Campaign Diaries

After a few days of relative polling calm, a wave of presidential and congressional surveys were released today, starting with Gallup’s latest tracking poll that finds a sudden Obama rise. We will know in the coming days whether that is statistical noise or a sign that Obama’s trip is having an effect. As for state polls:

• A new PPP survey of Ohio finds Obama ahead 48% to 40%. The previous poll showed the Democrat leading 51% to 38%. Note that this is the first poll in a month from this swingiest of swing states.

• The very reputable University of New Hampshire poll brings us rare numbers from that state and finds Obama ahead within the margin of error, 46% to 43%, despite leading by 11% among the all-important New Hampshire independents. The previous UNH poll had McCain leading by 9%.

• Three polls were also released from Alaska, Georgia and North Carolina. I will devote an entire post to them in the coming hours, with a discussion of Obama’s red state strategy. For those who have not yet seen the numbers and are impatient to find out, McCain leads by 5%, 9% and 3% respectively.

It is difficult to know what to make of PPP’s Ohio poll in the sense that there are very few surveys of the state and we lack recent data points to compare PPP’s polls to. The only other poll from Ohio released within the past month showed Obama leading 48% to 46% in June; earlier that month, Quinnipiac, PPP and Rasmussen had found Obama leading by 6%, 11% and McCain leading by 1%. Obama thus does seem to have an edge in the state that broke Democrats’ hearts four years ago - not that this is a surprising finding: With the electorate shifting leftward over the past four years, it is expected that one of the closest Bush states of 2004 will now find itself narrowly Democratic. And given how much defense McCain has to play elsewhere, it goes without saying that he would have a very difficult time finding an electoral college majority without Ohio’s 20 electoral votes.

New Hampshire is similarly rarely polled, and no poll had been released for about 5 weeks. Two surveys at the beginning of June (Rasmussen and ARG) found Obama leading by double-digits. In any case, this is one state that the McCain campaign will strongly contest - as they should given that it is the Kerry state that looks the most vulnerable now that Michigan and Pennsylvania seem to be inching ever so slightly towards the Democratic column. McCain has had a lot of success in his primary races in New Hampshire, and it is because independent voters that were supposed to vote for Obama on January 8th ended up voting for him that he triumphed over Romney and Obama narrowly lost to Clinton on that suspenseful day.

That said, New Hampshire’s turn leftward in 2006 was as big as in any state and the historic Republican registration edge has almost disappeared: it is down to about 4,000 voters as of June 08, versus more than 35,000 in 2004. That might not seem like a big shift, but Kerry won the state by 9,000 votes against Bush…

And that gets us to the day’s congressional surveys:

• In what is major polling news, Rasmussen finds that Mark Begich has opened an 8% lead in Alaska’s Senate race, 50% to 41%. The three previous Rasmussen polls had Begich and Ted Stevens in a toss-up. Stevens is clearly taking the toll of the scandals he is ensnared in, as his favorablity rating is much lower than Begich’s (50% versus 63%).

• In North Carolina’s Senate race, Civitas finds Elizabeth Dole keeping her clear lead against Kay Hagan but she is back within single-digits, 48% to 39%.

• In Georgia’s Senate race, Saxby Chambliss is ahead of his two competitors but by widely differing margins. Against Vernon Jones, he leads 59% to 29%; against Jim Martin, 51% to 40%.

• In AZ-08, two internal polls tell widely differing stories - though they were both taken weeks ago. The campaign of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords released a Greenberg Quinian Rosner poll from June finding her ahead 59% to 35% while the Tim Bee campaign responded with a poll taken in May by Arizona Opinion that found a 47% to 40% race.

• Finally, in WI-08, an internal poll for the campaign of Republican John Gard finds him trailing incumbent Steve Kagen by a narrow 46% to 42% in a rematch of their 2006 race.

The numbers from the Alaska race could potentially mark a turning point in the race. Ted Stevens has been ensnared in a corruption scandal for months and has been at best tied with Democratic challenger Mark Begich for months now. A few polls have already found Begich leading outside of the margin of error, confirming that this most entrenched of incumbents is in trouble. Now that Begich has started airing his first advertisements of the race, and that could be allowing him to inch ahead of Stevens. Of course, this is only one poll and we will need further confirmation to suggest that Begich is gaining a clear edge. After all, a Research 2000 poll released on Friday found a 2% margin between the two candidates.

The Georgia poll is also interesting in the wide margin of performance between the two Democrats. Given that Jim Martin’s name recognition does not appear to be that high, the reason appears to be Vernon Jones’ weakness rather than Martin’s strength. Jones is a controversial figure once accused of rape. Another explanation might simply be that Georgia voters might be more reluctant to elect an African-American Senator. The primary runoff between Martin and Jones will be held on August 5th. Jones (who voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004) got 41% in the first round, versus 35% for Martin.

Finally, the internal polls from AZ-08 are a textbook example of why internal polls ought to be taken with a grain of salt: we never know what questions were asked before the congressional match-up, nor why the May number are being released as opposed to more recent data. Taking the two polls together with what we already know about the race, Giffords remains favored to win the election: She is one of the best fundraisers among incumbent Democrats and Bee is handicapped by the decision of former Rep. Kolbe to not campaign with him. Democrats have more to worry in WI-08, a race many Republicans feel they ought to never have lost and that they rate at the top of their pick-up lists.