but everyone’s thinking ahead to 2012, with the new rumor afoot that – with the Senate Kennedy-free for the first time in more than half a century – Ted Kennedy Jr. may run against Joe Lieberman in 2012. Lieberman himself is up to his usual asshattery, speculating out loud that he could conceive of becoming a Republican, and also saying that he might support Linda McMahon in the 2010 race… seeing as how Richard Blumenthal (tepidly) supported Lamont in the 2006 general while McMahon supported Lieberman. Apparently Lieberman learned his politics from watching the Godfather: it’s not business. Just personal. (Lieberman also seems to be a believer in leaving the cannoli, and taking the guns.)

• FL-Sen: In the wake of new polling showing him falling behind Marco Rubio in the GOP Senate primary, the questions are getting louder about whether Charlie Crist might consider running as an independent instead. He said no to that idea… but people are noticing he didn’t rule out switching parties altogether. With Crist appearing side-by-side with Barack Obama today in Florida (something he wouldn’t consider doing if he saw any hope in trying to compete with Rubio – who just got the endorsement of ur-conservative Steve Forbes — on conservative bona fides alone), could that actually be a consideration? If so, he’d need to switch parties by April 30.

• MA-Sen: There are a couple more retrospectives worth reading on Massachusetts, as people try to make sense of the mixed messages sent by exit polls (with one particularly intriguing tidbit: 52% of Scott Brown voters approved of Ted Kennedy’s performance). Mark Blumenthal also looks at the shift in polling over the last few weeks, wondering again about the differing results gotten by live interviewers vs. robocallers, while also pointing to questions of how much pollsters’ views of a race can actually change the overall momentum of the race (fundraising and perception-wise) and thus become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And get ready for the teabaggers’ week-long love affair to end very soon: Scott Brown (who apparently has some self-preservation instincts) just served notice on the GOP that he won’t always vote with them.

• ND-Sen: This isn’t going to make the teabaggers any happier: Gov. John Hoeven, now running for the Senate, joined the Democratic Party in 1996 (at a time when he was head of North Dakota’s state-owned bank), ditching them in 2000 for his gubernatorial run. With Hoeven already on their naughty list for his insufficiently anti-government stances, now he’s just going to get more wrath.

• NH-Sen: Former AG Kelly Ayotte is wielding an internal poll by the Tarrance Group that gives her a big edge in the GOP primary against her challengers. She leads Ovide Lamontagne, coming at her from the right, 43-11. Random rich guys Bill Binnie and Jim Bender clock in at 5 and 3 apiece. No general election numbers were released.

• NV-Sen: One more disastrous poll for Harry Reid, which came out from Research 2000 a few days ago. This poll closely echoed one from PPP a few weeks ago that tested alternative Democrats, and finds that only Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman beats the Republicans (while Rep. Shelly Berkley and SoS Ross Miller don’t fare much better than Reid). Unfortunately, this was all rendered moot a few days ago by Goodman’s announcement that he wasn’t going to run for either Governor or Senator. Reid loses 52-41 to Danny Tarkanian and 51-42 to Sue Lowden. Berkley loses 46-40 to Tarkanian and 45-40 to Lowden, while Miller loses 44-36 to Tarkanian and 43-37 to Lowden. Goodman beats Tarkanian 44-41 and Lowden 44-40. Rep. Dina Titus, facing a tough re-election of her own, doesn’t seem to think much of Reid’s chances anymore: she publicly said “Reid is done; he’s going to lose.”

• NY-Sen-B: One other Research 2000 poll to talk about: they looked at the Democratic primary in New York, and find about what everyone else has found. Kirsten Gillibrand leads ex-Rep. Harold Ford Jr. by a 41-27 margin (with 3 for Jonathan Tasini), looking solid but still with a ton of undecideds. This also exists merely at the level of rumor, but with the potential presence of Ford scrambling things for the ever-so-briefly-thought-to-be-safe Gillibrand, sources say that Democratic Rep. Steve Israel (who got dissuaded from a primary challenge) and Republican ex-Gov. George Pataki (who hasn’t sounded interested until now) are both giving the race a little more consideration.

