Tag: Polls

Public Policy Polling (10/31-11/2, likely voters, 10/25-26 in parens):

Kay Hagan (D): 51 (48)

Elizabeth Dole (R-inc): 44 (45)

Christopher Cole (L): 3 (4)

(MoE: ±2.1%)

Kay Hagan has opened up a nice lead — one that is well outside of this poll’s miniscule margin of error, leading PPP’s Tom Jensen to declare that Dole’s “Godless Americans” attacks have “blown up in her face”. Good.

In a great sign for Hagan, she leads Dole by 56-41 among early voters (63% of the sample), while Obama leads McCain by 55-45 among those who have already cast a ballot. Obama is locked in a neck-and-neck race with McCain in this state (leading by only 50-49 overall), so Hagan’s strong early performance looks like it will be enough to carry her through election day. SSP is updating our rating of this race from Tossup to Lean Democratic.

SurveyUSA (10/30-11/1, likely voters, 10/16-18 in parens):

Al Franken (DFL): 39 (39)

Norm Coleman (R-inc): 44 (41)

Dean Barkley (I): 16 (18)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

SurveyUSA (10/29-30, likely voters, 10/26-27 in parens):

Ashwin Madia (D): 41 (44)

Erik Paulsen (R-inc): 46 (45)

David Dillon (IP): 10 (n/a)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

SurveyUSA (10/29-30, likely voters, 10/20-21 in parens):

Elwyn Tinklenberg (DFL): 45 (47)

Michele Bachmann (R-inc): 46 (44)

Bob Anderson (IP): 6 (6)

(MoE: ±4%)

SurveyUSA has had some of the kindest numbers for Republicans this cycle in Minnesota, and their latest statewide polling is no exception — Obama only leads McCain by 49-46 here. The Pollster.com composite has Obama leading McCain by 13 points. Either all the other pollsters are wildly wrong, or SUSA has some serious issues with their Minnesota methodology. I’m leaning towards the latter.

One thing in particular is worth noting: the kids just can’t enough of the GOP. Paulsen leads Madia by 46-37 among voters between the ages of 18 and 34, and Bachmann leads Tinklenberg by 49-39 in this age bracket. (In the statewide sample, they break by 56-40 for Obama and 44-37 for Franken.) We’ve seen this phenomenon fairly regularly in SUSA’s Minnesota polling.

Of all these numbers, the 6th CD top lines do seem the most believable — it’s perhaps not hard to imagine Bachmann’s Hardball backlash fading a bit in this R+5 district, but SUSA’s overall Republican bias in Minnesota leaves me skeptical of this entire package.

The Siena College Research Institute has released a final batch of ten New York State Senate polls in the last few days. Here they are:

SD-03 (10/29-11/1, likely voters, 9/11-17 in parens):

Brian Foley (D): 56 (40)

Caesar Trunzo (R-inc): 34 (46)

(MoE: ±4.9)

SD-06 (10/29-11/1, likely voters, no trendlines):

Kristen McElroy (D): 30

Kemp Hannon (R-inc): 56

(MoE: ±4.8)

SD-07 (10/27-29, likely voters, 9/11-17 in parens):

Craig Johnson (D-inc): 50 (49)

Barbara Donno (R): 35 (25)

(MoE: ±4.8)

SD-15 (10/29-11/1, likely voters, 9/11-17 in parens):

Joseph Addabbo Jr. (D): 45 (42)

Serphin Maltese (R-inc): 43 (42)

(MoE: ±4.9)

SD-37: (10/27-29, likely voters, 9/30-10/05 in parens):

Suzi Oppenheimer (D-inc): 64 (61)

Liz Feld (R): 29 (24)

(MoE: ±4.8)

SD-48 (10/29-11/1, likely voters, 9/11-17 in parens):

Darrel Aubertine (D-inc): 49 (51)

David Renzi (R): 38 (31)

(MoE: ±4.6)

SD-56 (10/27-29, likely voters, 9/11-17 in parens):

Richard Dollinger (D): 39 (38)

Joe Robach (R-inc): 52 (49)

