Emily Swanson |
September 8, 2010
California
CNN / Time / Opinion Research Corporation
9/2-7/10; 866 registered voters, 3.5% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
(CNN release)
2010 Senate
48% Boxer (D), 44% Fiorina (R) (chart)
2010 Governor
48% Whitman (R), 46% Brown (D) (chart)
Florida
CNN / Time / Opinion Research Corporation
9/2-7/10; 899 registered voters, 3.5% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
(CNN release)
2010 Senate
36% Rubio (R), 34% Crist (i), 24% Meek (D) (chart)
2010 Governor
49% Sink (D), 42% Scott (R) (chart)
Kentucky
CNN / Time / Opinion Research Corporation
9/2-7/10; 869 registered voters, 3.5% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
(CNN release)
2010 Senate
46% Conway (D), 46% Paul (R) (chart)
Emily Swanson |
September 8, 2010
State House News
8/29-31/10; 362 registered voters, 5% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
(WBZ story)
Massachusetts
2010 Governor
34% Patrick (D), 28% Baker (R), 18% Cahill (i), 4% Stein (G) (chart)
Emily Swanson |
September 8, 2010
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
8/25-31/10; 968 likely voters
Mode: Live telephone interviews
(DSCC release)
Washington
2010 Senate
50% Murray (D), 45% Rossi (R) (chart)
Anyone following campaigns closely has seen the numbers and read the stories. Democrats are in trouble. One particularly salient point: last week's Gallup tracking poll showing a +10 advantage for Republicans in the generic ballot test. It's the largest Republican advantage in the history of Gallup asking the question. Some calculated what a +10 advantage would mean as far as seat pickup. Others simply rejoiced.
But hold on! Yesterday Gallup released its latest generic ballot test. It's evenly split between Dems and Republicans. We're coming back! Obama's address on Iraq had an effect! Glenn Beck's rally had an effect! Sound the other alarm now! Huh, I guess I missed those stories.
To be sure, Democrats are in trouble. To be sure, according to pollster.com's tracking, the generic ballot is trending Republican when you aggregate all polling outlets. But why is one poll (+10) covered so extensively, while another (+0) hardly at all? Why is the former considered important, and the second, perhaps an outlier? This new data point is receiving far less coverage. (Media Matters has a very good summary of the difference in coverage here.)
It's hard to know exactly what is causing the fluctuation--whether it's simple poll fluctuation, or "real" movement. But looking at Gallup's breakout of the generic by party, we see most of the movement comes from Democrats consolidating the base. In the current poll, 93% of self-identified Democrats say they are voting for the Democratic candidate, up from 88% in the previous wave. Republican support for the Republican candidate dropped just slightly (96% to 93%). The difference in base consolidation is now even, for the first time in a month. The chart below shows this metric since Gallup began nightly tracking in March.
That remaining Democratic holdouts would begin to come home as we head into the final stretch is not a surprise. Will this pattern hold, and how it translates into actual House seats, remains to be seen. But for those following campaign twists and turns, the latest Gallup poll is a twist worth a bigger mention.
Emily Swanson |
September 8, 2010
Democracy Corps (D
8/30-9/2/10; 1,000 2008 voters
845 likely 2010 voters
Mode: Live telephone interviews
(Democracy Corps release)
National
State of the Country
31% Right Direction, 62% Wrong Track (chart)
Obama Job Approval
46% Approve, 50% Disapprove (chart)
Favorable / Unfavorable
Barack Obama: 44 / 43 (chart)
2010 Congress: Generic Ballot
42% Democrat, 48% Republican (chart)
Party ID
36% Democrat, 33% Republican, 29% independent (chart)
Emily Swanson |
September 8, 2010
Rasmussen
9/7/10; 500 likely voters, 4.5% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone
(Rasmussen release)
Arizona
2010 Governor
60% Brewer (R), 38% Gardner (D) (chart)
Favorable / Unfavorable
Jan Brewer:62 / 37
Terry Goddard: 40 / 54
Job Approval / Disapproval
Pres. Obama: 39 / 59
Gov. Brewer: 64 / 36
Emily Swanson |
September 8, 2010
Rasmussen
9/7/10; 500 likely voters, 4.5% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone
(Rasmussen release)
Kentucky
2010 Senate
54% Paul (R), 39% Conway (D) (chart)
Favorable / Unfavorable
Rand Paul: 56 / 39
Jack Conway: 45 / 48
Job Approval / Disapproval
Pres. Obama: 36 / 64
Emily Swanson |
September 8, 2010
As we gear up for a busy election season, Pollster and Huffington Post are hiring a new polling intern to help us out with gathering and entering polling data.
