Tag: Polls

Southern Political Report (7/13, registered voters, no trendlines):

Mike McWherter (D): 23

Roy Herron (D): 13

Jim Kyle (D): 6

Ward Cammack (D): 5

Kim McMillan (D): 3

Other: 16

Undecided: 34

Zach Wamp (R): 22

Bill Haslam (R): 15

Ron Ramsey (R): 7

Bill Gibbons (R): 4

Other: 13

Undecided: 39

(MoE: ±3.8%)

This is, as far as I know, the first poll out there of the still-coalescing Tennessee governor’s race. It’s from an outlet with no track record (although I suspect this may have been conducted by the reputable Insider Advantage, with whom the Southern Political Report is affiliated), primaries only, and the undecideds are huge (as one would expect at this point in the game), but it’s better than nothing, so let’s take a look.

On the Dem side, the leader is Jackson-area businessman (beer distributor, to be more precise) Mike McWherter, who’s never been elected before but whose claim to fame is that he’s the son of former Governor Ned McWherter (so factor in that a lot of respondents may think they’re talking about Ned instead). The other players here at state Senator Roy Herron from the state’s rural northwest, state Senate minority leader Jim Kyle from Memphis, businessman Ward Cammack of Nashville, and former state House majority leader Kim McMillan of Clarksville, the only woman in the race. The “other,” I suspect, is that a lot of people still think that country music star Tim McGraw is running as a Democrat (which he’s denied, but had long been rumored).

For the GOPers, the frontrunner is U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp of the 3rd District (Chattanooga), trailed by Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam, Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey from Blountville in the state’s far eastern tip, and Shelby Co. DA Bill Gibbons of Memphis. (I’m emphasizing the cities they’re from because both fields are composed of candidates each with their own clearly defined regional base, and if the fields stay this crowded, consolidating regional bases will prove very important for winning the primary. Bear in mind for the general, though, that Democrats are much stronger in the western half of the state and Republicans are much stronger in the east.)

RaceTracker: TN-Gov

• CO-Sen: The field is slow to take shape for the Republicans in the Colorado Senate race, where they should theoretically have a decent shot at the never-before-elected and uncharismatic appointee Michael Bennet. One more candidate seems to be moving to join the field: former state Sen. Tom Weins, from the exurban GOP stronghold of Douglas County. Weins is the CEO of a real estate finance company, so he brings self-funding to the table (although some of that may be contingent on finding a buyer for his $38 million ranch). Inexperienced Aurora city councilor Ryan Frazier and grumpy Weld Co. DA Ken Buck are the leading candidates for the GOP nod for now.

• NH-Sen: The Nashua Telegraph points to some skepticism from the conservative wing of the GOP about newly minted candidate Kelly Ayotte; apparently, her joining Gov. John Lynch in urging communities to apply for stimulus funds makes her not sufficiently fiscally conservative for some in the rightosphere, who are wondering if they’ve got another Susan Collins on their hands here. With the presumably-more-conservative businessman Fred Tausch and former gubernatorial candidate Ovide Lamontagne still checking out the race, it seems like she may not have a clear primary path. Sensing some trouble here, the state party establishment is pushing back, rolling out ex-Sen. John Sununu to offer some promises that she’s a conservative, including that he “believes” that she opposes abortion rights.

• NY-Sen-B: Rep. Carolyn Maloney has apparently been holding off on her Senate primary announcement so that she won’t drive Bill Clinton off from her upcoming fundraiser. Clinton has vowed neutrality in the likely primary with Kirsten Gillibrand, and everyone is taking pains to point out that the fundraiser is for Maloney’s House account and intended as a ‘thank you’ for her support of the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008. (Of course, she’ll still be able to transfer her House funds to a Senate race.)

• CO-Gov: Strange that the Colorado GOP is throwing all its top talent at Gov. Bill Ritter while leaving the Senate race with the second-stringers. Today 33-year-old state Senate minority leader Josh Penry made it official: he’s running for Governor, setting up a big primary collision with ex-Rep. (and Penry’s former boss, when he was a staffer) Scott McInnis.

• NJ-Gov: Dueling leaks of internal polls from the New Jersey governor’s race, as expected, paint very different pictures. The Corzine camp offers a poll showing a 4-point lead (42-38) for Chris Christie when factoring in independent Christopher Daggett (who polls at 4%). The RGA, however, has a poll giving Christie a showy lead of 15 pts. The polls were both conducted before Corzine hit the airwaves with an attack ad focusing on Christie’s ethical troubles.

