Swing State Project

Mason-Dixon for Las Vegas Review-Journal (9/20-22, likely voters, 9/7-9 in parentheses):

Harry Reid (D-inc): 43 (46)

Sharron Angle (R): 43 (44)

Scott Ashjian (T): 1 (-)

Tim Fasano (AIP): 1 (-)

NOTA: 4 (3)

Undecided: 8 (6)

Gubernatorial numbers, trendlines

Rory Reid (D): 37 (36)

Brian Sandoval (R): 51 (52)

Other: 3 (2)

NOTA: 2 (2)

Undecided: 7 (8)

(MoE: ±4%)

Is it safe to say that nothing new is going on in the Nevada races, at least according to Mason-Dixon? They see only a point or two of movement in each race.

Public Opinion Strategies (9/21-23, likely voters, no trendlines):

Harry Reid (D-inc): 45

Sharron Angle (R): 40

Scott Ashjian (T): 1

NOTA: 7

Undecided: 6

Rory Reid (D): 39

Brian Sandoval (R): 45

Other: 2

NOTA: 9

Undecided: 4

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Instead, all the excitement seems to be surrounding this poll from the Republican internal pollster, POS (although thanks to lots of leaking from Jon Ralston, we all knew about it last Friday). I’m not sure on whose behalf POS polled the race, or whose partisan interest they’re serving by leaking these results, but at any rate they give Harry Reid one of the best results he had since the GOP primary, and even more interestingly, the first poll ever to have Rory Reid within single digits of Brian Sandoval. Is there dual Reid-mentum going on, or just a blip?

UPDATE: atdleft, in the comments, points out that the poll was on behalf of the Nevada Retail Association, who are probably more interested in taxation issues and aren’t likely to be interested in trying to spin the statewide race toplines.

UNH for Boston Globe (9/17-22, likely voters, 6/17-23 in parentheses):

Deval Patrick (D-inc): 35 (38)

Charlie Baker (R): 34 (31)

Tim Cahill (I): 11 (9)

Jill Stein (G): 4 (2)

Undecided: 14 (17)

(MoE: ±4.3%)

Western New England Coll. (9/19-22, likely voters, 4/11-15 in parentheses):

Deval Patrick (D-inc): 39 (34)

Charlie Baker (R): 33 (27)

Tim Cahill (I): 16 (29)

Jill Stein (G): 3 (-)

Undecided: 7 (10)

(MoE: ±5%)

No, seriously, I don’t know if this race got closer or not. UNH (on behalf of the Boston Globe) sees this as a 1-point race, down from a 7-point spread over the summer, seemingly based on movement from Deval Patrick to Charlie Baker, with Tim Cahill mostly stagnant. On the other hand, WNEC sees it as a 6-point race, basically unchanged since the summer, although there’s been a huge leak of Cahill support that seemed to flow equally to Patrick and Baker. The Pollster.com average is 40-35 in favor of Patrick (with Rasmussen seeing a close race, but Suffolk giving a 7-point spread last week), so as always, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

LA Times/USC (9/15-22, likely voters, 5/19-26 in parentheses):

Jerry Brown (D): 49 (44)

Meg Whitman (R): 44 (38)

Undecided: 5 (13)

Barbara Boxer (D-inc): 51 (44)

Carly Fiorina (R): 43 (38)

Undecided: 4 (16)

(MoE: ±3.3%)

Here’s one more poll showing that the Democratic surge-let in California seems to be for real: the newest LA Times/USC poll gives mid-to-high single digit leads to both Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer. The poll’s trendlines go back to May, so they’ve missed a lot of ups and downs in the race, but the margins are similar to most of the other polls that have come out in the last few weeks. Apparently, all the Democrats needed to do to get some traction in these races was to… start advertising? Who knew?