(MoE: ±4.6)

SD-58 (10/29-11/1, likely voters, 9/30-10/05 in parens):

William Stachowski (D-inc): 47 (36)

Dennis Delano (R): 43 (49)

(MoE: ±4.9)

SD-59 (10/27-29, likely voters, 9/30-10/5 in parens):

Kathy Konst (D): 39 (33)

Dale Volker (R-inc): 50 (50)

(MoE: ±4.9)

SD-61 (10/29-11/1, likely voters, 9/11-17 in parens):

Joseph Mesi (D): 42 (40)

Michael Ranzenhofer (R): 47 (38)

(MoE: ±4.9)

UPDATE by Crisitunity: If these predictions hold, this would see the Democrats picking up the New York State Senate by the barest majority, by gaining two seats (right now it’s 31-29 for the Republicans, with 2 vacancies which are split between the two parties and likely to remain that way). They would pick up the GOP seats of Caesar Trunzo in SD-03 in Long Island’s Suffolk County (who led Brian Foley by a decent margin in the last poll) and Serphin Maltese in SD-15 in Queens (who was tied with Joe Addabbo in the previous poll).

Much of rest of the action is in the Buffalo area: there’s at least one other possible pickup, SD-61, a Republican-held open seat where Joe Mesi led Michael Ranzenhofer previously but now trails by 5. Kathy Konst has made up a lot of ground in SD-59, but is still down by 11. The one seat where the Dems are engaged in a difficult defense is SD-58, where Dem incumbent William Stachowski was down by 13 against suspended Buffalo PD detective Dennis Delano, but now leads by 4. As you can see, there’s a lot of volatility, not just because we’re dealing with small sample sizes, but also the difficulty in general in polling state legislature races. But it looks like, after decades of futility, the Dems are in position to take over the New York state senate.

Research & Polling Inc for the Albuquerque Journal (10/28-30, likely voters, 9/29-10/2 in parens):

Martin Heinrich (D): 47 (43)

Darren White (R): 43 (41)

Undecided: 10 (16)

(MoE: ±5%)

The undecideds are breaking for Heinrich, and I’d expect that they will continue to do so on election day in this D+2.4 district. NRCC Chair Tom Cole may have promised Darren White the moon last fall, but his candidacy was a mistake.

And over in the 2nd District…

Research & Polling Inc for the Albuquerque Journal (10/28-30, likely voters):

Harry Teague (D): 45

Ed Tinsley (R): 41

Undecided: 14

(MoE: ±5%)

Lots of undecideds still on the table here, but it’s pretty troubling for Republicans that Tinsley hasn’t locked more of the vote down, especially with the news that Tinsley canceled his last week of broadcast television advertising. Harry Teague may just be on track for a narrow win here on Tuesday.

(Hat-tip: New Mexico FBIHOP)

Markos has the Daily Kos polling firehose open at full blast. Here’s a quick roundup of this final set of R2K polls:

KY-Sen:

Lunsford (D): 44 (42)

McConnell (R-inc): 47 (46)

MN-Sen:

Franken (D): 40 (41)

Coleman (R-inc): 43 (39)

Barkley (I): 15 (18)

MS-Sen:

Musgrove (D): 44 (46)

Wicker (R-inc): 51 (47)

OR-Sen:

Merkley (D): 48 (47)

Smith (R-inc): 42 (41)

Bonus MN-Sen poll: An MPR/UMN poll (PDF) shows Franken leading 41-37-17. At the start of October, it was 36F-38C-14B.

SurveyUSA (10/29-30, likely voters, 10/25-26 in parens):

Jeff Merkley (D): 49 (49)

Gordon Smith (R-inc): 42 (42)

Dave Brownlow (C): 5 (5)

(MoE: ±3.8%)

Last summer, I had an informal phone conversation with someone fairly high up on the food chain over at the DSCC (which, I assure you, is not something I do everyday). At the time, Democrats still hadn’t recruited a top-tier candidate to run against Gordon Smith, and some folks in left blogistan (myself included) were worried that this opportunity was slipping away. The DSCC staffer, at that early time, seemed more enthusiastic about this race than any of the other Senate races on the table (remember, Virginia and New Mexico weren’t yet open seats at that time). I admit that I didn’t quite buy it.

