Tag: Polls

Capital Survey Research Center (8/19-21, likely voters, 4/1 in parens):

Parker Griffith (D): 45 (48)

Wayne Parker (R): 40 (32)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Republican Wayne Parker has closed the gap since April, but this is hardly surprising. Parker began his campaign as a largely unknown candidate, with memories of his two losses to Democrat Bud Cramer in 1994 and 1996 being extremely distant. However, after a contested primary, he’s boosted his name recognition and is now hitting the 40% mark.

Still, Democrat Parker Griffith, a state senator from Huntsville, retains the edge based on his superior credentials, the district’s ancestral Democratic tendencies, and heavier war chest.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Democratic.

SurveyUSA for Roll Call (8/19-21, likely voters):

Nancy Boyda (D-inc): 50

Lynn Jenkins (R): 43

(MoE: ±4%)

Boyda is at the critical 50% mark, and has decent favorability numbers for a frosh Dem in a deep red district (46-32). She still faces a real battle against the top-of-the ticket coattails, as McCain is beating Obama by a 51-38 margin in the district — but even that spread is not as bad as the 59-39 drubbing that Bush delivered to John Kerry here in 2004.

More interesting are the questions related to the energy crisis, including this one:

If two candidates were running for Congress, and one says that offshore drilling is the best way to solve America’s energy problems … and the other says that America needs to identify and promote alternative sources of energy … which candidate would you vote for?

So, considering all the hype surrounding the GOP’s newly-discovered “drill here, drill now” mantra, you would expect offshore drilling to be wildly popular in a conservative R+7.3 district, right? Actually, not so much: Voters here say they would vote for the candidate promoting alternative sources of energy over increased offshore drilling by a 56-34 margin.

Additionally, when asked who was most responsible for high gasoline prices, 38% blamed the oil companies while only 11% blamed environmentalists. President Bush received 10% of the blame, while Congress gobbled up 13%. You can see why the most valued attack line from the party committees this cycle is one that ties GOP candidates to “big oil”.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Democratic.

Suffolk University (8/21-24, likely voters, no trendlines):

Mark Udall (D): 39

Bob Schaffer (R): 31

Douglas Campbell (ACP): 4

Robert Kinsey (G): 2

Undecided: 22

(MoE: ±4.6%)

Mason-Dixon also has released a poll (8/13-15, likely voters) showing Udall leading Schaffer by 10 points:

Mark Udall (D): 47

Bob Schaffer (R): 37

Robert Kinsey (G): 2

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Schaffer’s campaign manager, major league asshole Dick Wadhams, responds with his typical bluster:

“That flies in the face of just about every other number I’ve seen in this race, and I think Mason-Dixon had a bad night,” said Schaffer campaign spokesman Dick Wadhams. “This poll is so far off the mark, I can’t even respond to it.”

Interesting. See, I’m looking at Pollster.com’s chart for this race, and I see seven other polls showing Udall leading by eight points or more. In fact, the Pollster aggregate shows Udall leading by six points, so it’s hard to argue that Mason-Dixon is that far off the mark.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Democratic.

Public Policy Polling (8/20-22, likely voters, 7/17-20 in parens):

Mark Warner (D): 55 (57)

Jim Gilmore (R): 32 (32)

(MoE: ±3.0%)

Nothing to see here, folks.

Bonus finding: Obama leads McCain by 47-45. PPP’s Tom Jensen looks at the numbers and lays out Obama’s path to victory in Virginia:

If blacks make up 20% of the electorate in the state as they make up 20% of the population, and Obama gets 90% of their votes he has 18%.

Assuming that another 5% of the electorate is other nonwhite voters, such as Asians and Hispanics, who tend to vote Democratic. If he gets 60% of those votes it’s another 3%, pushing him up to 21%.

That leaves the white population at 75%, and Obama needing another 29% of the vote to get to 50%. If he gets 39% support from white voters he’s there.

Obama is currently at 36% among white voters — three points short of Jensen’s magic threshold, with 12% undecided. Will he be able to bring it home?

Rasmussen (8/21, likely voters incl. leaners, 7/28 in parens):

Ronnie Musgrove (D): 43 (43)

Roger Wicker (R-inc): 52 (52)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Without leaners, Wicker leads by five: 47-42. The crosstabs show Wicker making some important gains over earlier polls: he now scores 17% of African-American voters (10% without leaners) and holds Musgrove to only 22% of the white vote. Even with a sky-high African-American turnout in November, that’s a winning formula for the GOP.

I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer here, but Musgrove has some serious challenges — most seriously, a recent guilty plea from a business executive who admitted that he attempted to bribe Musgrove with a $25,000 campaign contribution in connection to a failed beef plant project — an unsuccessful business venture that left Mississippi taxpayers carrying the tab in 2003.