Also, like most recent California polls, nobody’s very enthused about Brown (40/41) or Boxer (44/41), but they’re the paragon of popularity compared with Whitman (33/44) and Fiorina (24/29). The most popular person in the poll? Barack Obama, at a strangely high 63/33. That lack of disappointment, compared with pretty much every other state, seems to be part of what’s keeping California’s enthusiasm gap down to a manageable level. (Among all respondents, the Brown/Whitman margin isn’t any different, at 46-42. Boxer fares a bit better among all respondents, though, leading 53-38.)

As Crisitunity noted in this afternoon's Daily Digest, the DLCC recently unveiled the first wave of our “Essential Races” program – highlighting key legislative districts that we anticipate will show which way the political tide is turning this fall.

But the Essential Races program is a two-way street.

That's why we're so excited to announce that on October 13th, the DLCC will add 10 grassroots-nominated districts to the Essential Races list, determined by nominations from individuals like you.

Anyone can submit a nomination, and any state legislative campaign in 2010 is eligible.

Simply click here or visit www.dlcc.org/2010Races to nominate an Essential Race.

Back in 2008, the Essential Races chosen through public nominations included a lot of campaigns in battleground states, but they also included a few campaigns in states that weren't top targets, but where something about the district or the Democratic nominee made the race unique and deserving of special attention.

We might have overlooked some of those key races without help from supporters like you, and we'd be foolish not to ask for your help again this year.

Swing State Project is the place to go for information like that.  So if you know of a critical state legislative campaign that you think deserves special attention, please visit www.dlcc.org/2010Races to submit your nomination.

Sincerely,
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee

Since so many of you have invested in this race, I thought it’d be a good idea to show you Democrat Scott McAdams’ introductory TV ad, which your dollars helped put on the air:

Really good stuff!

• IA-Sen: Selzer & Co. for Des Moines Register (9/19-22, likely voters, 11/8-11/09 in parentheses):

Roxanne Conlin (D): 30 (30)

Charles Grassley (R-inc): 61 (57)

Undecided: 6 (10)

(MoE: ±4.2%)

Not much to see here other than the remarkable consistency over the almost one year’s period since the previous Selzer poll of this race. (I just learned a new word today, while searching for how to describe this race, linked to the Chet Culver vortex: “syntropy.” It’s synergy + entropy.)

• NH-Sen, NH-Gov: American Research Group (9/22-26, likely voters, Dec. 2009 in parentheses):

Paul Hodes (D): 32 (36)

Kelly Ayotte (R): 46 (43)

Undecided: 20 (21)

John Lynch (D-inc): 42

John Stephen (R): 40

Undecided: 14

(MoE: ±3.5%)

ARG, mateys! Here be a mighty treasure trove of undecided scallywags! (And here be the gubernatorial link.)

• OH-Sen, OH-Gov: Univ. of Cincinnati for various Ohio newspapers (9/16-20, likely voters, 5/11-20 in parentheses):

Lee Fisher (D): 40 (47)

Rob Portman (R): 55 (46)

Undecided: 5 (6)

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 45 (49)

John Kasich (R): 49 (44)

Undecided: 6 (6)

(MoE: ±3.4%)

University of Cincinnati hasn’t been in the field for a while, so they missed the very steady decline of the Dems in Ohio, making it look like more of a sudden collapse. At any rate, this is actually Ted Strickland’s best non-internal showing since early August.

• WA-Sen: Commonsense Ten is out with a $412K independent expenditure in the Washington Senate race, on Patty Murray’s behalf. (Wondering who they are? This Hotline article from July explains how they’re something of a Dem answer to groups like American Crossroads, as well as giving some legal background on just how it came to be that the super-wealthy can give endless money to 527s to spend endlessly on IEs.) Meanwhile, there are dueling ads in Washington. As one might expect, Patty Murray lets Dino Rossi hang himself with his own anti-Boeing words, while Rossi hits Murray on her support of tarps. (Since most Washingtonians own several tarps — they only thing that allows them to go camping during the ten rainy months of the year — I don’t see what the big deal is.)

