Tag: Polls

Harstad Strategic Research for the DGA (5/31-6/4, likely voters):

Diane Denish (D): 57

Heather Wilson (R): 35

Undecided: 8

Diane Denish (D): 57

Steve Pearce (R): 35

Undecided: 8

(MoE: ±4%)

As far as we know, no one has polled the New Mexico governor’s race until now… or even paid much attention to the race. That’s because, with the current field, this open seat is looking like, if not a slam dunk, then at least a poorly contested lay-up for Team Blue. Not only is there New Mexico’s big shift to the left in the 2008 election, but also a huge disparity in recruitment. Lt. Gov. Diane Denish has been the long-time heir apparent for the Dems (although state Senate majority leader Michael Sanchez is looking at the race), while all the GOP has cobbled together is official candidate National Guard Brig. Gen. Greg Zanetti, along with two explorers: state Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones and Allen Weh, former state party chair best known for his supporting role in the U.S. Attorney scandal.

Still, the possibility has loomed in the distance that the GOP might field a higher-profile candidate: either one of the two former Reps., Heather Wilson or Steve Pearce, who basically destroyed each other en route to Tom Udall’s easy 2008 Senate victory. If this internal poll for the DGA is even remotely close to reality, then there’s not much of a race here even if Wilson or Pearce show up, as both of them lose 57-35. Denish even leads Wilson 53-40 in NM-01, Wilson’s base of operations for over a decade as she kept America safe from stray nipples. Pearce has also been weighing a run to get back his old seat in NM-02; if this poll is any indication, that’d be a better use of his time. (H/t Campaign Diaries.)

RaceTracker: NM-Gov

Strategic Vision (R) (6/12-14, likely voters, 4/17-19 in parens):

Team Blue:

Roy Barnes: 49 (56)

Thurbert Baker: 30 (29)

David Poythress: 5 (4)

DuBose Porter: 2 (2)

Undecided: 14 (9)

(MoE: ±3%)

Barnes takes a slight dip, but nothing too dramatic — he’s still the man to beat for the top job. Poythress will be in this until the bitter end, but I’d be surprised if a guy like Porter would continue his bid in the face of unbelievable odds.

Team Megachurch:

John Oxendine: 35

Karen Handel: 13

Nathan Deal: 12

Eric Johnson: 4

Ray McBerry: 2

Austin Scott: 2

Undecided: 32

(MoE: ±3%)

No clean trendlines here, since Strategic Vision’s last poll of the GOP primary had a number of different candidates in the mix (Lynn Westmoreland and Jack Kingston, for starters), but Oxendine was holding onto a 33-14 lead over state SoS Karen Handel in April. Nathan Deal’s entry into this race hasn’t really changed the calculus yet.

RaceTracker: GA-Gov

• IL-Sen: AG Lisa Madigan is still under a lot of pressure from inside the Beltway to move over from her preferred race (Governor) to the Senate race instead. Thing is, the pressure seems to be working (and the fact that Pat Quinn remains pretty popular also helps): she says she’s “seriously considering it” and will decide within “four to six weeks” whether to run for gov, senate, or another term as AG.

• KY-Sen: SoS Trey Grayson is still treating Jim Bunning as undecided about running for a third term, despite the crotchety Bunning’s many protestations, Abe Simpson-style, that he ain’t dead yet. While saying that he has “no plans to run against him right now,” Grayson says he’d have a better answer to the question “after next month, when Bunning makes a decision….” Still, he says “I don’t suspect that (having to run against Bunning) would be a problem,” if Bunning stays in the GOP primary. The remarks were made at a poorly-attended (as in less than 50) Grayson fundraiser in Corbin.

• MO-Sen: Rep. Roy Blunt can’t catch a break. No sooner than professor Tom Schweich bailed out and former Treasurer Sarah Steelman’s message discipline came completely unglued, along comes yet another likely primary challenger: state Senator Chuck Purgason, who formed an exploratory committee. It sounds like he’ll be going at Blunt from the right (Purgason is known for his “country-western fashion sense and iron-clad fiscal conservatism,” and said we must “stop the ‘changing’ of America”).

• NC-Sen (pdf): Good polling news out of North Carolina, according to PPP: Generic Democrat leads Richard Burr, 41-38. (There’s still the little matter of nailing down a candidate, of course.) Only 29% overall (and 49% of Republicans) think he deserves another term, while 49% say give someone else a chance. Burr’s approval is 34/35, with a 31% “not sure,” which is still crazily high for a sitting senator.

