Tag: Polls

This one has been making the rounds today, but we finally have the opportunity to cut ‘er open and take a peak at its innards. SurveyUSA (8/13-14, likely voters, 7/11-13 in parens):

Al Franken (D): 39 (39)

Norm Coleman (R-inc): 46 (52)

Other: 11 (n/a)

(MoE: ±3.8%)

A 13-point gap turns into a 7-point gap, but what’s the X factor here? The Independence Party, who have fielded seven candidates in their primary field, including Dean Barkley (whose 15 minutes expired five and a half years ago). “Other” wasn’t an option in the July poll, and the change in methodology, it seems, has helped shave a few points off Coleman’s hide.

SUSA’s age breakdowns have attracted some skepticism in their prior polls, and Coleman continues to hold a 48-36 lead among 18-34 year-olds, but that’s down sharply from the 58-31 lead he held in the July poll.

Bonus finding: In the presidential race, Obama edges McCain by a mere two points. However, SUSA is finally showing Obama with a clear lead among younger voters; he holds a 51-43 lead among the 18-34 bracket, which seems more reasonable than the 48-48 tie among these voters in SUSA’s June poll of Minnesota.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican.

Over at the Lincoln Journal-Star, Don Walton buries this nugget in his latest column:

New 2nd District Democratic poll shows Barack Obama and John McCain virtually even in measurements of approval and disapproval.

The figures for Bush tip substantially toward disapproval.

That seems to point toward an effort to tie McCain securely to Bush as Obama seeks a presidential electoral vote in the metropolitan Omaha congressional district.

Jim Esch trailed Lee Terry by a single digit in the poll. (Emphasis added)

Unfortunately, the who, what, and when of this poll is still unknown, so take it with a grain of salt until we can find out more about this phantom poll.

SSP currently rates this race as Likely Republican.

Rasmussen (8/14, likely voters incl. leaners, 7/17 in parens):

Jim Martin (D): 44 (40)

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc): 50 (51)

(MoE: ±4%)

Wow. It looks like the DSCC’s recent internal poll of this race showing Martin trailing by 36-42 may not have been an outlier, after all.

Excellent numbers. Could Georgia be one of the sleeper Senate races of 2008?

In light of Jim Martin’s primary win and these most recent numbers, SSP is upgrading its rating of this race from “Safe Repubican” to “Likely Republican“.

Benenson Strategy Group for the DSCC and Andrew Rice (8/12-14, likely voters, June in parens):

Andrew Rice (D): 41 (33)

Jim Inhofe (R-inc): 50 (53)

(MoE: ±4%)

Some nice movement for Rice, whose primary victory and recent statewide ad buys have apparently helped him close the gap to nine points. The best sign for Rice continues to be the interest of the DSCC, which has already sent field staff to Oklahoma, and helped supply Rice’s campaign with some top shelf talent.

Rasmussen (8/12, likely voters incl. leaners, 7/17 in parens):

Tom Allen (D): 40 (43)

Susan Collins (R-inc): 55 (53)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Sure, we would all prefer to see closer numbers here, but bigger gaps have been bridged in the past after Labor Day.

Is it time to stop worrying and love the bomb?

Public Opinion Strategies for Robin Hayes and the NRCC (8/4-5, likely voters):

Larry Kissell (D): 40

Robin Hayes (R-inc): 50

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Kissell released his own internal poll of this race back in June, and in that survey (by Anzalone Liszt), Hayes trailed Kissell by two points.

Hayes’ spread isn’t far off from the most recent poll we’ve seen of this race, by Public Policy Polling last month. That poll showed Hayes leading by seven points and resting well under the 50% mark (43-36).