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): Franklin & Marshall’s previous polls in Pennsylvania have tended to have unusually high undecideds, suggesting that they don’t do any pushing of leaners at all – but this may have reached an all-time high with their new poll. Most notably, they find Allegeheny Co. Exec Dan Onorato completely dominating the Democratic gubernatorial primary… at 10% (more than doubling up on Jack Wagner, Joe Hoeffel, and Chris Doherty, all at 4)! They also find similarly low numbers in the Senate race, where Republican ex-Rep. Pat Toomey leads incumbent Dem Arlen Specter 45-31 and Rep. Joe Sestak 41-19 (?!?), and where Specter beats Sestak in the primary 30-13. (They didn’t do a general election poll in the Governor’s race, but find Republican AG Tom Corbett leading his remaining rival, state Rep. Sam Rohrer, 23-5 in the primary.)

• UT-Sen: The Mason-Dixon poll that gave us some (not so good) gubernatorial results also threw in some vague questions about the Senate race too. Incumbent Bob Bennett leads a Generic R in the primary, 46-27, and a Generic D 53-26 in the general. Nevertheless, Bennett drew yet another primary opponent, albeit someone seemingly of the Some Dude variety: local businessman Christopher Stout.

• WI-Sen: Wherever there’s a vacillating Republican needing convincing to get into a Senate race, there’s Rasmussen. (Whaddya wanna bet they have a Patty Murray/Dave Reichert poll in the field right now?) Contrary to PPP’s view of the race, Rasmussen finds ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson leading incumbent Dem Russ Feingold, 47-43. They find Feingold with a perplexingly low 47/48 approval.

• CT-Gov: Is ex-Rep. Chris Shays looking to get into the Governor’s race? Suddenly, it sounds like he’s at least thinking about it, saying he’d like to do it but not sure if it’s feasible. He’s currently in Washington as head of the Wartime Contracting Commission, meaning he’d need to re-establish his Connecticut residency, but given his long-time popularity in his district (which eventually got too blue for him to hold) he might have a leg up on the so-so GOPers already in the field.

• FL-Gov: Quinnipiac released the gubernatorial half of its Florida poll yesterday, finding that Republican AG Bill McCollum has a somewhat bigger lead on Democratic CFO Alex Sink, 41-31 (McCollum led 36-32 in October). Sink leads state Sen. Paula Dockery 35-29, but considering that McCollum leads Dockery 44-6 in the GOP primary, that configuration doesn’t seem likely.

• MI-Gov: Two guys who had been unlikely candidates for the Democratic nomination for Governor both announced they wouldn’t run. Rep. Bart Stupak is the big name to say “no,” which is good as far as the DCCC is concerned, as he’s needed to hold down the fort in his R+3 district. The other is Detroit Pistons head of basketball operations Joe Dumars, who probably realized he’d get pretty banged up out there without Bill Laimbeer to run interference for him. One other interesting rumor of who might run, though, is ex-Rep. Joe Schwarz, the GOP moderate who got bounced out in a 2006 Club for Growth-fueled primary by Tim Walberg. And get this… he’s talking about running as an independent. Could he actually peel off enough center-right votes for the Dems to salvage this race?

• NY-Gov: Research 2000’s New York poll also looked at the Democratic gubernatorial primary, finding AG Andrew Cuomo defeating incumbent David Paterson, 63-19. Paterson is laboring under 34/54 approvals. The GOP primary to see who gets flattened by Cuomo is looking pretty uneventful: Erie Co. Exec Chris Collins, who continued to express vague interest despite having gaffed his way out of contention several months ago, finally pulled the plug on his exploratory committee. That leaves ex-Rep. Rick Lazio as the only major GOPer in the race, to few people’s enthusiasm.

• TX-Gov: Looks like Gov. Rick Perry isn’t much of a fan of the librul media, or at least he realizes that his key demographics aren’t really the newspaper-reading types. He’s decided not to sit for editorial board interviews prior to their pre-primary endorsements.  