• NH-Sen: Senatorial speculation for the GOP in the Granite State has turned to AG Kelly Ayotte. (AG is an appointed position in New Hampshire; Ayotte was appointed by ex-Gov. Craig Benson, but retained by John Lynch.) Still, everything seems to be on hold until fall, when the younger John Sununu is supposed to make known his senate intentions. Dean at Blue Hampshire observes ex-Rep. Charlie Bass (another possible Senate, or NH-02, candidate) getting a little testy about having to wait for Sununu Jr. to make up his mind (or for Sununu Sr. to make up Jr.’s mind).

• NY-Sen-B: Rep. Carolyn Maloney keeps ratcheting up her attacks on Kirsten Gillibrand, focusing increasingly on character and credibility. She hit Gillibrand’s “evolving” stances and said “She’s, to my knowledge, never passed anything. She spends all her time fund-raising. I spend my time doing things.” Meanwhile, Gillibrand rolled out the endorsements of 52 of the 62 Democratic Party county chairs in New York. That seems huge, but only half the population of New York state is accounted for, as they have yet to endorse in New York, Kings, Queens, Bronx, Richmond, and Suffolk Counties.

• CA-Gov: Rep. John Campbell from CA-48 in Orange County endorsed Insurance Comm. Steve Poizner a few months ago, but he recently dropped that endorsement and then this week endorsed ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman instead. Campbell’s explanation is that when he first endorsed Poizner, Whitman wasn’t in the race yet and he had never met her. (This Campbell, of course, is not to be confused with ex-Rep. Tom Campbell, who’s the third wheel in the GOP gubernatorial primary.)

• LA-03, LA-Sen: GOP state Rep. Nickie Monica, who has recently met with officials at the NRCC, is telling his contacts that he’s planning on running against Democrat Charlie Melancon. Meanwhile, faced with the prospect of a strong challenge and the looming uncertainties of redistricting, Melancon is still giving a race against GOP Sen. David Vitter a “pretty hard” look, according to a “Democratic insider.” (J)

• NY-23: Republican state Senator Joe Griffo, who’s based outside the district in Rome but whose turf overlaps part of the 23rd, said he won’t run in the special election. For the Dems, veteran Danny Francis (who ran twice against McHugh in the 1990s) said he’ll seek the nomination. Dem state Senator Darrel Aubertine shot down speculation that he’d fielded a call from Barack Obama about the seat, although he did cop to talking to DCCC recruitment guru Steve Israel about it.

• OH-15: ’08 candidate/ex-state Sen. Steve Stivers says that he’ll make up his mind on a rematch against Mary Jo Kilroy by the 4th of July, but Ohio Republicans apparently feel very confident that he’ll jump into the race. (J)

• PA-06, PA-Gov: Rep. Jim Gerlach has set a deadline of “this summer” for deciding whether to jump into the 2010 governor’s race — although he certainly seems to be moving to do so, positioning himself message-wise as the only GOPer who’s dealt with fiscal issues in a legislature. In the meantime, GOP power brokers are getting antsy that Gerlach’s delay in announcing his plans are complicating their efforts to hold this D+4 seat (although GOP state Rep. Curt Schroder is already warming up in the bullpen, having opened an exploratory committee).

• Votes: The war supplemental passed the House 226-202 yesterday, with 32 Democrats and 5 Republicans breaking ranks. The GOPers fall under the ‘moderate’ umbrella: Cao, King, Kirk, Candace Miller, and John McHugh (for whom a ‘no’ vote would be awk-ward, as the incoming Sec. of the Army). The Dems are generally the most liberal few dozen, although with a few eyebrow-raising exceptions (Eric Massa, maybe most notably): Baldwin, Capuano, Conyers, Doggett, Donna Edwards, Ellison, Farr, Filner, Grayson, Grijalva, Honda, Kaptur, Kucinich, Barbara Lee, Lofgren, Massa, McGovern, Michaud, Payne, Pingree, Polis, Serrano, Shea-Porter, Sherman, Speier, Stark, Tierney, Tsongas, Waters, Watson, Welch, and Woolsey.  

Because there simply haven’t been enough roundups on the front page today…

• OR-Gov: GOP pollmeisters Moore Information give us their take on a trio of hypothetical gubernatorial races, pitting hickory-flavored wingnut Rep. Greg Walden against ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber, Rep. Peter DeFazio and ex-SoS Bill Bradbury. Moore says that Walden has a fighting chance, coming only four points shy of each Democrat. Somehow I suspect that this is an optimistic view of Walden’s chances, but I doubt that he’ll make it a race, anyway.

• PA-Gov: An internal poll commissioned by Dem gubernatorial candidate Tom Knox and conducted by Fairbank-Maslin points to a tight primary race. In a head-to-head match-up with most voters undecided, Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato noses Knox, a businessman and one-time Philly mayoral candidate, by a 22-21 margin. When Lehigh County Executive Don Cunningham and Auditor General Jack Wagner’s names were added to the equation, Knox and Onorato came out tied at 14%, with 13% going to Wagner and Cunningham claiming 7%. However, Onorato has a lot of room for growth, as he’s currently getting pasted 42-6 margin in favor of Knox in southeast Pennsylvania due to a name recognition deficit. Of course, the same could be said for Knox in the western reaches of the state.