But here we are, almost 18 months later, and Gordon Smith is going to lose:

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (10/27-29, likely voters, 10/14-16):

Gary Trauner (D): 45 (44)

Cynthia Lummis (R): 49 (43)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

This is a race that looks great on paper: Gary Trauner (who almost beat Barbara Cubin last time, helping prompt her retirement this year) is a known quantity in Wyoming, who’s been running mostly even in the polls with Cynthia Lummis, and now he’s getting a good amount of DCCC IEs to go with his netroots money, enough to recently boost this race to Lean Republican. However, we might be seeing a bit of what we’ve been worried about here at SSP: previously high numbers of undecided Republicans, who seem to be coming home to the GOP in the closing moments of the campaign. If 2006 is any indication, though, Trauner is good at overperforming the polls.

McCain is up 61-36 in Wyoming. There are two senate races, both safe GOP: Barasso leads Carter 60-35 and Enzi leads Rothfuss 62-35.

Along the lines of our New Hampshire compendium of polls, there’s so much new North Carolina material out today that we’re just going to give it to you in condensed form. What are the takeaways? The governor’s race is still too close to call but may be shading toward Perdue, while on the Senate side, it’s time for the Republicans to start practicing saying “Senator Godless.”

Research 2000 for Daily Kos:

Hagan 50 (49), Dole 45 (45)

Perdue 49 (48), McCrory 44 (43)

CNN:

Hagan 53, Dole 44

Elon:

Hagan 44 (37), Dole 37 (35)

Perdue 40 (33), McCrory 40 (37)

Civitas (R):

Hagan 45 (44), Dole 43 (41)

Perdue 45 (43), McCrory 43 (43)

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (10/28-30, likely voters, 10/14-16):

Mark Begich (D): 58 (48)

Ted Stevens (R-inc): 36 (46)

(MoE: ±4%)

Ethan Berkowitz (D): 53 (50)

Don Young (R-inc): 44 (44)

(MoE: ±4%)

Ted Stevens and Don Young have a combined 75 years of congressional seniority, but it looks like Alaskans are poised to blow that up and start over. Most notably, Stevens’ conviction accounted for a 20-point swing since the previous poll two weeks ago. But some of the spirit of cleaning-house seems to have even transferred over to Berkowitz, whose numbers jumped a little as well.

McCain still has a big advantage at the presidential level, 58-39, but this poll also sees Sarah Palin’s favorables dropping back to somewhat earthbound levels (65-35) after two months of constant airing of her dirty laundry.

Rasmussen (10/30, likely voters, 10/22 in parens):

Jim Martin (D): 43 (45)

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc): 48 (47)

Allen Buckley (L): 7 (1)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

That’s a big surge for Buckley, who perhaps got a boost from his recent debate performances — or perhaps this is mostly just noise.

Research 2000 (for the Great Orange Satan) has a different picture (10/28-30, likely voters, 10/14-15 in parens):

Jim Martin (D): 46 (45)

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc): 47 (47)

Allen Buckley (L): 5 (5)

(MoE: ±4%)

Among those who have already voted (12% of the sample), Martin leads by 56-39. The good news for Martin is that he’s running ahead of Obama in the early vote — albeit just slightly (Obama leads McCain 55-40 among these voters, and trails McCain 47-44 overall). For Martin to have a shot at coming ahead of Chambliss on November 4th (or even taking 50% plus one), he’d need to run ahead of Obama here — and earlier polls from SurveyUSA were suggesting the opposite in the early vote.

A small chance exists that Martin could come out on top without a runoff on Tuesday, but I wouldn’t place my money on it.

UPDATE: A new CNN/Time poll has Chambliss leading Martin by 53-44 among likely voters (his best margin in quite some time), but only by 48-47 among registered voters. The problem with this poll? It didn’t include Buckley.