• SC-Gov: The State, Columbia’s newspaper, takes a look at why, all of a sudden, Mark Sanford seems poised to survive his tango de la muerte, despite his dire straits before Sarah Palin stole the show. It’s broken down helpfully into bullet points: his wife is defending him for the first time, state law enforcement investigations found he broke no state laws, and state party leadership opted for censure rather than asking him to resign.

• MI-St. Sen.: If you haven’t seen Menhen’s diary rating our prospects in each of the upcoming Michigan State Senate races in 2010, take a peek. (The diary got some notice over at the DLCC‘s blog.) With the entire Senate up for re-election and control over Michigan redistricting in the balance, this is one of the key legislative battles in 2010… and with term limits hitting hard, there are only 8 incumbents running, with a whopping 30 open seats, so this is very much a wide-open battle.

• CfG: Roll Call takes a look at the Club for Growth under the new leadership of ex-Rep. Chris Chocola and finds, unfortunately for us, a slightly saner version of the CfG that seems more interested in playing in the general election rather than mucking up the primaries… although they did just put out that call for primary challengers against the 8 cap-and-trade defectors. For Tom Cole fans, the former NRCC head gets in some nice digs at the CfG.

UT-Austin (6/11-22, GOP voters, 2/24-3/6 in parens):

Kay Bailey Hutchison (R): 27 (36)

Rick Perry (R-inc): 38 (30)

Leo Berman (R): 1

Other: 7 (11)

Undecided: 26 (24)

(MoE: ±5.2%)

This is the third poll we’ve seen of the Texas gubernatorial primary since May (Rasmussen gave Perry a four-point lead, but a Baselice internal for Perry had KBH ahead by seven), and they all point to what appears to be one hell of a battle ahead of us. Despite KBH’s broad popularity in the state, Perry is still posting competitive numbers, and he’s no pushover when it comes to fundraising, either; he ended June with $9 million in the bank after raising $4.2 million in the last nine days of the month (the first period of the year in which he could legally accept donations).

Of course, with this poll’s rather rotund margin of error and its elongated sampling period, take this one with as many grains of salt as you desire. Less useful are these numbers of the Democratic primary:

Kinky Friedman (D): 13

Leticia Van de Putte (D): 12

Tom Schieffer (D): 3

Mark Thompson (D): 2

Someone else: 14

Undecided: 62

(MoE: ±6%)

Yeah, that’s right: Kinky Effin’ Friedman is leading the Democratic pack at this point, just barely nosing non-candidate Leticia Van de Putte. (Although, I suppose that “Someone else” technically has the lead…) Not included in this poll is former Travis Co. DA Ronnie Earle, who recently filed papers for a statewide run. It’s unclear, though, if Earle is more interested in Governor or Attorney General.

UT also included a Senate special election question in this round, and they found Democrat John Sharp leading the pack with a whopping 10% of the vote, followed closely by a pack of seven other candidates. With 62% of the electorate undecided, I think we can sit on this one until the race becomes a bit more defined. Full results are available here.

RaceTracker: TX-Gov | TX-Sen

Public Policy Polling (7/7-8, registered voters):

R.T. Rybak (D): 43

Norm Coleman (R): 37

Mark Dayton (D): 41

Norm Coleman (R): 39

Margaret Anderson Kelliher (D): 34

Norm Coleman (R): 42

(MoE: ±2.5%)

Perhaps bolstered by the recent spate of reports that Norm Coleman (now in need of a new job) is considering running for Governor, PPP took a decidedly Coleman-centric approach in their first poll of next year’s Minnesota governor’s race. (Which is fine; they had to start somewhere, considering that there are at least 10 interested candidates on both the Democratic and Republican sides of the ledger, and they probably didn’t want to run a poll with 100 permutations.)

It looks like Norm Coleman may have done himself no favors by dragging out the aftermath of the Minnesota Senate race for so long. Coleman sports dreadful 38-52 favorables, and 54% of respondents say that his conduct during the post-election scrum made them less likely to vote for him (as opposed to 26% saying “more likely”). Coleman loses head-to-heads against popular Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak (who has 37-24 favorables) and even, by 2 points, against luckless former Senator Mark Dayton (who has 36-37 favorables). Coleman does manage to beat state House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher (who has only 24-33 favorables). Of course, with such wide-open fields, it seems distinctly possible that none of the persons mentioned above will be around for the general election; I’m left wondering how these same Democrats would fare against a more generic Republican.