We're seeking a three-month unpaid intern to work in the Huffington Post office in Washington DC. Primary responsibilities will include:
- Entering polling data into our database and publishing tables and charts to Huffington Post/Pollster
- Entering and publishing poll update blog entries into our content management system
Strong attention to detail is a must. Experience using basic HTML, entering content into a CMS (especially Movable Type), and experience with statistical analysis including the R programming language are appreciated but not required.
If you're interested, please send a resume and brief statement of interest/availability to pollsterintern@huffingtonpost.com
Emily Swanson |
September 8, 2010
Public Policy Polling (D)
9/2-6/10; 538 likely voters, 4.2% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone
(PPP release)
Texas
2010 Governor
48% Perry (R), 42% White (D) (chart)
Job Approval / Disapproval
Gov. Perry: 39 / 50
Favorable / Unfavorable
Bill White: 44 / 29
With less than nine weeks remaining until Election Day, control of the U.S. Senate remains in play, as Republicans hold meaningful leads in five states currently held by Democrats, with six more Democratic seats remaining in our "toss-up" category. Since our last update two weeks ago, new polls have nudged our polling averages in a slightly more Republican direction in the more competitive states, particularly Florida, Kentucky, California and Washington.
Remember that to win an absolute majority in the Senate, the Republicans need to gain at least 9 seats (although as several Pollster and HuffPost commenters have pointed out, a gain of 8 seats would leave the Democratic majority dependent on vote of not always reliable Joe Lieberman).
Currently, Republican candidates hold strong double-digit leads in four states now represented by Democrats: North Dakota, Arkansas, Indiana and Delaware. The Delaware margin assumes that Mike Castle wins next week's Republican primary. Democratic hopes there will brighten considerably should Republican Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell prevail, as two recent polls show she would trail Democrat Chris Coons.
Six seats currently held by Democrats remain in our toss-up category:
- In Colorado, our most recent trend estimate shows Republican Ken Buck with a slim 3.3 point advantage (46.1% to 42.8%), over Democratic Senator Michael Bennet, although the two most recent polls point in opposite directions: The most recent Rasmussen Reports tracker gives Buck a four-point lead, while a survey conducted by a bi-partisan team of campaign pollsters gives Bennet a 3-point advantage.
- In Washington state, two recent automated surveys by SurveyUSA and Rasmussen show Republican challenger Dino Rossi narrowly but not significantly ahead of Democratic Senator Patty Murray. Rossi's 1.9 point edge (49.7% to 47.8%) on our trend estimate is slightly improved, but leaves Washington very much in the toss-up category.
- California has also seen two new automated surveys in the last week from Rasmussen and SurveyUSA both showing Republican challenger Carly Fiorina deadlocked with Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer. Our trend estimate now shows Boxer with an advantage of less than one percentage point (46.8% to 46.2%), an edge that has narrowed roughly two points over the last two weeks.
- All of the recent pubic polling in Wisconsin comes from Rasmussen Reports, which has shown a deadlocked race between Senator Russ Feingold and his Republican challenger Ron Johnson. Johnson's less than one-point margin on our trend estimate (47.3% to 46.0%) mirrors those results.
- In Illinois, a new live-interviewer survey by the Chicago Tribune confirms the results of the most recent Rasmussen automated survey. Both show Democrat Alexi Giannoulias and Republican Mark Kirk tied. Our trend estimate gives Giannoulias
Kirk a two-point edge (39.7% to 37.7%)
- In Nevada, two recent surveys by Mason-Dixon and Rasmussen both show Democrat Harry Reid with non-significant leads of 3 and 1 percentage points respectively. Our trend estimate gives Reid a 3.4 point advantage (48.6% to 45.2%), mostly because Reid has led nominally on 8 of 10 surveys conducted since July.