• VA-Gov: The DGA has plopped down some coin on an Anzalone-Liszt survey of Virginia, and the early nums look pretty good for Creigh Deeds, who’s leading Bob McDonnell by 42-38 — a fairly modest lead, yes, but encouraging when you consider that Tim Kaine was lagging behind Jerry Kilgore in every public poll of the 2005 campaign until October. Deeds is also slightly better-liked than McDonnell at this point, earning a 48-14 favorable rating to Mickey D’s 43-19.

• KS-Sen, KS-Gov: SurveyUSA dips their toes into the GOP primary to replace Sam Brownback in the Senate, and it’s pretty much a dead heat between Original and Extra Crispy Wingnut: 1st CD Rep. Jerry Moran edges 4th CD Rep. Todd Tiahrt by 40-38. Bonus finding: In a hypothetical gubernatorial primary, Brownback defeats Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh by a 58-19 margin. I guess Thornburgh didn’t even need to see this poll before deciding to pull the plug on his candidacy yesterday.

• WI-Sen: Just how badly Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle should be worrying about his chances of survival next year is up for debate, but Russ Feingold looks like he’ll be okay. Public Policy Polling’s latest expedition in the Badger state finds that Feingold would beat GOP Rep. Paul Ryan by a 51-39 margin.

• NYC-Mayor: Quinnipiac’s latest poll of this most low-energy of races finds more good news for Mayor Bloomsberry: Hizzoner leads Democratic Comptroller William Thompson by a 54-32 margin, up from 49-35 in March.

Public Policy Polling (6/9-10, registered voters):

Jim Doyle (D-inc): 40

Scott Walker (R): 48

Undecided: 12

Jim Doyle (D-inc): 41

Mark Neumann (R): 42

Undecided: 17

(MoE: ±4.1%)

No diggity doubt about it: these are the worst poll numbers we’ve seen for two-term Dem Gov. Jim Doyle so far this cycle. An early March poll from the Republican firm POS and a Research 2000 poll released last week both had Doyle in the high 40s and ahead of his GOP foes. SSP friend and PPP guru Tom Jensen pops open the hoods of both his poll and R2K’s to tease out the source of disagreement between the two polls:

Where they go in different directions is among Republicans and independents. We find virtually no Republicans- just 6%- approving of the job Doyle is doing while they find 23% looking on him favorably. And while they find only 51% of independents with an unfavorable opinion of him, we find 69% in disapproval of his job performance.

Without a great deal of public polling available from Wisconsin, it’s difficult to say who’s right and who needs an oil change. However, it’s worth noting, as Tom does, that SUSA’s latest polling of the state lines up much more closely to PPP’s findings than it does to R2K’s latest offering.

RaceTracker: WI-Gov

Rasmussen (6/10, likely voters, 4/15 in parens):

Creigh Deeds (D): 47 (30)

Bob McDonnell (R): 41 (45)

Some other candidate: 2 (5)

Not sure: 10 (20)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

That was fast! Hot off his surprisingly strong victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, state Senator Creigh Deeds seems to have gotten quite a post-primary bounce, pulling into a 6-point lead against AG Bob McDonnell. This is the first poll I can find where Deeds led McDonnell in a head-to-head matchup (although if you go back to December, Rasmussen found them tied at 39 apiece), and a huge improvement from the 45-30 gap in April… not coincidentally at a time in the primary when Deeds seemed to be lagging, tortoise-like, and Terry McAuliffe was sprinting ahead, hare-like.

The question is how long this will last. Obviously, there’s a lot of media visibility for Deeds right now and good buzz as well (as seen in his 59/27 favorables), thanks to his dominant statewide performance and also thanks to T-Mac’s quick and effusive endorsement. This may settle back into a tied race during the summer doldrums… or, given that Deeds seems to have already made strong inroads among NoVa voters even while doing what he was expected to do (put the rural parts of the state into play), maybe this will be the new normal. (Discussion already underway in DCCyclone‘s diary, which also contains a little more information about the crosstabs.)

