First, I was polled by PPP last night, and I have some comments on their polling. Suffice it to say that they're not putting everything in their polls online.
Since I expect to be far too exhausted at the end of the day today (election day), I'm going to throw my thoughts on today's races out:
- Virginia Governor: McDonnell 55-56, Deeds 44-45
Deeds never got a coherent campaign message together. I think the race will have a margin that's a hair over 10 points for McDonnell, but not that much. Most polls stick McDonnell around 45. I'll go down the ballot and more in depth below the cut.
- New Jersey Governor: 45-45-10, edge to Christie over Corzine.
Too close to call, but I'm going to peg Christie as winning by less than one point. Enough Daggett voters will probably come in line with Christie to dump Corzine.
- NY-23: Hoffman 50, Owens 43, Scoffazza 6
The district's lean to the GOP will probably do in Owens without a continued GOP schism helping out, even if Scoffazza did back Owen.
PPP:
I was actually sampled in PPP's poll last night (ironically, just as I'd pulled up their site; go figure). Some issues with their polling came up from actually being in it:
First issue: One reason their down-ballot undecideds are higher is probably the lack of a 'push' question (that is, the "Are you leaning towards X" option). This existed in the Governor's race (I filed as undecided), but not Lt. Governor (also filed as such), and therefore presumably not Attorney General (not undecided). Including such a question wouldn't be quite the issue, but failing to do so inflates your undecideds. These weren't horrifically high this time around, but in earlier polls they had been close to 20% vs. 10% or less. Mark against PPP on the down-ballot races.
Second issue: In their press release on their poll, they did not release the questions they asked about health care. Basically, these came down to:
- How do you plan to vote for Congress (i.e. Generic Congressional Ballot)?
- If the Democratic Congress passes a health care bill, how will you vote?
- If the Democratic Congress doesn't pass a health care bill, how will you vote?
Those aren't included in the PR; while possibly part of a larger polling project, dropping that sort of stuff makes me raise my eyebrows. Second mark against PPP, this time for incomplete tables.
EDIT: I agree with a comment below that this is more of a nitpick than the others; however, they say "Complete results are attached and can be found at www.publicpolicypolling.com." Complete results imply the whole survey, which means they're being disingenuous.
Third issue: PPP did not identify themselves at all until the end of the call. I have no idea whatsoever whether this will impact people taking the poll one way or another, but I didn't know if I was enduring a push poll for some time. An announcement at the start, especially the weekend before an election, might just raise response rates a hair. Third mark against PPP, as a 'survey' not initially identified as being with someone at election time is often just a campaign calling and doing voter ID/GOTV (especially in the 72-hour window).
Suffice it to say that I'm mildly dissatisfied with the poll.
Now, onto the races:
Virginia:
- Virginia Governor: McDonnell 55-56, Deeds 44-45
- The Governor's race featured Deeds attempting to build a negative majority, as the terminology goes, and failing miserably. I've seen this campaign going on for a long time now, and I can't name a single plank in Deeds' platform off the top of my head. I can name all of the things McDonnell is labeled as, but nothing about Deeds.
This works sometimes. If your opponent is a total kook, tangled up in a scandal, or you can build up a narrative of related issues, it can work, but not otherwise. In this case, Deeds was unable to pin enough on McDonnell to build a reasonably strong narrative of extreme conservatism on the part McDonnell to make the dent he needed. Unlike, say, Webb and George Allen's Macaca moment this did not fit well into another narrative that he was able to construct.
Deeds was not helped by a mediocre campaign down the ballot. Jody Wagner was un-exciting and had to focus on Bolling's no-shows on committees (which while embarrassing was never quite enough on its own considering the nature of the race and the way the year seemed to be going), while Steve Shannon skipped the NAACP forum in Richmond. Several House of Delegates races that looked to be shoo-ins, or at least good picks for a pickup, never panned out in SE Virginia...to the point that a corruption-embattled delegate got the endorsement of both newspapers in his district, while the third in the region didn't endorse anyone (as it primarily serves another part of the region).