Of the seats currently held by Republicans, only Florida remains in our toss-up category, and there our trend estimate shows Republican Marco Rubio with a 3.1 point advantage over Republican-turned-independent Charlie Crist (37.1% to 34.0%) with Democrat Kendrick Meek running a distant third (16.6%)
Two week ago, our trend estimate put Kentucky in the toss-up category, but two new recent polls by SurveyUSA and Kentucky cable news channel CN2 put Republican Rand Paul leading Democrat Jack Conway by margins of 15 and 5 points respectively. Our trend estimate now shows Paul leading by 5.3 points (44.9% to 39.6%), enough to shift Kentucky to lean Republican.
All tallied, we currently show 48 seats leaning or currently held by Democrats (including the two independents that caucus with the Democrats), and 45 seats leaning or currently held by Republicans. Thus, control of the U.S. Senate rests on the outcome of the seven contests now now in the toss-up category: Colorado, Washington, California, Wisconsin, Illinois, Nevada and Florida.
Emily Swanson |
September 8, 2010
Zogby for "Democratic philanthropist Bernard Rapoport"
8/24-28/10; 803 likely voters, 3.5% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
(Houston Chronicle article)
Texas
2010 Governor
44% Perry, 41% White (chart)
Emily Swanson |
September 8, 2010
Public Policy Polling (D)
9/2-6/10; 1,468 likely voters, 2.6% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone
(PPP release)
Maine
2010 Governor
43% LePage (R), 29% Mitchell (D), 11% Cutler (i), 5% Moody (i), 1% Scott (i) (chart)
Favorable / Unfavorable
Libby Mitchell: 34 / 43
Paul LePage: 43 / 35
Eliot Cutler: 20 / 35
Job Approval / Disapproval
Pres. Obama: 44 / 51
Gov. Baldacci: 31 / 57
Emily Swanson |
September 8, 2010
Rasmussen
8/31/10; 500 likely voters, 4.5% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone
(Rasmussen release)
New Jersey
Job Approval / Disapproval
Pres. Obama: 50 / 50 (chart)
Gov. Christie: 57 / 43 (chart)
Sen. Lautenberg: 48 / 47 (chart)
Sen. Menendez: 45 / 49 (chart)
Emily Swanson |
September 8, 2010
Rasmussen
9/6/10; 750 likely voters, 4% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone
(Rasmussen release)
California
2010 Governor
48% Whitman (R), 45% Brown (D) (chart)
Favorable / Unfavorable
Meg Whitman: 55 / 40
Jerry Brown: 45 / 51
Emily Swanson |
September 8, 2010
Gallup
8/30-9/1/10; 1,651 registered voters, 4% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
(Gallup release)
National
2010 Congress: Generic Ballot
46% Democratic, 46% Repubican (chart)
Emily Swanson |
September 7, 2010
Danielle Kurtzleben talks to pollsters about the Generic Ballot.
Steve Singiser doubts polls' "books are cooked" to the detriment of Democrats.
Pat Caddell expounds on Obama, Democrats' ties to Wall Street and the 2010 elections (via Smith).
Tom Jensen says very few who don't approve of Obama plan to vote for Democrats this year.
"Swampland" contributers discuss why Obama is slipping in the polls.
Gary Langer finds growing support among Afghans for talks with the Taliban.
Frank Newport discusses religion and party identification.
Charles Blow wonders why the US is such an outlier in its religiosity relative to its GDP.
