Tag: Polls

Public Policy Polling (11/29-30, likely voters, 11/22-23 in parens)

Jim Martin (D): 46 (46)

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc): 53 (52)

Undecided: 1 (2)

(MoE: ±2.7%)

Tom Jensen says:

Chambliss is up 71-28 on Jim Martin with whites. For Martin to win the runoff with that performance, the electorate would have to be 34% African American. Given that it was only 30% for the general election with Barack Obama at the top of the ballot and that early voting was less than 23% black, that does not seem particularly likely.

Not looking good. The other survey, from Insider Advantage, isn’t looking much better (11/30, likely voters, 11/23 in parens):

Jim Martin (D): 46 (47)

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc): 50 (50)

Undecided: 4 (3)

(MoE: ±3.5%)

Matt Towery of IA offers some succor:

The race could be a 10-point blowout for Chambliss, or under the right circumstances, a very tight contest. This is like trying to forecast snow in Georgia – almost impossible.

I’m not sanguine. Nine polls by five different pollsters have all given Chambliss the lead. Could they all be wrong, Alaska-style? Sure, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (11/23-25, likely voters, 11/17-18 in parens):

Jim Martin (D): 46 (45)

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc): 52 (51)

Undecided: 2 (4)

(MoE: ±4%)

The problem for Jim Martin is that, for him to win, every single poll of the run-off needs to be wrong:

It is possible, of course, since everyone seems to be struggling in terms of projecting turnout (as you might expect with a one-off election like this). But I should point out that the first-round polls were pretty good (they had Saxby up four in aggregate, while his final margin was three).

Martin does have a 56-44 lead among early voters. Unfortunately, that’s rather similar to his 56-39 lead with early voters in the final R2K poll before Nov. 4th – clearly, it seems, all of the libertarian’s support migrated to Saxby. However, if election day turnout among Republicans is weak, there’s a chance this early vote might carry Martin, despite the much lower early African American turnout. Interestingly, it looks like a greater proportion of likely voters have voted early this time – 28% vs. 12% in that late October poll.

We’ll know soon enough.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (11/23-25, likely voters):

Harry Reid (D-inc): 46

Jon Porter (R): 40

(MoE: ±4%)

Looks like Nevadans are feeling kind of lukewarm about Harry Reid these days. (“Lukewarm” and “Harry Reid” in the same sentence? Wow, I’ll bet that’s never happened before…) In a prospective 2010 matchup, he’s beating Jon Porter (who recently got bounced from his NV-03 seat by Dina Titus) by six points, although he’s well below the 50% comfort level.

The numbers below the fold look worse for Reid; his approval/disapproval rating is only 38/54 (luckily, Porter’s are little better at 40/39). When asked whether they’d choose to reelect Reid or consider replacing him, respondents say 32% reelect, 23% consider someone else, and 41% say replace him. Against a strong challenger with a statewide reputation, Reid could face some real trouble, leaving him possibly the only endangered Dem-held seat in 2010. However, between the badly depleted Republican bench in Nevada (Porter may truly be their best bet, as Lt. Governor Brian Krolicki may be looking at indictment rather than a run against Reid, and Rep. Dean Heller is likely to either stay in place or go for Governor) and Nevada’s rapid demographics-driven bluening, this race could just as easily turn into a non-issue.

Yes, I know that the runoff election for Saxby Chambliss’s seat hasn’t even been decided yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t also look ahead to 2010, as our friends at Public Policy Polling are doing today.

According to PPP’s latest poll, frosh GOP Senator Johnny Isakson seems pretty unknown, sporting only a 30-25 approval rating (with a whopping 44% saying “not sure”). PPP was also kind enough to give us a look at some numbers of Isakson against two strong Democrats on Georgia’s bench (11/22-23, likely voters):

Thurbert Baker (D): 39

Johnny Isakson (R-inc): 45

Jim Marshall (D): 38

Johnny Isakson (R-inc): 47

(MoE: ±3.3%)

I have my finger in this pie, as these match-ups were my suggestions. Not that I think either Marshall, who seems to be settling into his R+8 district, or Baker, Georgia’s African-American Attorney General, are likely to run, but it’s worth seeing how well Johnny would do against a pair of Democrats that at least some people have heard of in the state. And, sure enough, neither of these leads are particularly formidable, though Isakson still has two years to get his ass in gear (if he really needs to).

While Isakson isn’t one of the more obvious targets for Dems in 2010, perhaps there’s some potential here for a ambitious candidate to make a name for themselves in a race like this. After all, few thought that Jim Martin had much of a shot in his race this year, and he polled very poorly against Chambliss at the start of his campaign.

Public Policy Polling (11/22-23, likely voters):

Jim Martin (D): 46

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc): 52

(MoE: ±3.3%)

The usual caveats of special election/runoff polling still applies here, of course — it’s tough to nail down a good sample in a low-turnout election, but it’s worth noting that this result is nearly identical to a recent R2K poll showing Saxby up by 51-45.

Tom Jensen has more:

Chambliss leads 69-29 with white voters. Even with a higher than expected black turnout for the runoff that share of the white vote would not be good enough for Martin to win- he needs to move closer to a third of it.

Martin leads with voters under 45, but Chambliss has a staggering 69-31 lead with senior citizens, and with the balance of the electorate between older and younger voters tipping in an old direction for the runoff, that makes Martin’s climb that much harder.

If there’s some solace here, at least we know that the newer generation of Georgians is more progressive than the oldsters.

