Wyoming. Idaho. Nebraska. Tennessee.
You can apparently throw Kansas into the list of solidly Red states with surprisingly competitive congressional races this year.
ASA Marketing/Infomark Research for Nancy Boyda (D). Date unknown. MoE 4.6% (No trend lines)
Ryun (R) 41.2
Boyda (D) 42.5
Boyda was one of the few financially competitive Democrats running for congress in 2004, and she got blown out 58-38. Of course, it was a Republican year before Kansas Democrats started showing the sort of life they're showing today. But still, it wasn't even close. Might the second time be the charm?
[Ryun spokesman Jeffrey] Black said the poll lacked credibility partly because, by its own disclosure, 62 percent of respondents were women. Ryun's own poll results were "drastically different," he said.
Interesting that the Ryun campaign hasn't released those results. Any time a campaign gets cagey about its internals, you generally know one of two things: 1) They don't want to tip off the other campaign that the race is more competitive than they expected, or 2) they don't want to release embarrassing numbers.
Given that the Boyda campaign is already claiming the race is competitive, that could only mean one other thing -- that Ryun's own numbers don't look so hot.
In other Kansas news, SUSA has released polling of the state's statewide races. It's still GOP territory, though Democratic governor Kathleen Sebelius is leading handily, 58-38, and the Attorney General's race is tight, with Republican Phil Kline leading narrowly 51-48 over Democrat Paul Morrison.