As we now wait to see whether the first debate will move any numbers (and perhaps fulfill the 1980 parallel I have talked about before), any presidential poll released this week-end should be seen as a baseline to see whether either candidate receives a bounce since most will have been in the field before the debate. That’s why we will exceptionally start with some down-the-ballot surveys in today’s poll watch:
- In what is the most shocking of the day’s polls, Mason Dixon finds the Kentucky Senate race is a dead heat: McConnell leads 45% to 44%, and the race is tied when leaners are not included.
- In more good news for Southern Democrats, Rasmussen shows Mary Landrieu cruising. She leads John Kennedy 54% to 41% in what is one of the least polled Senate races of the cycles. Landrieu led by 17% in August.
- McCain’s best friend Lindsay Graham leads 51% to 42% against “Democrat” Bob Conley in a Research 2000 poll of South Carolina’s Senate race.
- In what is the day’s most instructive new House poll, an incumbent Republican (NV-03’s Porter) released an internal poll in which he only leads 41% to 39%. This is a response to Dona Titus’s survey earlier this week that showed her leading by 9%.
- In CA-04, a Research 2000 poll finds Democrat Charlie Brown with a narrow lead over Tom McClintock, 46% to 41%. This is a very conservative district, and an open seat.
- In FL-13, an internal poll for the Jennings campaign finds the Democrat trailing Rep. Buchanan 44% to 40%.
- In MI-07, Tim Walberg released an internal poll showing him leading 50% to 40% to contest the internal released by his opponent two days ago which showed him trailing by 6%. But Walberg’s poll only sampled 300 voters, with a very large margin of error of 5.7%.
- For those interested in the crucial battle for New York’s state Senate, Siena polled six of the most competitive districts (how often do we see independent polls released for state legislature races) and finds that Democrats are in a good position to finally take the majority but that Republicans have a fighting chance.
- Also, SUSA finds that California voters approve 52% to 36% of a proposition that would institute a 48-hour waiting period for minors to have an abortion after their parents are told.
Any time an incumbent thinks that it is a good thing to be getting 41% in an internal poll, you know that they are in real trouble. Porter’s internal is as damning for him than Titus’s internal poll was the other day because it shows that Porter’s campaign is now so worried that he is falling behind that they are looking to celebrate a poll with a 5% margin of error that shows their candiate stuck in the low 40s.
But the day’s most important congressional survey is undoubtedly Mason Dixon’s shocker from Kentucky’s Senate race. Early this week, SUSA released a poll that found a 3% race, which led me to wonder whether Democrats could make Kentucky into their 10th competitive seat. Mason Dixon’s survey answers in the affirmative, and the Senate Minority Leader is finding himself in a real fight. The DSCC has not yet invested in the race, probably since Lunsford can take care of himself and self-fund his campaign; but McConnell remains a formidable candidate with a large war chest and an entrenched incumbent with a well-oiled machine, so national Democrats would probably need to get involved at some point. Also, Lunsford will have to overcome the coattails of the presidential race, which were fatal to Mongiardo in 2004.
But however much Democrats still have work to do, Kentucky’s emergence as a tight battleground in the Senate battle is very worrisome news for the GOP.
Meanwhile, in presidential polling:
- The day’s trackings were favorable to Obama, though even Friday night’s samples were almost entirely taken before the presidential debate. And for once, all trackings show very similar results! Obama leads by 5% in Gallup (49% to 44%) and Diego Hotline (48% to 43%), by 6% in Rasmussen (50% to 44%) and Research 2000 (49% to 43%).
- Obama leads 51% to 43% in a Rasmussen poll of Iowa. He led by 5% last month.
- McCain leads 55% to 40% in a Rasmussen poll of Louisiana.
- Obama leads 54% to 38% in a SUSA poll of Connecticut.
These tracking polls might not tell us much about the reaction to the debate, but they underscore that (1) McCain doesn’t appear to have benefited from his Wednesday afternoon gamble, and (2) that it was important it was for McCain to score a game-changer last night. He needed to do what John Kerry succeeded in doing in 2004, when Kerry went in the debate trailing widely and managed to close the gap thanks to the first debate, entering October in a very competitive position. I don’t believe (and neither did the first snap polls) that he succeeded in doing so.
Wahoo! Pardon me as I relish the thought of McConnell losing his Senate seat. (I’d love to get Daschle’s reaction to the news.) Of course, this is only the second poll, so time will tell how reliable it is in predicting October’s political winds. Obama will most likely not carry Kentucky, though I wonder what effect, if any, last night’s debate had on the race. It is truly stunning to consider ten vulnearable GOP Senate seats this year.
I serioiusly doubt that this race is truly competive, if only because the DSCC isn’t spending any money in Kentucky, and the emergence of New Hampshire and Colorado being more competive probably means that they can’t afford to spend money in a race in which McConnnell has a definite advantage.
The NV-03 internal poll for Porter shows that he really is in great danger. In particular it can be important in 2010, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is up for reelectoin and polls have shown him to be pretty unpopluar, and therfore vulernable. However, to take him out, the GOP would need a strong challanger, and Porter, representing a swing district, would probably be the GOP’st likelist and most potent opponent. However, if he loses the race, he will lose his appeal as a contender, and that would help Reid alot.
More possibly good news for Democrats (though this is a totally unscientific “sense” friends and I are all getting): It feels as though things are finally starting to move, here in Maine, for Tom Allen over the past 5-7 days or so. I’ll be very interested to see if polling picks up on what may be a tightening race between Allen and Senator Collins. Allen’s campaign has seemed dead in the water for months, but could FINALLY get interesting.
Mainiac,
Why do you say that? Are there more Democratic ads visible, more on the ground presence? Maine’s Senate race has been one dull ride so far indeed.
Yes, Taniel, both actually. Allen’s advertising has been much better than early on, And recently more effective (and all-pervasive it seems), than Susan Collins’ (whose campaign, for some reason, keeps running the same two fairly tedious commercials on all Maine TV outlets). And yes, there’s definitely more on the ground presence, and for some reason suddenly more ENTHUSIASTIC activity. Lawn signs have sprouted like dandelions for Obama and Allen, in the past week, in northern, southern, eastern, western (well, you get the point…all over) Maine. And Allen seems energized and on-message, slamming Collins’ connection to Bushonomics and CEOs (I mean, her two endlessly-repeated ads I mentioned above both include endorsements FROM CEOs…how tone-deaf can you get?), as well as the billions spent in Iraq while Maine’s economy tanks (his tagline: “It’s time to take care of our own” appears to be actually penetrating the noise). All this while the Collins campaign seems suddenly unfocused. Stay tuned.
I serioiusly doubt that this race is truly competive, if only because the DSCC isn’t spending any money in Kentucky
Not sure if one can conclude much from the presence or absence of DSCC spending in KT. Lunsford has considerable wealth and can at least partially self-fund his campaign. So the DSCC won’t throw money into the race when Lunsford can do so himself.
Whether the race is truly competitive, who knows? I thought it was out of reach, but the polls say what they say.