• WV-Sen: The Dems are definitely getting active in here: the AFL-CIO is out with a huge direct mail blitz in West Virginia, and the DSCC is placing a major ad buy there starting tomorrow. In the meantime, John Raese, Tweeter and Facepage aficionado, is sticking to the GOP party line on global warming: it’s all volcanoes’ fault! (Wait… I thought it was sunspots. They’d better get their stories straight.)

• AK-Gov: Bill Walker, after weeks of dithering in the wake of losing the GOP gubernatorial primary, has formally decided against a write-in bid (despite having an easier-to-spell name than Murkowski). No word on an endorsement of either Sean Parnell or Ethan Berkowitz, although Berkowitz has been steadily reaching out to Walker.

• GA-Gov: With Nathan Deal not really having done much to deflect the attention being paid to his family’s imminent financial collapse, now he’s having to run damage control on another issue: his campaign is accused of having spent $135K to lease aircraft from a company where Deal himself is a part-owner. State ethics law bars candidates from using campaign funds for personal benefit, although the open legal question here is whether this turns into “personal benefit.”

• NM-Gov: Third Eye Strategies for Diane Denish (9/21-23, likely voters, no trendlines):

Diane Denish (D): 46

Susana Martinez (R): 46

Undecided: 7

(MoE: ±4.4%)

This is kind of odd… we just got a Diane Denish internal poll from a totally different pollster (GQR) in the middle of last week. Does she have two different pollsters working for her? At any rate, the news is decidedly better in this one, showing a tie where last week’s poll had her down by 5.

• TX-Gov: Blum & Weprin for Texas newspapers (9/15-22, likely voters, 2/2-10 in parentheses):

Bill White (D): 39 (37)

Rick Perry (R-inc): 46 (43)

Kathie Glass (L): 4 (-)

Deb Shafto (G): 1 (-)

Undecided: 8 (13)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

The Texas race is extremely stable (check out the flatness in Pollster‘s regression lines, with a mid-single-digits spread). While I’d like to think that Bill White can get over 50% on his own, his best hope at this point might be for Libertarian candidate Kathie Glass to start taking a bigger share (presumably out of Rick Perry’s hide, via the same crowd who went for Debra Medina in the primary).

• FL-24: Hamilton Campaigns for Suzanne Kosmas (9/22-23, likely voters, 8/25-29 in parentheses):

Suzanne Kosmas (D-inc): 45 (43)

Sandy Adams (R): 43 (49)

Undecided: 12 (9)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

This is the first internal we’ve seen from Team Kosmas, and while it’s not the kind of numbers that fill you with great confidence (up 2 in one’s own internal), it is an indicator that we’re still looking at a Tossup here instead of Lean R (which is where some of the other prognosticators have been sticking this one). The movement in Kosmas’s direction suggests that voters have found out more about the crazier side of Adams in the wake of her surprise primary victory.

• MS-04: Tarrance Group for Steven Palazzo (9/21-22, likely voters, December 2009 Tarrance Grop poll for NRCC in parentheses):

Gene Taylor (D-inc): 45 (68)

Steven Palazzo (R): 41 (24)

(MoE: ± ?%)

There were reports last week that the NRCC was starting to smell smoke in this race (despite having an underfunded, low-name-rec candidate in Palazzo), and was going to try out a round of polling. Seems like their hunch may be right, as long-time Rep. Gene Taylor (who hasn’t given Dems much reason to take interest in him lately… well, ever, really) is up only by single-digits in a new poll from the Palazzo camp.

• PA-10: Momentum Analysis for Chris Carney (9/23-25, likely voters, no trendlines):

Chris Carney (D-inc): 46

Tom Marino (R): 38

Undecided: 17

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Chris Carney, having been slightly on the wrong end of a public poll from the Times-Leader (and on the very wrong end of that sketchy AFF poll last month), rolls out an internal giving him an 8-point lead over Tom Marino. Marino (who’s pretty underfunded, although the NRCC is starting to get involved) is little-known (only 26/24 faves), so this is going to be one of many races where the Dem’s survival is based on localizing in order to fend off Generic R.