SSPers have already pointed out that Kissell’s name recognition seems artificially low in this poll — his favorability is at 14-11. While it is generally true that running and losing a House campaign doesn’t buy you as much name recognition as some might expect (which I think may be especially true for a low-money, under-the-radar type of candidate in Larry Kissell), I do agree that these numbers seem a bit too low, especially when you consider that Hayes launched a round of unanswered attack ads earlier this summer against Kissell. (Indeed, PPP’s July poll showed Kissell with 52% name recognition.) If we are to take Hayes’ poll at face value, his ads had little effect in driving up Kissell’s negatives. Can you say “waste of money”?

Another important data point to note is the date range of the poll. The poll ended on August 5th, the same day that Kissell began his first ad buy of the campaign. (That ad is available for viewing here.)

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican.

(H/T: JeremiahTheMessiah)

Ivan Moore Research (8/9-12, likely voters, 7/18-22 in parens):

Ethan Berkowitz (D): 51 (52)

Don Young (R-inc.): 41 (37)

Don Wright (I): 4 (7)

Ethan Berkowitz (D): 42 (40)

Sean Parnell (R): 46 (43)

Don Wright (I): 3 (5)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Just minor noise since July. Let’s check in with the primaries:

Ethan Berkowitz (D): 58 (54)

Diane Benson (D): 24 (25)

Don Wright (D?): 3 (5)

(MoE: ?)

Don Young (R-inc.): 46 (46)

Sean Parnell (R): 40 (38)

Gabrielle LeDoux (R): 7 (6)

(MoE: ?)

Young continues to hang on by his fingernails, but will this GOP roach be able to survive the Club For Growth’s moneynuke? Let’s hope so, but it could be a tall order. On the bright side for Team Blue, Alaskans are continuing to wake up to headlines and stories like this one calling Gov. Sarah Palin’s ethics (and therefore Lt. Gov. Parnell’s raison d’être) into question.

On the Senate side of the equation, Begich posts another solid lead (7/30-31 in parens):

Mark Begich (D): 56 (56)

Ted Stevens (R-inc): 39 (35)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Stevens continues to pummel his D-grade primary challengers by a 63-20-7 margin (Stevens-Cuddy-Vickers).

Rasmussen (8/13, likely voters incl. leaners, 7/22 in parens):

Al Franken (D): 46 (49)

Norm Coleman (R-inc): 49 (46)

(MoE: ±4%)

Franken and Coleman trade the lead, but the spread remains tight; without including leaners (although, again, I don’t see why this method is preferable), the race is tied at 45% apiece.

Franken’s favorables are still weak (48-48, compared to Coleman’s 53-44), and it’s worth pointing out that Rasmussen is the only pollster to show this race close or tied in the last several months.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Rasmussen (8/13, likely voters incl. leaners, 7/21 in parens):

Mark Udall (D): 50 (49)

Bob Schaffer (R): 42 (46)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

This race has more or less fallen into a holding pattern of a high single digits lead for Mark Udall for the past several months, as illustrated nicely by Pollster.com’s chart.

Udall is also up with a new ad that includes support for additional domestic drilling as one of many measures to combat the current energy crisis. I’d expect to see many more ads like this from downballot Democrats this fall as they attempt to neutralize the one issue where the GOP is rediscovering its swagger. Sure, it’s a total canard, but I don’t think Democrats want to end up on the wrong side of this debate in the court of public opinion. That’s the downside of populism for you.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Democratic.

UPDATE: A new CBS4/Rocky Mountain News poll (8/11-13, likely voters) also shows Udall up — this time by 44 to 38.

SurveyUSA (8/10-12, likely voters):

Tom Perriello (D): 30

Virgil Goode (R-inc): 64

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Those are some ugly numbers – very much reminiscent of the 64-36 drubbing that Goode delivered to Democrat Al Weed in 2004 (Weed closed the gap to 59-40 two years later before throwing in the towel). Having not spent much in the way of advertising yet, I’d expect Perriello’s name recognition to be quite weak. He should be able to close the gap some once he spends his considerable resources on the race, but this looks to be an extremely tough hill to climb.

SSP currently rates this race as Likely Republican.

(H/T: ChadInFL)