Elon University. 10/22-26. All voters. MoE 5% (No trend lines)
Taylor (R) 26
Shuler (D) 46
The race is tighter than that, since 2/3rds of poll respondents probably won't vote. And as you've seen in the CNN polling blogged earlier, the general populace is much more anti-Republican than likely voters. That's been one of our crutches the past few cycles.
But I blog this to make a different point.
While we look to CT, PA, NY, IN, and OH to produce the bulk of our House pickups, and while we focus on the Mountain West for the next wave of Democratic gains, fact is we're extremely competitive in the South.
GA-08 and GA-12 are two of only three Democratic-held seats in any danger of flipping, both of them victims of mid-decade redistricting that made them more Republican. But aside from that, we are looking at legitimate pickup opportunities in Arkansas (governor), Florida (FL-08, FL-09, FL-13, FL-16, FL-22, and FL-24), Kentucky (KY-02, KY-03, KY-04), North Carolina (NC-11, NC-08), Tennessee (Senate), Texas (TX-21, TX-22, TX-23), and Virginia (Senate, VA-02, VA-10).
Sure, this is still the stronghold of a Republican Party looking more and more like a regional party than a national one. But even here we're wreaking havoc behind enemy lines, forcing Republicans to play defense in their strongest region.
We won't surrender any corner of this country to the GOP. That's what a 50-state strategy looks like. And while our attention is focused mostly elsewhere at this time, we won't leave our progressive brothers and sisters in the South behind.