• PA-16: I’m not sure what to make of this: the uphill campaign of Lois Herr (going against Joe Pitts in the 16th, which is solidly Republican but moved a lot in the Dems’ direction in 2008) is out with a second internal poll from PPP that has her within single digits of the GOP incumbent. Pitts leads 41-34, which seems kind of bizarre considering that we’re seeing polls in Pennsylvania with incumbent Dems losing by larger margins than that in much friendlier districts.

• SD-AL: Bennett Petts and Normington for Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (9/22-23, likely voters, no trendlines):

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-inc): 51

Kristi Noem (R): 38

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Here’s one race that seems to be becoming a little more comfortable for the Democrats. (Recall that Herseth Sandlin led in the last Rasmussen poll of this race, after months of trailing.) I wonder how much of that has to do with the reveal of Noem’s atrocious driving record, given voters’ memories of leadfooted ex-Rep. Bill Janklow?

• DLCC: If you’re looking to really micro-target your financial contributions to where your dollars get stretched the furthest and the leverage is the greatest (given the knife-edges on which many state legislatures, and the entire 2012 redistricting process, rest) the DLCC has rolled out its “Essential Races” program. This points to some of the tightest races in the tightest chambers; the link details their first wave of 20.

• CA-Init: There are some Field Poll leftovers to look at, concerning three of the biggest initiatives on the ballot this year. The news is good all around, although the margins aren’t decisive: Proposition 19 (marijuana legalization) is passing 49-42 (it was failing 44-48 in the July Field Poll). Proposition 23 (undoing greenhouse gases limiting legislation) is failing 34-45. And maybe most importantly, Proposition 25 (allowing budget passage with a simple majority) is passing 46-30.

• Florida: Mason-Dixon’s latest Florida poll (we gave you Sen and Gov numbers over the weekend) has a lot of miscellany in the fine print that’s worth checking out. They find the GOP leading narrowly in three major downballot races: Pam Bondi leads Dan Gelber in the AG race 38-34, Jeff Atwater leads Loranne Ausley in the CFO race 29-27, and Adam Putnam leads Scott Maddox in the Ag Comm race 36-32. They also find that Amendment 4 has a shot at passing; it’s up 53-26, although bear in mind that you need to clear 60% for a Florida initiative. Amendment 4 would require localities to put changes to comprehensive zoning plans up to a public vote; Josh Goodman has a good discussion of it today along with several other initiatives in other states that may pass despite having both sides of the entire political establishment lined up against them.

• SSP TV:

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio rolls out his first ad en espanol, a biographical spot

• PA-Sen: How many freakin’ ads has Pat Toomey come out with? Anyway, here’s another one

• CT-02: Joe Courtney stresses his independence, especially regarding TARP

• CT-05: Chris Murphy’s new ad focuses on stopping outsourcing

• PA-03, PA-11: The DCCC is out with new ads in the 3rd and 11th, continuing the trends of hitting Mike Kelly as out-of-touch millionaire and hitting Lou Barletta for sucking as Hazleton mayor

• Rasmussen:

• AL-Sen: William Barnes (D) 30%, Richard Shelby (R-inc) 58%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 50%, Linda McMahon (R) 45%

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 49%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 40%, Mike Castle (I) 5%

• GA-Sen: Michael Thurmond (D) 36%, Johnny Isakson (R-inc) 52%

• IA-Gov: Chet Culver (D-inc) 37%, Terry Branstad (R) 55%

• ND-Sen: Tracy Potter (D) 25%, John Hoeven (R) 68%

• SC-Sen: Alvin Greene (D) 21%, Jim DeMint (R-inc) 64%

Princeton Survey Research for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune (9/20-23, likely voters, 7/26-29 [RVs] in parens):

Mark Dayton (DFL): 39 (40)