Emily Swanson |
September 7, 2010
Public Opinion Strategies (R) / Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates (D)
8/28-9/1/10; 473 likely voters, 4.5% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
(POS release)
Colorado
2010 Senate
43% Bennet (D), 40% Buck (R) (chart)
2010 Governor
48% Hickenlooper (D), 25% Maes (R), 15% Tancredo (i) (chart)
Emily Swanson |
September 7, 2010
Rasmussen
9/6/10; 750 likely voters, 4% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone
(Rasmussen release)
California
2010 Senate
48% Fiorina (R), 47% Boxer (D) (chart)
Favorable / Unfavorable
Barbara Boxer: 48 / 50 (chart)
Carly Fiorina: 55 / 37
Job Approval / Disapproval
Pres. Obama: 55 / 43 (chart)
Gov. Schwarzenegger: 32 / 66 (chart)
Emily Swanson |
September 7, 2010
CNN / Opinion Research Corporation
9/1-2/10; 936 registered voters, 3% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
(CNN release)
National
2010 Congress: Generic Ballot
52% Republcian, 45% Democrat (chart)
Emily Swanson |
September 7, 2010
Hill Research (R) for Texas Watch
8/25-29/10; 600 registered voters, 4% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
(Texas Watch release)
Texas
2010 Governor
42% Perry (R), 41% White (D) (chart)
Emily Swanson |
September 7, 2010
Rasmussen
8/30-9/5/10; 3,500 likely voters, 2% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone
(Rasmussen release)
National
2010 Congress: Generic Ballot
48% Republican, 36% Democrat (chart)
Emily Swanson |
September 7, 2010
Rasmussen
8/31/10; 500 likely voters, 4.5% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone
(Rasmussen release)
Idaho
2010 Senate
63% Crapo (R), 24% Sullivan (R) (chart)
Favorable / Unfavorable
Mike Crapo: 70 / 27
Tom Sullivan: 37 / 30
Job Approval / Disapproval
Pres. Obama: 29 / 71
Gov. Otter: 57 / 41
Emily Swanson |
September 7, 2010
Rasmussen
9/2/10; 500 likely voters, 4.5% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone
(Rasmussen release)
Nebraska
2010 Governor
61% Heineman (R), 28% Meister (D) (chart)
Job Approval / Disapproval
Pres. Obama: 35 / 61
Gov. Heineman: 69 / 29
Favorable / Unfavorable
Dave Heineman: 73 / 24
Mike Meister: 36 / 39
Emily Swanson |
September 7, 2010
Rasmussen
9/2/10; 500 likely voters, 4.5% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone
(Rasmussen release)
Delaware
2010 Senate
48% Castle (R), 37% Coons (D) (chart)
47% Coons (D), 36% O'Donnell (R)
Favorable / Unfavorable
Chris Coons: 49 / 35
Mike Castle: 67 / 30
Christine O'Donnell: 39 / 44
Job Approval / Disapproval
Pres. Obama: 50 / 50 (chart)
Gov. Markell: 60 / 38 (chart)
Emily Swanson |
September 7, 2010
NBC News / Wall Street Journal
8/26-30/10; 1,000 adults, 3.1% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
(NBC: story, results; WSJ: story, results)
National
State of the Country
30% Right Direction, 61% Wrong Track (chart)
Obama Job Approval
45% Approve, 49% Disapprove (chart)
Economy: 39 / 56 (chart)
Congressional Job Approval
21% Approve, 71% Disapprove (chart)
Positive / Negative
Barack Obama: 46 / 41 (chart)
What is your preference for the outcome of this year's congressional elections -- a Congress controlled by Republicans or a Congress controlled by Democrats?
43% Republican, 43% Democratic
In the next election for U.S. Congress, do you feel that your representative deserves to be reelected, or do you think that it is time to give a new person a chance?