Not going quietly, the DSCC has a new poll of their own. The Mellman Group (11/21-23, likely voters):

Jim Martin (D): 46

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc): 48

(MoE: ±4%)

At the very least, every post-election poll agrees that Martin is sitting in the mid-forties, which is still sort of remarkable given just how bad Georgia has looked for Democrats in the past couple of cycles. Anything can happen in a low-turnout election, but this race does seem to be leaning towards Chambliss.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (11/17-19, likely voters, 11/10-12 in parentheses):

Jim Martin (D): 45 (46)

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc): 51 (49)

(MoE: ±4%)

The newest R2K poll of the Georgia senate runoff shows Jim Martin falling further behind incumbent Saxby Chambliss at 51-45, but Markos points out an interesting detail: the previous week’s poll, which was 49-46, found that the respondents had voted 49-47 for Chambliss in the general election (which closely mirrored the actual 49-46 result). This sample, however, finds that the respondents voted 52-44 in the general, suggesting a more Republican-leaning batch.

The fluctuation may also reflect some difficulty in pinning down who exactly fits the ‘likely voter’ mold for a runoff election: is it anyone who voted in November, or only someone who votes with regularity? Martin probably owes his close showing in the general to high turnout from young and/or African-American voters with sporadic voting track records but who were highly motivated to come out for Obama… and Obama seems hesitant to expend too much political capital on this race right now. On the other hand, with Republicans probably demoralized and undermotivated to return to the polls, and with a lot of Obama staffers deployed to the state, it’s at least possible Martin could pull out the upset through disparities in ground game.

The Kitchens Group (11/18-19, likely voters, 11/6-7 in parens):

Paul Carmouche (D): 48 (45)

John Fleming (R): 37 (35)

Undecided: 13 (16)

(MoE: ±4.0%)

That’s a fair spot better than the last two polls we’ve seen of this race. Interestingly, Kitchens pegs the African-American vote at a conservative 22% (this district is 33% black), meaning they estimate that the ‘Mouche is doing much better with whites than either SUSA or Public Opinion Strategies say he is. This one will probably go down to the wire.

The full polling memo and details are available below the fold.

After the Paul Carmouche campaign released a poll last week showing the Caddo Parish DA leading Republican John Fleming by 10 points in this open seat race, two new polls have been released tonight showing Fleming with a slight lead. Let’s check ’em out.

SurveyUSA for Roll Call (11/17-18, likely voters):

Paul Carmouche (D): 45

John Fleming (R): 47

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Public Opinion Strategies for John Fleming (11/17-18, likely voters):

Paul Carmouche (D): 42

John Fleming (R): 43

(MoE: ±4.9%)

There are a lot of unknowns about turnout here, particularly concerning the African-American turnout for this December 6th election. While the district is 33% black, SUSA pegs the black vote at 27% for this special election, and the POS poll split the difference at 30%. The Kitchens Group poll for Carmouche, interestingly, conservatively projected the black turnout to be 24%.

The DCCC is investing considerably in this race, having spent $448,000 on Carmouche’s behalf as of this afternoon, while the NRCC has dropped $279,000, most of which has been spent on media buys. However, the DCCC is also spending cash on field operations, which is something they employed successfully in other special elections this year (IN-07, LA-06, and MS-01). Just to give you a sense of the track record of the DCCC’s field program, they made significant independent expenditures for boots on the ground in seven races this fall (AL-02, AL-05, CT-04, LA-06, MD-01, MS-01 and NC-08) and won six of them. Of course, the one race of that batch that we did happen to lose was also in Louisiana, but other factors contributed to Don Cazayoux’s demise there that won’t be in play against Carmouche.

Rasmussen (11/18, likely voters):

Jim Martin (D): 46

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc): 50

(MoE: ±4%)

So far, both publicly-released runoff period polls (R2K being the other) have showed little movement since November 4th. Chambliss still retains a slight lead, but as Nate Silver says, likely voter models are tough to set for special-type elections, and it’s difficult to make assumptions about turnout. Incredibly, 88% of Georgian voters say they are “certain” to vote in this runoff, which is a bit hard to believe considering that voter turnout was over 20 points lower on November 4th. In this race, so much will come down to getting out the vote, making the outcome difficult to predict.

I’m told that another pollster is about to go into the field here tomorrow, so we should have some more poll results to pick apart in a few days.

Quinnipiac has released a new poll today testing the 2010 waters in Florida, and their numbers confirm what we’ve known for a long time: GOP Sen. Mel Martinez is in rough shape as his first term expires.

Only 36% believe that Martinez deserves to be re-elected, while 38% of voters say he does not. In a match-up against “the Democratic candidate”, Martinez only pulls in 36% of the vote to the Democrat’s 40%. His favorable rating is similarly lackluster: 31-28, with a plurality (37%) saying they haven’t heard enough to form an opinion of the man. Quinnipiac’s Peter Brown calls these numbers “not awful”, but that’s only true by perhaps a hair’s width of difference. They’re certainly not numbers that provide an incumbent with a sense of comfort two years out from his first re-election.

Of course, an opportunity like this one will only pan out if Dems can recruit a solid candidate — for my money, I think I’ll take state CFO Alex Sink. Sink has the highest name recognition and favorable rating of all the potential Senate candidates tested in this poll (Reps. Allen Boyd, Kendrick Meek, and state Senator-elect Dan Gelber being the others), but there are numerous other options available on the table right now.