Research 2000 for the Daily Kos (1/11-13, likely voters):

John Hickenlooper (D): 43

Scott McInnis (R): 43

Undecided: 14

Ken Salazar (D): 42

Scott McInnis (R): 44

Undecided: 14

Andrew Romanoff (D): 40

Scott McInnis (R): 45

Undecided: 15

Ed Perlmutter (D): 38

Scott McInnis (R): 46

Undecided: 16

(MoE: ±4%)

Most of those match-ups are moot at this point, as the path for the Democratic nomination seems secure for Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper. Sure, Andrew Romanoff may or may not bail on his Senate primary to take a crack at the gube race, but he’d have an even harder time in that race than he would against the newbie Bennet. Effectively, this resolves any potential doubt that Hickenlooper begins the race in the best starting position than any other Democrat out there — even Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who was briefly (and bizarrely, in my opinion) touted as the heir apparent for retiring Gov. Bill Ritter.

If anything, though, this poll also reaffirms that, while Hickenlooper probably would have won an ’06 race with ease, he won’t be able to rest on his laurels this year. This should be one hell of a race.

And for the Senate side of the equation:

Michael Bennet (D-inc): 40

Jane Norton (R): 39

Undecided: 21

Michael Bennet (D-inc): 42

Tom Wiens (R): 38

Undecided: 20

Michael Bennet (D-inc): 41

Ken Buck (R): 38

Undecided: 21

Andrew Romanoff (D): 39

Jane Norton (R): 41

Undecided: 20

Andrew Romanoff (D): 41

Tom Wiens (R): 39

Undecided: 20

Andrew Romanoff (D): 40

Ken Buck (R): 39

Undecided: 21

(MoE: ±4%)

This poll is actually the most optimistic portrait of the Senate race that we’ve seen lately. Over the weekend, Rasmussen gave us their take, which consisted of huge leads for Jane Norton and smaller leads for the other Republican pretenders. The Bennet campaign responded with their own poll, which showed Norton ahead by “only” three points. Whether or not R2K’s likely voter sample is reasonable is up in the air. The poll purports to have a sample of 38% Republicans, 30% Democrats, and 32% independents. That’s doesn’t seem wild-eyed for a state with a slight Democratic voter registration advantage, but if you take a closer look at the “N” for each sub-sample, the math doesn’t add up — numerically, there are more Democratic voters listed as poll participants than Republicans. (In fact, if you recalculate, this might be a 40D-38R-22I poll.) Bennet’s internal poll had a Republican advantage of about five points, so this is a pretty crucial issue to be resolved.

A transcription error is probably to blame here, but we’ll let you know if we find out anything more definitive.

UPDATE: Research 2000 guru Del Ali writes to us to tell us that the actual sample of the poll is 40% Democratic, 37% Republican, and 23% independent. Somehow, I suspect that that may be an optimistic view of the 2010 electorate.

RaceTracker Wiki: CO-Gov | CO-Sen

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (1/15-17, likely voters, 1/12-13 in parens):

Martha Coakley (D): 48 (49)

Scott Brown (R): 48 (41)

Joe Kennedy (L) 3 (5)

Undecided: 1 (6)

(MoE: ±2.8%)

First the bad news: R2K gives us a trendline pointed steeply down… an R2K poll conducted earlier in the week (paid for by Blue Mass Group rather than Daily Kos, but seeing as how that shouldn’t change the numbers, we’ll accept that as a trend) gave an eight-point lead to Democratic AG Martha Coakley, and this one sees a tie. On the other hand, that’s the best result that rolled in over the last few days: not only are there the Suffolk (-4) and PPP (-5) numbers, but also ARG (which sees a 48-45 Scott Brown lead)… and the Merriman River Group, whoever they are, who found a 51-41 lead for Brown in a poll that was apparently taken over the space of four hours and found no undecideds, so take that for what it’s worth.

So, should we be pleased or not? Does this mean that Coakley’s bungee-jump downward over the last week got arrested right before she hit the bottom of the canyon? There are a few other positive indications; the constantly-leaked Coakley internals, for what they’re worth, seem to have stabilized over the weekend (which saw Barack Obama and Bill Clinton appearances, and maybe some backlash over the “curling iron” incident), to the extent that they reportedly show Coakley up 2, according to the Boston Herald. (Nate Silver has a helpful graph of all poll trendlines that includes leaked Coakley internals, which brings a lot more datapoints to bear.)