31% Deserves to be re-elected, 56% Give new person a chance
Party ID
31% Democrat, 27% Republican, 30% independent (chart)
Emily Swanson |
September 7, 2010
Columbia Dispatch
8/25-9/3/10; 1,622 registered voters, 2.2% margin of error
Mode: Mail
(Dispatch story)
Ohio
2010 Senate
50% Portman (R), 37% Fisher (D) (chart)
2010 Governor
49% Kasich (R), 37% Strickland (D) (chart)
Emily Swanson |
September 7, 2010
ABC News / Washington Post
8/30-9/2/10; 1,002 adults, 3.5% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
(ABC: story, results; Post: story, results)
National
Job Approval / Disapproval
Pres. Obama: 46 / 52 (chart)
Economy: 41 / 57 (chart)
Congressional Job Approval
25% Approve, 72% Disapprove (chart)
2010 Congress: Generic Ballot (among likely voters)
53% Republican, 40% Democrat (chart)
Party ID
31% Democrat, 25% Republican, 39% independent (chart)
Emily Swanson |
September 7, 2010
SurveyUSA / Courier-Journal Bluegrass / WHAS-TV
8/30-9/1/10; 561 likely voters, 4.2% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone
(SurveyUSA release)
Kentucky
2010 Senate
55% Paul (R), 40% Conway (D) (chart)
With the midterm elections now just nine weeks away, a group of political scientists gathered for a conference in Washington D.C. this weekend forecast significant losses for the Democrats. Three of the five forecasts predicted that Republicans will gain majority control of the House of Representatives.
The annual meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA), which featured nearly 5,000 participants and close to 900 panel and roundtable sessions, was about far more than election forecasting. Those most interested in the 2010 campaigns, however, gravitated to a Saturday session in which five political scientists presented the latest results from their forecasting models, some of which have been in development for 30 years or more.
Democrats currently hold a 256 to 179 seat advantage, so Republicans need to win at least 39 seats to gain majority control. Three of the models, two of which draw on national polls measuring whether voters plan to support the Democrat or Republican candidate in their district, point to Republicans picking up between 49 and 52 seats in the House, more than enough to win majority control. Specifically:
- Alan Abramowitz of Emory University forecast a Republican gain of 49 seats, based on current polling showing Republican with a roughly five percentage-point lead on the generic House ballot.
- Joe Bafumi of Dartmouth College presented his forecast of a 50-seat Republican gain, based on a model and paper co-authored with Robert Erikson of Columbia University and Chris Wlezien of Temple University (and summarized last month in the Huffington Post). Their model also rests heavily on national polling on U.S. House vote preferences.
- James Campbell of SUNY Buffalo predicted a gain of 50 to 52 seats for the Republicans, using a model that combines assessments of the number of "seats in peril" by the Cook Political Report with the recent job approval rating of president Barack Obama.
Two more models offered a less pessimistic outlook for the Democrats:
- Alfred Cuzan forecast a Republican gain of 27 to 30 seats based on a model, developed with University of West Florida colleague Charles Bundrick, that relies mostly on measures of economic growth and inflation rather than voter preference polling.
- Michael Lewis Beck of the University of Iowa predicted a Republic gain of just 22 seats. He collaborated with Charles Tien of CUNY Hunter College on a more than 30-year-old "referendum" model based on measurements earlier this year. Their model was the only one to exclude measurements of the current seat division between Democrats and Republicans.
Why so much variation in the forecasts? Another speaker, Gary Jacobson of the University of California San Diego, pointed out that the number of previous elections typically used by forecasters (typically between 16 and 32) is "not a very big number," while a great many "plausible" predictive measures exist. Moreover, the national polling numbers used by the modelers are often "really, really noisy."
Jacobson also noted the differences between the "fundamentalist" models of Cuzan/Bundrick and Lewis-Beck/Tien that assume that views of the the economy and the Obama administration drive voting, and the others that use vote preference questions which, as he put it, "add in the information that's already the product of these fundamentals" as well as "the other stuff that's going on" with voter preferences.
Lewis-Beck argued that the "the best models are based on theory ... things that we know [or] that we're pretty certain we know," which in this case means the belief that "people vote about the main direction of the economy, and they vote about big macro political issues," especially in midterm elections.
At least one of the academics noted the apparent gap between what the fundamentals alone predict and what the polls are picking up. "Republicans are polling a lot better than they should be," Bob Erikson argued, "by [the] fundamentals."
[Cross-posted to the Huffington Post]./p>
Emily Swanson |
September 4, 2010
Rasmussen
9/1/10; 750 likely voters, 4% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone
(Rasmussen release)
Nevada
2010 Governor
60% Sandoval (R), 36% Reid (D) (chart)
Favorable / Unfavorable
Brian Sandoval: 64 / 31
Rory Reid: 41 / 49