RaceTracker: MN-Gov

• AL-02: Noted sartorialist Bobby Bright was photographed (proudly?) holding up a t-shirt with the logo “Fire Congress” on the front. Also be sure to check out the shirt Bright himself is actually wearing.

• IL-Gov: GOP state Sen. Kirk Dillard formally announced his entrance into the race today.

• MI-09: Former GOP state Rep. Andrew Raczkowski has filed paperwork to run against Dem Rep. Gary Peters in this D+2 district. “Rocky,” as he is known, got hammered by Carl Levin in the 2002 Senate race, 61-38.

• MN-06: Dem state Sen. Tarryl Clark, generally considered a possible MN-Gov candidate, may turn her attention instead to Michele Bachmann. Of course, she’d face a contested primary against El Tinklenberg (who was last seen giving $250,000 from his unexpected 2008 surplus to the DCCC).

• NC-Sen: Civitas has Sen. Richard Burr’s favorables at 31-19, which is the weakest they’ve been all year. I don’t quite understand why 50% are either undecided or haven’t heard enough, though. Meanwhile, Burr’s pollster Paul Shumaker, who did a garbagey poll for Burr and then pretended it was an independent survey, will now pay for the poll out of his own pocket and call it an in-kind contribution to the campaign. Nice try, bucko.

• NJ-Gov: Rasmussen has Chris Christie up 46-39. Believe it or not, that’s good news – last month, it was 51-38. Don’t get too excited, though. With leaners, it’s 53-41. Obama can’t show up here soon enough.

• NV-Sen: Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn advised John Ensign to pay off his mistress’s million-dollar mortgage and move her & her husband out-of-state. Seriously.

• NYC-Mayor: Another poll – this time from Marist – shows Bloombo under 50, and his re-elects are an uninspiring 44-51, despite the fact that he’s blanketed the airwaves with zillions of ads for months. The problem is that Comptroller Bill Thompson (who clocks in at 35) doesn’t seem to be running much of a campaign.

• New York: Ken Rudin makes an interesting point – if you count “new LG” Richard Ravitch, four of NY’s six statewide elected officials… weren’t elected to the positions they now hold. Comptroller Tom DiNapoli was appointed when Alan Hevesi resigned; Gov. David Paterson was elevated when Eliot Spitzer resigned; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand was appointed when Hillary Clinton resigned; and now Paterson is attempting to appoint Ravitch. Only Sen. Chuck Schumer and AG Andy Cuomo faced voters for their current jobs.

• OH-Sen: A good get for Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher – he just received the endorsement of the 134,000-strong Ohio branch of the United Auto Workers union.

• UT-Sen: Just when you thought the Utah GOP Senate primary couldn’t get any zanier and more chock-full of wingnuts, along comes news that new Rep. Jason Chaffetz — rising star of the movement conservatives, who just vaulted into power by out-conservativing Chris Cannon in a 2008 primary — is now thinking about a challenge to the establishment’s Bob Bennett. It’d be a pretty brash move by Chaffetz, especially since AG Mark Shurtleff is already mounting a strong primary challenge from the far right. (C)

• VA-02: Scott Rigell, who owns car dealerships “throughout the Virginia beach area,” has filed paperwork to run against Dem Rep. Glenn Nye in this R+5 district. Rigell, like the vast majority of auto dealers, is of course a Republican, but he did donate $1,000 to Obama last year.

• WA-Sen: Not that you were probably sitting up at night worrying about Patty Murray’s re-election prospects, but a poll by local pollster Elway finds her looking pretty good with 53-34 job approval. 44% say they would re-elect her and 33% say they wouldn’t, with the rest taking a wait-and-see attitude to see what sort of opposition the Washington GOP can scrape up. (C)

• Census: Looks like we may finally get a floor vote on Census Director Robert Graves’ confirmation, who is currently subject to holds by both David Vitter and Richard Shelby (over use of sampling techniques and ACORN’s involvement in the census); Harry Reid is planning a cloture vote now that we’re eight months away from the April 1 count. (C)

Public Policy Polling (6/30-7/2, likely voters):

Creigh Deeds (D): 43

Bob McDonnell (R): 49

(MoE: ±4.0%)

This is PPP’s first post-primary poll, and also the first poll of the race taken after the “bounce period” that had Deeds surging ahead in R2K and Rasmussen‘s most recent sampling. However, this is the first time PPP has dipped its toes into the general election pool, so we have no trend lines to work with here.