One other indication is that state officials are suddenly looking at extremely high turnout, at near-presidential levels, with everyone suddenly focused on the election — with estimates of up to 70% turnout, based on absentee ballot requests. Turnout, as you know, most likely helps the Democrats here — and the pollsters that have been giving pro-Brown results may be basing their likely voter models on now-obsolete projections based on low-turnout, high-intensity-voters-only projections. One other good Nate Silver observation is that Obama’s approval is polling under 50% in most polls, which is lagging his national averages… in Massachusetts, one of the bluest of all states… suggesting their LV models are predicated on conservatives disproportionately showing up. (Of course, he also points out the possibility of what Rasmussen alone seems to be seeing: people approving of Obama, but still voting for Brown.) But if the state’s turnout predictions are to be believed, maybe some of those unlikely-voter Dems who were planning to sit this one out or weren’t aware of it have finally realized there’s a real race here and have gotten converted into LVs over the last few days, and pollsters are still playing catchup.

RaceTracker Wiki: MA-Sen

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (1/11-13, likely voters, no trendlines):

Heidi Heitkamp (D): 34

John Hoeven (R): 55

Undecided: 11

Ed Schultz (D): 32

John Hoeven (R): 56

Undecided: 12

Jasper Schneider (D): 32

John Hoeven (R): 56

Undecided: 12

(MoE: ±4%)

Earl Pomeroy (D-inc): 46

Kevin Cramer (R): 24

Undecided: 30

Earl Pomeroy (D-inc): 47

Duane Sand (R): 22

Undecided: 31

(MoE: ±4%)

Republican Gov. John Hoeven seems to have an even clearer path to the Senate than he did against Byron Dorgan, now that it’s an open seat. He posts 20-point-plus leads against all of his opposition, including the likeliest Democrat to get the nod: former AG and 2000 gubernatorial candidate Heidi Heitkamp. We’re looking at a strongly Republican likely electorate here (with Barack Obama at 41/54 approval, and the Republican Party faring much better as a party than the Democrats (although still in crappy position, too): 39/53 for the GOP vs. 25/61 for the Dems). That means that performance is pretty much equal for all Dems, whether they’re well-known (Ed Schultz) or up-and-coming but unknown (North Dakota Rural Development Director Jasper Schneider). With that in mind, Swing State Project is moving this race to “Likely Republican.”

Hoeven may still be in for a bumpy ride, though, thanks to the same thing facing fellow level-headed midwestern Governor (and ‘stache wearer) Terry Branstad: bubbling-over anger on the teabagging right and mistrust of his establishment, insufficiently tax-averse ways. While the Tea Partiers don’t seem to have a particular primary opponent in mind, they’re adamant that Hoeven won’t be getting a free pass through the primary.

Democratic at-large Rep. Earl Pomeroy seems to have had the right idea in staying where he is, rather than going for the promotion. He’s looking fairly secure against the GOP opposition (although below the symbolic 50% mark), leading Public Service Commissioner Kevin Cramer (a statewide official, but one who’s lost twice to Pomeroy previously, and just announced today that he’s going back for a third try) and his 2008 opponent (and current Senate candidate, although he might want to drop down to get out of Hoeven’s way) Duane Sand by similar 20-point-plus margins. Insurance salesman Paul Schaffner is also in the GOP primary, and state Rep. Rick Berg and Fargo city commissioner Dave Piepkorn are also weighing the race.

RaceTracker Wiki: ND-Sen | ND-AL

Research 2000 for Blue Mass Group (1/12-13, likely voters, no trendlines):

Martha Coakley (D): 49

Scott Brown (R): 41

Joe Kennedy (L): 5

Undecided: 5

(MoE: ±4%)

Research 2000 checks in with its first poll of the Massachusetts Senate race (although the poll was commissioned by local blog Blue Mass Group, rather than the big orange mothership, not that that should affect the numbers). This is also the first poll taken after Monday’s televised debate. They find an eight-point lead for Coakley, obviously much better than the most recent Rasmussen and PPP polls, though still hardly a slam dunk (rather concerning, for instance, is that the Libertarian candidate, Joe Kennedy [no relation to the dynasty], is polling at 5% — as we saw in New Jersey, third party candidates like that tend to fall off a bit in the final equation, and Libertarian votes seem likelier to gravitate toward Brown).

