Tonight’s Senate Snapshot will appear a bit cluttered. This is because I am in the process of moving to a Snapshot that will only include polls that will also be included in the final averages. Specifically, that means all polls (except Zogby Interactive and Columbus Dispatch) where the majority of their interviews were conducted on or after October 8th.
The reason I am doing this is so that we can start looking at the odds of victory in each of the 13 still-competitive Senate campaigns for November 2nd, rather than the odds of victory if the campaign were held today. The problem is that four campaigns, California, Colorado, Kentucky and Missouri, do not have two or more polls conducted in the allotted time frame. So, for now, I have to post both the long-standing 25-day Sanpshot, and the Snapshot of emerging final averages.
The "emerging final" Snapshot is now the "official" Snapshot, and so I only produce a seat odds chart based on that Snapshot. However, since the "emerging final" Snapshot does not have averages for CA, CO, KY, and MO, I have to still post the old Snapshot and use its victory odds in the "emerging final" Snapshot. This is the only day I am going to do this. By Tuesday, we will be onto only the "emerging final" Snapshot.
Senate Competitive Campaigns Chart, Emerging Final Averages
* - Needs one more poll to have an average
** - Needs two more polls to have an average
Senate Competitive Campaigns Chart, 25-day Simple Averages
Senate outcome odds chart
Notes
--Only campaigns closer than 12.0% are listed. If a campaign isn't listed here, then it is not currently as close as any of the campaigns listed here.
--With few exceptions, all polls used in the averages are taken from Pollster.com.
--Click here for the Senate Snapshot methodology.
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Several Democrats show marked improvement from Tuesday, indicating that they are doing much better in more recent polling than they had been doing in older polls. Joe Sestak is 3.5% closer, cutting his deficit in half. Alexi Giannoulias gained 3.7%, to take the lead. Patty Murray went up by 4.1%, to regain a decent lead. The biggest gain, however, was by Scott McAdams, who cut his deficit from 12.7% to 7.7%.
I admit that I was dubious about Scott McAdams’ chances to win, really until about a day or two ago. Now, however, I am a believer. If Miller and Murkowski continue to nuke each other, and McAdams stays positive, he could really pull this off.
So let’s help McAdams out by chopping in a few bucks to his campaign on Orange to Blue. A $10 contribution goes a lot further in Alaska than in most other states.