Campaign Diaries

Monday and Tuesday were heavy polling days, but today is calmer, with no high-profile presidential survey released, which explains why the first polls of this thread will be from Connecticut:

• Quinnipiac finds Obama crushing McCain 56% to 35%, with 86% of Democrats and a 16% lead among independents.
• Interestingly, the poll finds that only 14% would be more likely to vote for McCain if he were to choose Lieberman, while 32% say less likely. Among independents, the numbers are 16% and 33%.

• A second poll from Connecticut, this one released by Rasmussen, confirms Obama’s large lead, 52% to 35%. In May, Obama was ahead by… 3%. Obama is boosted by his strong favorability rating (62%).

• Finally, Rasmussen also released a poll from New York that found Obama crushing McCain 60% to 29% — his biggest lead yet in the Empire State and up from a 52% to 33% lead last month. Such a big victory would go a long way towards ensuring Obama a popular vote lead on Election Day, no matter what happens in the electoral college.

While Connecticut is certainly not one of the most interesting battlegrounds of the year, John McCain (and, before him, Rudy Giuliani) have made some noise about contesting the state based on their appeal among independents. And some polls this spring have found a somewhat tight race, including Rasmussen’s May survey. The McCain campaign has touted its proximity with Lieberman as a factor that would help him make the state competitive. But as this poll suggests Lieberman does not appear as much of a boost. In fact, his popularity is now under 50% for the first time in more than a decade of Quinnipiac polling.

The day’s first down-the-ballot poll, meanwhile, comes from North Carolina’s gubernatorial race:

• PPP’s latest poll (complementing the Senate and presidential match-ups released yesterday) finds Beverly Perdue getting 42% to Pat McCrory’s 41%. The previous poll PPP poll had Perdue up 4%.

The two candidates had their first debate earlier this month, though it is unlikely that it could have gathered enough attentions and viewers to impact the numbers. Polls are finding an extremely narrow lead for Perdue, in what is shaping up to be the most competitive gubernatorial race of the year.

The day’s Senate poll, however, does not give us particularly new information as the Idaho Senate race is not one of the Democrats’ top pick-up hopes:

• An internal poll for the LaRocco campaign finds the Democrat trailing Lieutenant Governor Jim Risch 43% to 28%, with 6% going to an independent candidate.

The poll was actually conducted mid-May but only released this week, so I include it more as information to readers than because I think it is particularly noteworthy. Democratic hopes to pick-up a Senate seat here rested on Sen. Craig continuing his burlesque tragi-comedy, perhaps refusing to retire at the last minute or pursuing his legal quest and overshadow Risch’s efforts. Despite Craig’s comical sponsorship of the latest version of the anti-gay marriage amendment in the Senate, it doesn’t look like his legacy will have that much of an impact.

Finally, SUSA released two House polls from Kentucky races over the past two days, finding some interesting results even though it has (for now) left out the race that is the most obviously competitive, KY-03:

• In KY-02, a heavily Republican seat that opened up earlier this year in very strange circumstances, Democrat David Boswell is stunningly leading Republican Brett Guthrie 47% to 44%.

• In KY-04, Republican incumbent Geoff Davis is ahead of his challenger Michael Kelley by a decent margin, 54% to 41%. Davis won an open seat for this conservative district in 2004 against George Clooney’s father before fighting off a strong challenger by Ken Lucas, who held the district right before Davis.

Democrats are not planning to contest KY-04 the way they did two years ago, as Ken Lucas looked to be the only one with any hope of wrestling this very conservative district away from the GOP. It is worth noting that Davis is not as far ahead as he should be, but KY-02’s results are naturally much more interesting. If KY-04 gave 62% of the vote to Bush in 2004, the president got 65% in KY-02! And yet, David Boswell is polling narrowly ahead in an independent poll.

Boswell is a highly-touted Democratic recruit, though things could have been even worse for the GOP if Rep. Lewis had succeeded in his grotesque plan of retiring seconds from the filing deadline in a failed attempt to make sure only his chief of staff filed. Instead, Brett Guthrie heard of that plan, filed himself and beat Lewis’s hand-picked successor and should be a stronger contender. But KY-02 confirms that open seats that in most cycles would have presented no problem to Republicans have become nightmarish headaches, and the MS-01 special election ought to give Boswell hope.