In the crosstabs, Brown leads 49-36 among independents, which is a much smaller edge than PPP saw. Coakley is leading only 46-45 among whites and is trailing Brown 50-41 in the state’s southeast; her lead seems based primarily on non-whites (including an 86-4 lead among blacks) and the Boston area (where she leads 53-37). (Discussion also underway in conspiracy‘s diary.)

Brown is trying to walk a tightrope here, as he’s trying to attract enough support from nationwide tea-party types to attract their dollars, while still keeping them at arms’ length enough to keep the votes of local moderates. For instance, he’s been avoiding asking the potentially polarizing endorsement of Sarah Palin (and she’s been smart enough to not offer it without having been asked). However, he’s been saying he’s not familiar with the Tea Party movement… a petard on which he’s currently being hoisted, as video and photos of him addressing local Tea Party gathering have surfaced (including from his own Flickr account).

Meanwhile, Coakley received the Boston Globe‘s endorsement (although that shouldn’t be any more of a surprise than Brown getting the Herald’s endorsement). One other story getting play today is the possibility that it may take weeks to certify the winner of the election, especially if it’s close (but even if it’s not, as town clerks need to wait at least 10 days for absentee ballots to arrive before certifying their town-level results). Naturally, the right is assuming this is a ploy to give the Democrats enough time to wrap up health care reform before Brown arrives on his white horse to kill it.

UPDATE: I know I’ve seen lots of talk in the comments that the deal-sealer should be Vicki Kennedy cutting a TV ad on Martha Coakley’s behalf, and having that be the campaign’s closing argument over the weekend. Via Chuck Todd, it sounds like that’s exactly what they’re doing. Leaving nothing to chance, the DNC is also reportedly sinking another $150K, but more importantly, a lot more manpower on the ground, into the race.

RaceTracker Wiki: MA-Sen

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (11/30-12/02, likely voters, 9/8-10 in parens):

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 42 (44)

Gilbert Baker (R): 41 (37)

Undecided: 17 (19)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 44 (45)

Curtis Coleman (R): 39 (37)

Undecided: 17 (18)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 45 (46)

Tom Cox (R): 31 (29)

Undecided: 24 (25)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 46 (47)

Kim Hendren (R): 30 (28)

Undecided: 24 (25)

(MoE: ±4%)

Rasmussen (12/1, likely voters, 9/28 in parens):

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 39 (39)

Gilbert Baker (R): 46 (47)

Undecided: 9 (8)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 40 (41)

Curtis Coleman (R): 44 (43)

Undecided: 9 (11)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 40 (40)

Tom Cox (R): 43 (43)

Undecided: 10 (11)

Blanche Lincoln (D-inc): 39 (41)

Kim Hendren (R): 46 (44)

Undecided: 9 (10)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

These are Moe Szyslak numbers – plug-fugly. In fact, Tom Jensen says things are actually worse than they appear: In PPP’s recent poll of AR-02, undecided voters in that district gave Lincoln wretched 11-58 favorables (yeah, you read that right). It’s starting to make me wonder how Lincoln can survive, especially if Baker winds up being the GOP nominee – and it makes these other numbers from R2K all the more interesting:

Bill Halter (D): 34

Gilbert Baker (R): 42

Undecided: 24

Bill Halter (D): 35

Curtis Coleman (R): 40

Undecided: 25

Bill Halter (D): 36

Tom Cox (R): 32

Undecided: 32

Bill Halter (D): 36

Kim Hendren (R): 31

Undecided: 33

(MoE: ±4%)

Lt. Gov. Bill Halter is mooting a primary challenge to Lincoln, and as you can see, all of the Republican candidates fare identically against him as they do against the incumbent. The big difference, though, is that Lincoln’s overall favorables are underwater at 41-50, while Halter is in positive territory at 36-25 – and two-fifths of the state doesn’t even know him yet. On account of that, I have to believe Halter would do better than Lincoln once he’s better-known. But the first question is, can he win a primary?