Over at PPP, Tom Jensen has more:

Despite trailing, there are several bright spots for Deeds in the numbers. He currently has just a 68-16 lead among African Americans. Democrats frequently under poll with that demographic this far out from an election but usually end up getting 85% or more of that vote come November. There are a lot more undecided Democrats than Republicans, which makes those voters more inclined to end up in the Deeds camp. Deeds’ supporters are also a little more committed than McDonnell’s, with 90% of them saying they will definitely vote for him while just 82% say that for McDonnell.

There are some signs of concern too though. We’re detecting little interest in the race right now from black voters or young voters, both groups that were overwhelmingly supportive of Barack Obama and key to his success in the state last year. We currently project black turnout at 16% of the electorate, down from 20% last year, and voters under 30 at 8%, down from 21% last year. Getting those groups excited about his candidacy and out to the polls will be key to Deeds’ prospects.

The race is in a very similar position to 2005. The poll released that year closest to today’s date of July 7th showed Jerry Kilgore with a 6 point lead identical to the one we found last week. The question now is whether McDonnell can hold onto this lead better than Kilgore did, or if Deeds will be able to replicate Tim Kaine’s success in peaking at just the right time. He certainly did that in the primary.

PPP has also been good enough to give us data on the important downballot statewide races. In the Lt. Governor’s race, incumbent Republican Bill Bolling leads Democrat Jody Wagner by 46-40, and for the open-seat AG race, GOP goon Ken Cuccinelli leads Democrat Steve Shannon by 45-38.

RaceTracker: VA-Gov

Quinnipiac University (6/26-7/1, registered voters, 4/28-5/4 in parens):

Lee Fisher (D): 37 (42)

Rob Portman (R): 33 (31)

Undecided: 26 (26)

Lee Fisher (D): 36

Tom Ganley (R): 30

Undecided: 31

Jennifer Brunner (D): 35 (40)

Rob Portman (R): 34 (32)

Undecided: 29 (27)

Jennifer Brunner (D): 35

Tom Ganley (R): 31

Undecided: 31

(MoE: ±2.8%)

While they don’t show nearly as big a decline as they did with their Ohio gubernatorial numbers, Quinnipiac also has Democrats slipping in the Senate race. I’m prepared to believe that Democratic fortunes are really heading southward, but I do have to wonder if Q is overstating things. In May, they had Obama’s job approval at 62-31 in the Buckeye State. Now he’s at 49-44. Did his numbers really collapse so dramatically here, despite only a slight downtick nationwide? Perhaps, but I’d like to see confirmation elsewhere.

Anyhow, Quinnipiac has also started testing Tom Ganley’s name – he’s the wealthy car dealer who recently made his entrace into the race official. Portman has a 33-10 lead on Ganley in the primary. On the Dem side, Lee Fisher’s lead over Jennifer Brunner has shrunk to 24-21 (from 31-26), with a lot more folks undecided than previously. With the primary still ages away, I don’t think we can read a lot into these numbers.

RaceTracker: OH-Sen

Quinnipiac University (6/26-7/1, registered voters, 4/28-5/4 in parens):

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 42 (51)

John Kasich (R): 38 (32)

Undecided: 16 (16)

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 41 (48)

Mike DeWine (R): 40 (36)

Undecided: 15 (14)

(MoE: ±2.8%)

Something seriously ugly has happened here. Strickland’s approvals fell from 53-25 in May to just 42-37 now. It’s easy to say that it’s “the economy,” but the economy has been disastrous for a long time at this point. Quinnipiac offers almost nothing in the way of explanation (“Strickland’s extremely sharp drop-off in so short a time reflects growing public frustration”).

The only other outfit which has tested this race, PPP, has similar numbers for Strickland, but never showed the kind of steep topline drop we see here from Q. However, these lates nums do help resolve the OH-Gov mystery that Tom Jensen previously highlighted, and unfortunately for Dems, it looks like PPP is right (at least for now).

RaceTracker: OH-Gov

• AK-Gov: George Stephanopoulos (on Twitter) thinks there might be some sort of announcement from Sarah Palin this afternoon, possibly that she won’t run for re-election as governor. This wouldn’t surprise me, and if so, not a bad time to bury the news.

• MN-Sen: Al Franken is going to be sworn in on Tuesday. Just seeing this photo makes me excited.