Now, there’s no evidence of any wrongdoing on Musgrove’s part, but this is clearly the type of smoke and mirrors game that the GOP will love to exploit. I’m not saying that this race is undoable, but it’s going to take an extraordinary amount of sweat.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican.

Capital Survey Research Center (likely voters, date unknown 8/18):

Joshua Segall (D): 33

Mike Rogers (R-inc): 54

(n=468)

No word yet on when this poll was taken, but I’m assuming it was around or during the same time frame of the CSRC’s AL-02 poll (8/6-7,11), which showed Democrat Bobby Bright leading Jay Love by 10 points.

This district was drawn by the Alabama legislature to elect a Democrat, but after a close loss in 2002, no Dems have been able to wage a viable campaign against Rogers, and this R+4.3 district has quickly fallen way down on the target list. However, attorney Joshua Segall is making a go of it this year, and he’s raised a respectable amount so far.

It will be a very tough climb for him to pull even with Rogers this year, but Segall has put together enough resources to merit watching. Over at Doc’s Political Parlor, Danny contends that Segall will have an especially tough time, because the district is split between three media markets and is therefore considerably expensive for a candidate to raise his name ID. While there is some truth to that, SSP’s Bang-for-the-Buck Index shows that AL-03 is roughly in the middle of the pack of targeted races when it comes to the expense of TV buys. And while it’s certainly not as dirt cheap as AL-02 is, the 3rd CD is a far cry from more expensive targets in Flordia, Texas, and Illinois.

On another note, many GOP partisans questioned the veracity of the CSRC’s AL-02 poll (given that they poll for the Alabama Education Association, a staunch Dem ally), but I’m sure that these same hacks have no complaints with their work in the 3rd CD. It’s all or nothing, fellas.

Research 2000 (8/18-20, likely voters):

Jill Derby (D): 42

Dean Heller (R-inc): 47

(MoE: ±5.0%)

That’s a very nice starting position for Jilly Derby, but she’ll have her work cut out for her in order to swing that extra 8% in this R+8.2 district. On the bright side, Democrats have seen a voter registration surge in the district, and she recently received fundraising support from the DCCC and EMILY’s List.

It’ll be tough, but this race certainly merits watching.

The University of Minnesota/Humphrey Institute for Minnesota Public Radio (8/7-17, likely voters, 1/20-27 in parens):

Al Franken (D): 41 (43)

Norm Coleman (R-inc): 40 (40)

Dean Barkley (I): 8 (-)

(MoE: ±3.6%)

The “trend line” presented here is stretched over such a long period, that it’s almost not worth including. Lest you think that the Humphrey Institute’s methodology is giving Franken a boost, keep in mind that Franken was running very close in other surveys from SurveyUSA, Rasmussen, and even the GOP firm McLaughlin & Associates in the early part of the year.

Is Franken pulling this one out of the fire?

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican.

Civitas (8/14-17, likely voters, 7/14-17 in parens):

Kay Hagan (D): 41 (38)

Elizabeth Dole (R-inc): 44 (47)

Chris Cole (L): 4 (2)

(MoE: ±4.2%)

First we had SUSA, and then Insider Advantage, and now Civitas all showing a rapidly tightening race, probably in no small part due to the pummeling that the DSCC and Dem allies are giving Dole on the airwaves over the issues of her effectiveness and her ties to “big oil”. This is all fantastic news.

The folks over at Public Policy Polling have their own poll in the field, and their early results show Hagan beating Dole. It’s enough for PPP’s Tom Jensen to ask: Is “Dole falling apart“?

I would think one of the cardinal rules of politics is not to remind people of your flaws. That’s why I’m amazed to see that Elizabeth Dole’s new ad responding to the DSCC’s ads about her #93 effectiveness ranking devotes its first four seconds to repeating that unfortunate little fact about herself! Don’t spend your own money to remind people about an ad that’s doing you a lot of damage. […]

I’ll admit up until a couple weeks ago I didn’t really think Kay Hagan had any chance at this. But the DSCC’s campaign on her behalf has been brilliant, and I’m frankly amazed at the numbers we’ve seen the first two days of our tracking poll- we’ll probably release the North Carolina Senate numbers Tuesday.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican, but we’re loving this trend.

Rasmussen (8/20, likely voters incl. leaners, 7/24 in parens):

Tom Udall (D): 52 (61)

Steve Pearce (R): 44 (35)

(MoE: ±4.0%)

Big surge for Steve Pearce. But how does one spell “outlier”? This race has never been in single digits — with the exception of a lone Rasmussen poll from February. It looks like the “Rasmussen non-bounce” may have struck again.

Has anything changed since July to make this an 8-point race? Pearce has taken to the airwaves in recent weeks, slamming Udall on the energy issue, and the Club For Growth nutters have joined in on the fun. That might be enough to bring Tomnotmark down from the 65% range, but you still have to figure that Udall is in commanding control of this race.

SSP currently rates this race as Likely Democratic.