Tag: Polls

Star Tribune (9/10-12, likely voters, 5/12-15 in parens):

Al Franken (DFL): 37 (44)

Norm Coleman (R-inc): 41 (51)

Dean Barkley (I): 13 (-)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

With Barkley in the mix, Coleman’s lead has shrunk to four points from seven in May. Some more numbers: Coleman’s job approval is pretty poor, clocking in at 42% (down from 45% in May). Still, Franken’s personal unfavorables continue to be higher than his favorability rating among voters. One piece of good news for Franken is that, by a 62-25 margin, voters consider Coleman as someone who “follows President Bush’s lead” as opposed to being an independent thinker. That association will be driven hard and heavy from now until November.

The results are fairly close to a recent SUSA poll released on Saturday that showed Coleman leading by 41-40, with Barkley picking up 14%. It seems that Barkley is hoping that Franken and Coleman will nuke each other to death in the air wars, allowing him to get to 35 or 36% based on a strong debate performance. Can’t say that I think such a scenario is likely, although his impact on this race will not be negligible.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican.

SurveyUSA (9/10-11, likely voters, 8/13-14 in parens):

Al Franken (D): 40 (39)

Norm Coleman (R-inc): 41 (46)

Dean Barkley (I): 14 (-)

Undecided: 5 (5)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

SurveyUSA has generally given more favorable margins for Coleman than Rasmussen (the only two outfits that regularly release polls of this contest), in part perhaps based on a sample of younger voters who are more pro-GOP than you might expect. So while it might be tempting to say that Franken is performing well in the face of a funky cross-sample, I’d prefer to wait for SUSA to release the poll’s crosstabs to pick this one apart. UPDATE: Crosstabs are available here. Look like SUSA finally solved the young voter problem — in this poll, Franken leads 48-33 among 18-34 year-olds.

Note: In the August poll, Dean Barkley’s name wasn’t explicitly mentioned, but “Other” gobbled up 11% of the vote.

Bonus finding: Obama leads McCain by a 49-47 in the poll, the same margin that SUSA showed here in August.

(Via MN Publius)

Cooper & Secrest for Mike Montagano (9/9-10, likely voters, 4/24,26-27 in parens):

Mike Montagano (D): 37 (28)

Mark Souder (R-inc): 50 (55)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Montagano has been making great progress, cutting Souder’s lead by half since April. This is a deeply Republican district that gave 68% of its vote to Bush in 2004, but Souder has been dramatically under-performing in recent years, including a 54-46 win over physician Tom Hayhurst in 2006 — a performance so pathetic that the NRCC was forced to spend $225K in his defense.

Blue Indiana gives us some more details:

Only 30% of the electorate consider themselves “strong Souder voters.”

Mike Montagano has increased his name ID from 16% to 59%, and of voters who recognize both candidates, Montagano leads Souder by a 47% to 41% margin

Of voters who have seen Montagano’s television advertisements, he leads 47% to 37%.

Montagano leads Souder among Independent voters by an 8-point margin.

Souder’s job performance is still sub-fifty, and 44% have a negative opinion of him as the district’s representation in Congress.

Overall, these are some pretty awful numbers for a GOP incumbent in a district this red. Will it be enough to put Montagano over the top? I’m not sure, but he seems poised to at least give Souder another serious scare.

SSP currently rates this race as Likely Republican.

SurveyUSA (9/8-10, likely voters, 7/28-30):

Baron Hill (D-inc): 50 (49)

Mike Sodrel (R): 39 (42)

Eric Schansberg (L): 5 (4)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

Hill is still looking good in his fourth straight head-to-head against warmed-over Republican retread Mike Sodrel.

Blue Indiana offers some local color. Sodrel has been running an usually quiet and low-energy race, and is still struggling to scrape together some decent coin.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Democratic.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (9/8-10, likely voters, 10/22/2007 in parens):

Tom Allen (D): 38 (33)

Susan Collins (R-inc): 57 (56)

(MoE: ±4%)

Un-sexy. How about North Carolina?

Research 2000 (9/8-10, likely voters, 7/28-30):

Kay Hagan (D): 42 (42)

Elizabeth Dole (R-inc): 48 (50)

(MoE: ±4%)

The same poll also finds Pat McCrory up by 5 points in the state’s gubernatorial race, and John McCain crushing Barack Obama by 55-38. Those numbers fit like peas in a pod with a recent funky SUSA poll, but jive pretty sharply with recent surveys by homeboys Public Policy Polling and Civitas — both firms show McCain with a very small lead over Obama, and PPP still has Hagan edging Dole by a single point. Civitas should be releasing a Senate race poll very shortly.

Additionally, a recent Garin-Hart-Yang poll gave Dole a two-point lead (and McCain a three-point edge).

Pick your poison, I suppose. But I’m a little more inclined to believe the home-state pollsters (PPP and Civitas) over R2K and SUSA.

UPDATE: PPP dismisses R2K’s poll as gibberish.

