Tag: Polls

Capital Survey Research Center (9/30-10/1, likely voters, 8/18 in parens):

Josh Segall (D): 36 (33)

Mike Rogers (R-inc): 45 (54)

Other/Undecided: 19 (14)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Interesting numbers — with so much economic insecurity, we could be seeing the GOP taking a big hit everywhere, even in the Deep South. This district was drawn by the Alabama legislature to elect a Democrat, but after a close loss in 2002, no one has been able to wage a viable campaign against Rogers. Attorney Josh Segall aims to change that — and his campaign merits watching.

Full poll results and sample details below the fold.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (9/30-10/1, likely voters):

Harry Teague (D): 47

Ed Tinsley (R): 43

(MoE: ±5%)

In the wake of the recently-released (though slightly stale) Dem internal from New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District that gave Harry Teague a five-point lead, here’s a new poll from R2K that almost matches that.

The poll gives McCain a 49-42 edge over Obama, but this is by far New Mexico’s most Republican-leaning district (at R+5.7), one where Kerry lost 58-42. Teague (an oilman and a County Commissioner in dark-red Lea County in New Mexico’s oil patch) maintains a conservative profile, which seems apt for this district, as seen by how far he’s beating the district’s lean.

Swing State Project upgraded this race to Tossup yesterday.

Update (James): Also of note is Teague is just plain better liked than Tinsley: his favorables are at 46-33, a much better spread than Tinsley has (40-37).

Rasmussen (9/30, likely voters, 8/13 in parentheses):

Bev Perdue (D): 46 (51)

Pat McCrory (R): 50 (45)

Michael Munger (L): 2

(MoE: ±4%)

Elon University (9/29-10/2, residents, 9/15-16 in parentheses):

Bev Perdue (D): 33 (35)

Pat McCrory (R): 37 (37)

(MoE: ±4.6%)

Two new polls give more bad news for Bev Perdue, who seems to be slipping in her quest to hold the open North Carolina gubernatorial seat for the Dems. Rasmussen shows a big reversal from mid-August, when Perdue seemed to be at her peak. Elon University also shows Perdue losing a little ground from several weeks ago.

Elon University (9/29-10/2, residents, 9/15-16 in parentheses):

Kay Hagan (D): 37 (35)

Elizabeth Dole (R-inc): 35 (35)

(MoE: ±4.6%)

On the plus side, the same Elon University poll sees Kay Hagan gaining ground in the Senate race. (Bear in mind that the Elon poll is rife with methodological problems: it’s a sample only of residents, and respondents are only asked for each race whether they’re supporting the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. Nevertheless, their margins seem generally in line with numbers we’re seeing elsewhere, with the presidential race in NC tied at 39-39.)

The Mellman Group for the DSCC (9/29-10/1, likely voters):

Al Franken (D): 38

Norm Coleman (R-inc): 36

Dean Barkley (IP): 12

(MoE: ±4%)

This poll comes on the heels of a suspect SUSA poll that showed McCain leading by one point and Coleman by 10. Mellman finds that Norm’s job approval is still on the rocks, with only 32% approving and 56% disapproving of his performance in DC.

The poll also confirms that Independence Party nominee Dean Barkley is attracting a significant share of the vote, making this race a tough one to handicap.

There’s been some stress lately concerning the New Hampshire Senate race based on this Rasmussen poll from a week ago showing Sununu pulling ahead of Shaheen by seven points. Many of us were skeptical of such a dramatic Bununu surge, but I think now we can be assured that the poll was an outlier.

Here’s Rasmussen‘s latest (9/30, likely voters, 9/23 in parens):

Jeanne Shaheen (D): 50 (45)

John Sununu (R-inc): 45 (52)

(MoE: ±4%)

With Rasmussen polls, we occasionally see some pretty strange gyrations. While the race may still be close, I think it’s clear that last week’s poll was nothing but a “Rasmussen bounce” for Sununu.

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.)

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.

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.