• MN-06: You know things are bad for Michele Bachmann when… well, every day is bad for her. But things are especially bad when members of her own party start telling her to STFU. “Boycotting the constitutionally mandated Census is illogical, illegal and not in the best interest of our country,” wrote Patrick McHenry, Lynn Westmoreland and John Mica, members of the subcommittee which oversees the census. And these guys are some pretty wingnutty mouthbreathers. Weapons-grade wingnut Jason Chaffetz (the only other GOPer on the same cmte) refused to sign the letter.

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes pulled in an improved 725K for the quarter – but I still think he can do better. Meanwhile, a piece of shit poll from UNH shows Kelly Ayotte “beating” Hodes 39-35. Why such harsh language? Because UNH continues its crappy track record of unacceptable samples – this time, they have it as 32R, 25D, even though there are more registered Democrats than Republicans in the state of New Hampshire. Pathetic. And in other news, former Gov. Stephen Merrill (R), who served in the mid-90s right before Jeanne Shaheen, has declined to run for the open Senate seat.

• PA-07: Republican businessman Steven Welch has made it official – he will run for the 7th CD seat, which may or may not be open, depending upon what Rep. Joe Sestak does. I can’t understand why Welch would pick a holiday weekend to launch his campaign, though. (Thanks, Pan.)

• TX-Gov/AG: Former Travis County DA Ronnie Earle – best known these days as the guy who indicted Tom DeLay – just filed papers to run for statewide office. He hasn’t yet said whether he’ll seek the governor’s mansion (which would put him on a collision course will fellow Dem Tom Schieffer) or the Attorney General’s job. Either way, Earle can start raising money now.

• VA-05: A Virginia TV station is refusing to air an NRCC ad against Tom Perriello. While the station has remained mum about its reasons, Factcheck.org slammed the ad for its inaccuracies about the Waxman-Markey climate change bill. TV & radio stations are open to legal liability when they run third-party ads (they are immune when running candidate ads), so the only reason to nix a spot is because your lawyers tell you to. Nice to see the NRCC fumbling out of the gate. Perriello, meanwhile, is offering a feisty defense of his vote.

• Ads: A coalition of liberal groups is airing “thank you” ads in seventeen congressional districts, which include some potentially vulnerable Dems who voted for the climate change bill. The list: B. Markey, Boyd, Grayson, Kosmas, Hill, Halvorson, Chandler, Kratovil, Peters, Schauer, Hodes, Maffei, Kilroy, Space, Perriello, Giffords & Kagen.

Mason-Dixon (PDF) for Ron Sachs Communications (6/24-26, registered voters for general, likely voters for primaries, 5/14-18 in parens):

Alex Sink (D): 49

Michael Arth (D): 4

Undecided: 47

Bill McCollum (R): 53

Paula Dockery (R): 4

Undecided: 43

(MoE: ±6%)

Alex Sink (D): 35 (34)

Bill McCollum (R): 41 (40)

Undecided: 24 (26)

Alex Sink (D): 43

Paula Dockery (R): 18

Undecided: 39

(MoE: ±4%)

Ordinarily I wouldn’t be too surprised to see a random state legislator doing so poorly, but a Strategic Vision (R) poll showed vastly better numbers for state Sen. Paula Dockery. It’s worth noting that the Ron Sachs PDF calls her “Paula Dockey” at least once. If interviewers used the wrong name, that could partly explain the differing results. (Reminds me of the story SUSA founder Jay Leve tells of once being surveyed about “Bill Parcells” – turns out the interviewer meant NJ Rep. Bill Pascrell.) The Washington Independent, by the way, describes Michael Arth as an “artist, developer, [and] activist.”

M-D also tested various primaries for some downballot statewide races – AG (D & R), CFO (R), and Ag. Comm’r (R). All of those contests have, as you’d expect, very high undecideds and no candidate pulling higher than the teens, but the numbers may be of interest to serious Florida afficionados.

In other Florida news, the Club for Growth tested the waters for their newest pretty boy. Basswood Research (R) for the CFG (6/13-14, likely voters, no trendlines):

Charlie Crist (R): 51

Marco Rubio (R): 21

(MoE: ±4%)

Nothing new here, but at least the CFG is considering the race on behalf of Ru-ru-rubio. According to Roll Call, their ED “said the club has not yet made any decision about who it would endorse and has no time frame for when that decision might come. He did acknowledge that the club generally gets involved in races earlier rather than later.” Earlier, please!