Tom Emmer (R): 30 (30)

Tom Horner (I): 18 (13)

Undecided: 12 (17)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

Considering that PSR made a leap from a registered to a likely voter model, Democrats have to be pleased that Dayton’s lead barely budged. Contrast this with SUSA’s latest, which had Dayton up only 38-36 over Emmer. If you look at the age cross-tabs, there’s not a ton of disagreement between the two pollsters, except on one important score: while SUSA had 18-34 year-olds going wild for Emmer by a 46-30 margin, the Strib poll gives Dayton a 42-24 lead among that demographic. Gee, I wonder which one is more believable…

Still, the RGA clearly believes there’s still a race here, as evidenced by their recent move to funnel nearly half a million bucks to pro-Emmer groups, and three other recent polls (including SUSA) peg this race as pretty tight.

Andrew Cuomo is going to have to win the New York gubernatorial race on the merits, instead of standing back while the ballot line split between Carl Paladino on the GOP line and Rick Lazio on the Conservative line does his work for him. Lazio has pulled the plug on his bid:

Rick Lazio announced that he is dropping out of the race for New York governor today, ending speculation that he might run on the Conservative Party line.

Lazio, who will reportedly be nominated for a judgeship in the Bronx tonight, said he is dropping out in a press conference today. In his remarks, he called his victorious primary opponent Carl Paladino “flawed,” City Hall News reports.

Remember that in New York, the only way to get your name off the ballot is to die or get nominated for a judgeship. Today was the deadline for such a nomination, and it looks like he found someone willing to nominate him. At any rate, Lazio’s name won’t appear on the ballot, which would have siphoned votes from Paladino even if he hadn’t actively campaigned. With Lazio having polled in the single digits (in those post-primary polls that bothered to mention him) and Cuomo polling over 50, this doesn’t seem to change the election’s trajectory much, but it does reinforce that Cuomo is going to have to work for this and not treat it as a coronation.

This morning I took a look at all of the House Polling since since September 12th that is listed at electoral-vote.com.  There have been 31 polls taken since the 12th.

In 2008 the Democrats beat the GOP by 10.68%.In the 31 polls I looked at, the average shift in the margin was -10.88.  Sounds awful, doesn’t it?

It is, but what it also suggests is that the generic ballot isn’t anywhere close to GOP +10. What really caught my eye was comparing the numbers against the Cook PVI.  On average, the 31 races are about 6 points better for the Democrats than where you would expect them to be in a 50-50 race.  This is the power of incumbency, and suggests that when you look at individual races Democrats are running ahead of where they should be given the generic ballot.

This is a very rough analysis, obviously.  But in the past I have found comparing swings in local races against the National Swings very useful.

Here is the data:

https://spreadsheets.google.co…

Though official census data won’t be published until the end of the year, Election Data Services has released an updated reapportionment projection, based on population estimates published by GIS software maker Esri. To see how things have changed over the years, I’m including EDS’s projections for 2007, 2008, and 2009. Note that in prior years, EDS used several different models for its forecasts, which is why you see two different possibilities for some states in certain years.

The biggest loser here is New York, which, after two straight years of facing only a single-seat loss, is back two a two-seat drop – though only by the narrowest of margins: the Empire State would get the 436th seat in Congress, if it existed. The other clear loser is Missouri, which swaps places with Minnesota – MN hangs on to its final seat, while Missouri now fails to. And Arizona, which last year could have gained either one or two seats, now looks set to pick up just one. Meanwhile, California (0), Florida (2) and Texas (4) all wind up with their higher projections.

EDS also provides a list of states on the bubble, which you can see below:

In addition to the states on the lists above, EDS also thinks that Nebraska and Rhode Island are also at risk of losing a seat when the final numbers come out in December.

UPDATE: In comments, Nico takes a look back at EDS’s projections for the prior decade and finds that, while good, they still missed a few things. So we are very likely to see some surprises.