Damn, this is great news. Benenson Strategy Group for Jeff Merkley (9/7-9, likely voters, August in parens):

Jeff Merkley (D): 43 (38)

Gordon Smith (R-inc): 41 (47)

Dave Brownlow (C): 6 (4)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

The full polling memo is below the fold, and do check it out if you like to read about good news. As you can see from Smith’s job approval ratings, he’s in a world of trouble: 70% of undecideds give him a negative job approval rating!

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (9/8-10, likely voters, 7/21-23):

Ronnie Musgrove (D): 43 (44)

Roger Wicker (R-inc): 48 (45)

(MoE: ±4%)

The last poll we’ve seen from this race (by Rasmussen), showed Wicker leading by nine, so this is a better margin all around.

Musgrove wins black voters by 75-7, and loses whites by 23-73. If Musgrove can consolidate black support to the 90% mark and pull in at least 25% of the white vote, he can win. This one will be tough, but it’s still doable.

That said, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and his gang of crumb-bums are going full-steam ahead on their scheme to move this race to the very bottom of the statewide ballot, obscuring the race from first-time voters who might not mark up their ballots from top to bottom. Barbour is a special kind of cynical scum to pull this kind of move.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican.

Harstad Strategic Research for Mark Udall (9/7-9, likely voters):

Mark Udall (D): 45

Bob Schaffer (R): 34

Bob Kinsey (G): 2

Doug Campbell (C): 3

(MoE: ±3.6%)

In response to the NRSC’s internal from last week showing a one-point race for the open Senate seat in Colorado, the Udall camp releases their own internal showing an 11-point gap at the height of the GOP post-convention bounce. This poll is of mild interest in that it’s the first poll I can think of that has polled the effect of third-party candidates on the race (the Green and the Constitution Party guy seem to cancel each other out).

Rasmussen (9/9, likely voters):

Larry LaRocco (D): 30

Jim Risch (R): 58

(MoE: ±4.0%)

In other news from the Mountain West, Jim Risch has a big lead on Larry LaRocco in Rasmussen’s first poll of the open Senate seat race in Idaho. This poll is missing one key element, though: self-funding independent Rex Rammell, who’s charging hard at Risch’s right flank. If this is really where the race is, though, it doesn’t look like the Rammell effect will have much impact on the bottom line.

It may be worth noting that the uncharismatic and campaigning-averse Risch inspires a large degree of “meh” among the sample: he has a 62% favorable rating, but 41% of that is only “somewhat favorable.”

SurveyUSA (9/7-9, likely voters, 7/27-29 in parens):

Darcy Burner (D): 44 (44)

Dave Reichert (R-inc): 54 (50)

(MoE: ±3.8%)

A nice bump for Reichert, but what accounts for it? Given SUSA’s crosstabs gone haywire in North Carolina, could we be seeing something similar in these results — sparked in part, perhaps, by the Republican convention? Not that I can tell. The age, ethnicity, and party affiliation sample breakdowns are very similar to SUSA’s July poll, and this most recent poll actually sees a slight uptick in female voters — a group that breaks narrowly for Burner. Male voters, on the other hand, are flocking to Sheriff Dave by a wide 61-38 margin.

The most funky portion of the crosstabs? Voters under 35 support Reichert over Burner by a 16-point margin. Young voters going ga-ga for Republican incumbents and candidates is something we’ve seen quite often in many SUSA polls (especially ones from Minnesota), so it seems reasonable to find flaws with their voter screen here.

On another note, over at Pollster.com, Momentum Analysis’ Margie Omero has a blog post well worth reading on Roll Call’s recent controversial batch of SurveyUSA polls. I don’t mean to dump on SUSA all of a sudden — overall, I find that they produce quality work — but her critique is well worth considering. I would also like to draw special attention to one paragraph in particular:

First, there’s more to judging survey quality than whether it was conducted internally or by an independent third party.  But second, and perhaps more important, Congressional handicappers should rely on more than a single poll’s results to judge a race’s viability.

Well said. Too often we see people reflexively dismiss internal polling, as if the very nature of a partisan-commissioned poll deems the whole project untrustworthy. And it’s also been too easy for some people to stake their entire analysis of a race on a single poll without attempting to get a more holistic sense of the dynamics of that particular contest.

SSP currently rates WA-08 as a Tossup.

Anzalone-Lizst for Linda Stender (8/20-25):

Linda Stender (D): 36

Leonard Lance (R): 33

Michael Hsing (I): 9

Tom Abrams (I): 2

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Hsing is a Republican councilman from Bridgewater who is running as an independent, and Abrams, who ran on the “Withdraw Our Troops Now” line in 2006 (might as well have been the “Stay In Iraq Forever” line, but I digress), is again running as an anti-war independent. Without those two pretenders on the ballot, Stender leads Lance by 43-42.

Up the ballot, this district is incredibly tight, with a slight GOP lean: McCain leads Obama by 45-43. It’s worth mentioning that Bush carried New Jersey’s 7th twice — by a single point in 2000, and six points four years later. Looks like it could be another close one. I’ve been told that the DCCC has just gone up on the air in this district with a negative spot against Lance.

I’m still trying to obtain some key info about this poll — including its margin of error and the date lines, and will update this post accordingly once I get the details. (Update: Got it.)

SSP currently rates this race as a Tossup.