Public Policy Polling:

Artur Davis (D): 35

Bradley Byrne (R): 39

Artur Davis (D): 39

Kay Ivey (R): 31

Artur Davis (D): 37

Tim James (R): 35

Artur Davis (D): 41

Roy Moore (R): 38

Ron Sparks (D): 27

Bradley Byrne (R): 41

Ron Sparks (D): 33

Kay Ivey (R): 29

Ron Sparks (D): 32

Tim James (R): 32

Ron Sparks (D): 36

Roy Moore (R): 38

(MoE: ±3.8%)

Artur Davis begins the 2010 gubernatorial race with some impressive numbers, especially compared to state Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks. Tom Jensen offers an explanation:

There’s not much doubt the black vote is the reason Davis is polling so much better than Sparks. For instance, against Byrne, Davis holds a 58-point lead with that demographic, 68-10. But Sparks has just an 18 point advantage at 38-20. Sparks actually gets slightly more support from white voters than Davis in all of the possible matches.

It raises the question, then: do these numbers represent something close to a high-water mark for Davis in a general election? While Davis has consolidated a good deal of support from the African-American community already, most of the remaining undecided voters are whites — a notoriously difficult voting bloc for any Democrat in Alabama to crack.

Quinnipiac (6/2-7, registered voters, 4/6-13 in parens):

Kendrick Meek (D): 18 (16)

Corrine Brown (D): 12 (NA)

Ron Klein (D): 8 (8)

Don’t Know: 57 (53)

Charlie Crist (R): 54 (54)

Marco Rubio (R): 23 (8)

Don’t Know: 21 (25)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Not much new here to see from Quinnipiac, in their bi-monthly poll of the Florida senate primary fields, despite a lot of happenings (most notably, of course, the idea of Charlie Crist getting into the Senate race was still kind of a hazy daydream in April). As we saw in the recent Strategic Vision poll, Marco Rubio has consolidated most of the anti-Crist voters who were dispersed among Vern Buchanan, Allen Bense, and other non-candidates… but he’s still in a deep hole. Crist also has 62/28 approval.

On the Democratic side, the potential entry of Rep. Corrine Brown (who’s now exploring the race, despite the fact that Meek has a huge head-start in fundraising and endorsements) doesn’t seem to eat into Rep. Kendrick Meek’s support. Oddly, Brown’s presence seems to increase the number of undecideds, although that’s probably due to the disappearance of Tampa mayor Pam Iorio (who was at 16% in April). (This poll also contains Rep. Ron Klein, who has made it clear he won’t be running.)

SurveyUSA (6/5-7, likely voters, 5/31-6/2 in parens):

Terry McAuliffe (D): 30 (35)

Brian Moran (D): 21 (26)

Creigh Deeds (D): 42 (29)

Other/Undecided: 7 (11)

(MoE: ±4.3%)

Looking good for Deeds. General election match-ups (registered voters):

Creigh Deeds (D): 43 (43)

Bob McDonnell (R): 47 (44)

Terry McAuliffe (D): 41 (40)

Bob McDonnell (R): 48 (47)

Brian Moran (D): 38 (37)

Bob McDonnell (R): 49 (48)

(MoE: ±2.4%)

Public Policy Polling is going to release their final VA-Gov survey very shortly. Tom Jensen teased us with this:

Looks like a tight race in Virginia… for second place. The undecideds seem to almost all be moving in the same direction.

I’m not going to call the race like I did the Saturday before the election for Kay Hagan based on early returns from our final poll because preferences in this race have been so fluid. But it doesn’t look like things are going to be as close on Tuesday as the polling in the last week suggested.

What do you think the numbers will look like? For reference, their prior numbers are here. We’ll post the results just as soon as PPP makes them available.

UPDATE (James): It’s out.

Public Policy Polling (6/6-7, likely voters, 5/28-31 in parens):

Creigh Deeds (D): 40 (27)

Terry McAuliffe (D): 26 (24)

Brian Moran (D): 24 (22)

Undecided: 10 (26)

(MoE: ±3.0%)

Wow. What a huge movement for Creigh Deeds in just a few short weeks. Remember, Deeds was lagging at 14% in PPP’s 5/1-3 poll, but a well-timed endorsement from the Washington Post was clearly the catalyst for Deeds’ remarkable surge — and probably also a sign that a sizable share of Moran and McAuliffe’s support was pretty soft in the first place. Indeed, in the vote-rich DC burbs in Northern Virginia, where Deeds has been almost a non-factor for much of the race, Deeds has now pulled ahead of Moran by a 38-35 margin, with 20% going to McAuliffe.

And speaking of McAuliffe, take a look at his horrid favorability rating; among Democratic primary voters, just as many voters have a favorable opinion of the ex-DNC chair as those who dislike him (40%-40%). That’s pretty brutal. If Deeds can hold onto his lead on Tuesday, we may be dodging a major bullet here.

Of course, the usual caveats apply: Pegging the primary voter universe is a notoriously tough business (especially in an ultra-low turnout state like Virginia), and the ground game will be key on Tuesday. For now, though, the momentum is clearly at the back of Deeds.