Blance Lincoln (D-inc): 42

Bill Halter (D): 26

Undecided: 32

(MoE: ±5%)

Forty-two percent is not where an incumbent wants to be in a potential primary matchup, especially against a guy who’s unknown to a third of Democrats. Lincoln’s numbers among members of her own party are fairly decent, 62-32. But among Dems, Halter clocks in at a nifty 55-11, and he clearly has room to grow

I’d also like to point out that Halter is hardly some unelectable left-wing gadfly. To the contrary: He won statewide office in 2006 with a higher share of the vote than even super-popular Gov. Mike Beebe. And while I certainly wouldn’t expect Halter to be a progressive standard-bearer, there’s little question he’d be better on healthcare than Lincoln, given that’s how he’s hoping to get traction against her.

In the end, I don’t see how we wouldn’t be better off with Halter, whose negatives almost surely wouldn’t wind up as awful as Lincoln’s, and who can’t be tied to DC in quite the same way. It wouldn’t be an easy fight – waging war against an incumbent seldom is. But I’d like to see him try.

(Note: According to the SSP calendar, Arkansas’s filing deadline is March 8th and the primary is May 18th.)

RaceTracker Wiki: AR-Sen

Charlie Crist has been promising to get more proactive in dealing with the Marco Rubio challenge, but he’s taking a strange new approach to dealing with his growing unpopularity among the Republican base: attack the base for being wrong. He buried it in a statement of his own conservative bona fies, but it’s there all the same, calling out the teabaggers on their very teabaggishness:

“It’s hard to be more concervative than I am on issues – though there are different ways stylistically to communicate that – I’m pro-life, I’m pro-gun, I’m pro-family, and I”m anti tax…. I don’t know what else you’re supposed to be, except maybe angry too…”

… and makes fun of their marginalization… but it’s that same marginalization (real or not) that fuels the very sense of victimization that’s at the root of their anger:

“There are a lot of Republicans that don’t have the inclination to go to executive committee meetings….There is wide swath of republican voters out there that don’t necessarily listen to cable tv all the time.”

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the latest poll of the race (from late last week):

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (11/16-18, likely voters, 1/26-28 in parentheses):

Charlie Crist (R): 47 (57)

Marco Rubio (R): 37 (4)

Undecided: 16 (21)

(MoE: ±5%)

Kendrick Meek (D): 33 (28)

Charlie Crist (R): 50 (49)

Undecided: 17 (23)

Kendrick Meek (D): 38 (31)

Marco Rubio (R): 30 (22)

Undecided: 32 (47)

(MoE: ±4%)

Not much change in the general election numbers since R2K first looked at potential matchups in January, when the idea of Charlie Crist in the Senate race was a bit fanciful. But look at that primary election trendline: the 10-point spread is the narrowest yet seen, and taken as a whole, it’s gotta be alarming to Crist. (Don’t get too excited yet about that 8-pt. lead by Meek over Rubio — 40% of GOPers are undecided, vs. 24% of Dems, so guess which way they’re likely to break.)

Once Crist finds out that attacking teabaggers for being teabaggers isn’t going to work, he might be looking for an even more desperate measure to save his well-tanned hide. Knowing that much of Crist’s success lies in his appeal to indies and soft Dems, Markos has been craftily working another angle: encouraging him to pull one of two variations on a Specter. It turns out the math is actually there for him:

Kendrick Meek (D): 31

Marco Rubio (R): 27

Charlie Crist (I): 32

Undecided: 10

Charlie Crist (D): 45

Marco Rubio (R): 34

Undecided: 21

(MoE: ±4%)

Finally, R2K also takes its first look at the governor’s race. Like most other pollsters, there see a lot of undecideds, and a narrow gap between Republican AG Bill McCollum and Democratic CFO Alex Sink.

Bill McCollum (R): 45

Paula Dockery (R): 9

Undecided: 46

(MoE: ±5%)

Alex Sink (D): 33

Bill McCollum (R): 35

Undecided: 32

Alex Sink (D): 35

Paula Dockery (R): 13

Undecided: 52

(MoE: ±4%)

RaceTracker Wiki: FL-Sen | FL-Gov