Pollster.com

50% unfavorables and picking up 40% of the vote. Very interesting result there.

PPP's results lately have all been kind of wacky. They seem to have a slight Dem house effect like Ras has a slight Rep one.

Note that PPP only allows for Brown, Whitman, or undecided as choices (i.e. a response for third party candidates are not allowed). This may make them a better predictor of results if you believe that third party support will melt away by election day or a worse predictor if you believe that the negative campaigning of the major parties will drive more people to vote for third parties.
Personally, I prefer asking people how they intend to vote rather than which of the two candidates they currently prefer (Disclaimer: I was the campaign treasurer for a third party candidate in California back in 1982).

Will when you Republicans give up on Calif? Calif will never vote for another Republican no matter how bad the economy gets.TheTterminator was the last straw.

Field Marshal:

PPP's results lately have all been kind of wacky. They seem to have a slight Dem house effect like Ras has a slight Rep one.

Agreed. And this doesn't mean they (or Ras) are any less correct. A house effect, as you know, obviously, doesn't signify intentional bias; it just means that your methodology produces results outside of the mean. That may be the best methodology and everyone else may have it wrong.

I actually enjoy a good Californian Republican. They represent their own interests pretty well but also know how to play ball and compromise and work with Democrats. I actually like the terminator in office. He did as well as he could but its hard to protect John Conner and the state at the same time. It needs constant coddling.

Agreed. And this doesn't mean they (or Ras) are any less correct. A house effect, as you know, obviously, doesn't signify intentional bias; it just means that your methodology produces results outside of the mean. That may be the best methodology and everyone else may have it wrong.

Yup. They are all working on their own proprietary models of what THEY think voter turnout will look like in November. Of course, that doesn't stop some of the sheep on here from stating how Ras is a republican party pollster and producing narratives and blah blah blah... but whatever.

No idea why Whitman would want this job. I still hold the premise that in 2012-2014, we will see the first muni defaults since the 70's. Why would you want to be the Governor when this happens- which i place at greater than 50/50? If Schwarz. couldn't get the crazies in Sacramento to face reality, don't know why Whitman (or Brown for that matter) think they can.

But who's hair is better?

Whose hair is better? Dammit. Silly typing without thinking.

The internals of this poll actually appear to be ok. On first glance, I don't see any of the craziness with regards to 2008 vote that their other polling has shown. This one has it Obama 58, McCain 36 (or Obama +22) whereas Election 2008 was 61/37 or (Obama +24).

Party ID of Dem +12 is identical to 2008 Election, although they reach that outcome with a different spread (basically less Independents now than in 2008): 46/34/19 vs. 42/30/28 from the 2008 Election.

The Liberal/Moderate/Conservative breakdown also looks ok: 25/41/33 (or +8 Conservative over Liberal) vs. 25/44/30 (or +5 Conservative over Liberal) in Election 2008.

The only problem I see is an oversampling of older people vs. younger (9% A18-29 vs. 20% in election 2008), but that could be in line with expectations for a mid-term election.

@RussTC3 - You raise an interesting point about the older vs. younger voter numbers.

I personally expect it to fall somewhere between the 9% or 20%. It is a mid-term, which would normally drag down the participation level. But my gut tells me that the ballot initiatives this year, particularly on legalizing pot and whether or not to suspend the state's greenhouse gas reduction law, could mitigate some of the drop off.

This November promises to be very interesting -- at this point. If the reps pick up again it is probably all over. I say that because we do seem to be in a mild dem upsurge, perhaps because primaries are over, voters face different choices in some cases than had been expected, and the intraparty dirt is flying. Also, a few Rep are still being hurt by dirt from primaries not yet held (e.g., Ayodotte) and booboos (e.g., Kirk, Rand, McInnis).

It all comes down to this: Is there a wave building or not? Again, if the reps start re-building advantage at any time, I think their momentum will build and the surf will be up.

In that case, nearly all close races go to Reps (, as well as some that did not seem close. If not, dem leaners will come "home" and the mean will shift towards dems, though not enough for 25-35 of them.

In this regard, the 175,000 voter Adult poll by Gallup the other day showing near parity between those identifying with dems and reps is probably far more important than the generic uptick for dems based on RV. The reason is RV polls generally weight the polling results by assumed fractions of dems, reps, and independents. If those assumptions are wrong, the usual error associated with RV becomes even larger. This is before issues like voter enthusiam kick in.

I believe the MSM polls still assume a very large advantage for dems in party identification. Remember, party affiliation can drift away from choices made during registration, and many people don't change theirs even if their voting shifts over time. For example, I was still registered as a dem until recently.

I will be curious to see if Gallup uses this new information in their upcoming polls. If so, you will see a jump in rep share in the generic Congressional poll.

I believe that even the LV filters weight polls results by assumed age, race distribution then multiply by assumed party affiliation fractions. If that is true, then PPP will indeed have a dem bias.

Rasmussen has done polls similar to Gallup's massive effort continuously all year. Thus, one would expect that his LV is probably more accurate than PPP, assuming his first cut filters are no less accurate.

Arizona case:

I think the Arizona case ruling could be important, if only for a negative reason: the Arizona law was hugely popular because for the first time in decades it looked like those opposed to illegal immigration could make it stop. [I think if done in most of the SW, it would indeed stop it]. There is nothing like scoring a touchdown to fire up partisans on the scoring side and discourage the other side.

Hence, winning the case would have been huge, politically. Losing could fire up the other team.

Arizona case:Personally, I have no desire to kick out law-abiding illegals (excluding the lawbreaking just to be here). My concern is that it must stop this time. The amnesty in Reagan's time just made the mass migration more massive. That is why we need a grand deal: wall off the border, tax employers harshly for the priviledge of hiring illegals, and when those have been shown to be successful, grant amnest to those here as of some date.

I think if Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina smoke a joint in one of their commercials it might help them get elected. That marjuana ballot question has overwhelming support.

Seg, I don't see any generic uptick for the Dems at all. True, some of the Senate races have moved left some, but those are race specific. Angle and Kirk had their personal struggles, and I am not sure what's causing Fiorina to slip, but I never gave her much of a chance. She is a weak and apparently underfunded candidate.

Gallup is the only pollster that showed generic uptick for Dems in the past two weeks. Everyone else moved to the right. CNN, Quinn, Time, Bloomberg, Fox, ABC, Ras. Even that goofy Ipsos/Reuters. RCP chart is at all time highest lead for GOP now.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/generic_congressional_vote-901.html

Most of those are RV's. I am not thrilled about some of these Senate races' slight movement in the wrong direction, but I've been pretty jazzed since last week about generic numbers. CNN was a cherry on top.

Just checked pollster.com. Also looks like all time largest GOP lead.

http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/10-us-house-genballot.php

Even these primarily RV averages point to a sure GOP takeover of the House, and if you add only 3-4 points to adjust to LV, it's a landslide.

Senate was a verrryyy long shot always. And so it remains. Just due to pure bad luck of Dems and Reps having the same number of seats up this cycle, despite Dem's heavy advantage in seats held.

Farleft, I think that pot prop polls I saw, it was a near tie every time. Definitely helps all Dems on the tickets. All the potheads are fired up to come out and vote.