Ultimately, Deeds will do a hair better than predicted because at least some blacks will come out to vote who registered in 2008 for the first time; voting can be habit-forming, after all.
- The Lt. Governor's race got buried. Unlike in 2005, where it was Leslie Byrne (whose nomination arguably spooked a fair number of voters downstate) versus Bill Bolling (the now-incumbent), there was nothing to make the race stick out. Consider it a side-effect of the job being what it is.
- The Attorney General's race should have been closer, but nothing indicates it will be. If anything, the margin might be slightly bigger than the Governor's race, though I suspect undecideds will break slightly for Shannon. Shannon's message never got clear with voters, Cuccinelli was able to portray him as being uninformed about the office (that ad of Shannon fumbling the AG's office question was a slick move, to give credit where it's due, while the attacks on Cuccinelli just never managed to hold) and basically a combination of Cuccinelli exciting the hardliners in the GOP and the margins up-ballot being so big killed any shot he had. I would also note that there are at least some anecdotal cases of Dems splitting off and backing Cuccinelli (
PPP's polling suggests this;
SUSA's backs up heavy crossovers as well).
- The House of Delegates will remain in GOP hands, with some additions to their majority. As I noted earlier, the Dems probably blew some likely pickups with poor campaigns. Add to this some 'dead cat bounce' pickups in NOVA (where the GOP got massacred in '07) combined with some coattails from McDonnell, and I can't see the GOP losing much, if any, net ground.
New Jersey:
- New Jersey Governor: Corzine 45, Christie 45, Daggett 10
Corzine and Christie are a wonderful example of why a two-party system sucks. Neither is exactly clean; you have a choice here between a lousy incumbent and a sleazy opponent. Combined disapproval runs between 80% and 95% in many polls, while combined approval tends to be 10-20% lower. Both candidates stink.
Corzine's problem has been a marked inability to crack 45% in a single poll, period. Most polls have had him in either the high 30s or the low, low 40s until recently; it's mainly been Christie's decline that's saved him from getting clobbered like Deeds is.
At the end of the day, I think enough Daggett protest voters will return to Christie to give him this race, but I think this race will go on all night; frankly, neither candidate deserves to win, and Daggett is probably the best of the three, but Daggett just couldn't raise enough money to fight the race effectively, leaving New Jersey with a pair of lousy choices.
NY-23:
- NY-23: Hoffman 50, Owens 43, Scoffazza 6
Owens has run a decent campaign, but this is...not the best district. The Cook rating is only R+1, but it's not as 'soft' on the state level as it sounds (McHugh was never in any danger of losing the seat, if due to personal popularity, and in spite of how the rest of the years went in '06 and '08; also, Pataki blew McCall out of the water here in '02, taking over 70% of the vote while only getting 49% statewide). Ultimately, Owens probably needed GOP infighting to help him out in the seat.
Scoffazza will probably get a little over 5% due to absentee votes, some party-label loyalists, and so forth. I doubt this will be decisive, though; in spite of her endorsement, Owens has yet to break 40% in any polls (granted, it's been mostly a three-way tossup).
A word on the problems in this race for the GOP is in order: I suspect that at least part of the problem was the method of candidate selection. If Scoff. had been selected in a primary (I know, a Liberal Republican winning a primary these days? Riiight...), I don't think Hoffman would have been able to gain as much support; the party chairmen picking a candidate who the base flunks on purity, however, doomed her campaign as the base could claim not only ideological impurity, but could also cry bossism.
Final Comment
None of these races are good referendums on President Obama. Deeds and Corzine have had enough problems of their own, campaign-wise or sleaze/popularity-wise, that Obama's approval being at 70% probably wouldn't have won it for them, while Owens was running against that part of NY state at the end of the day. With Corzine this is more debatable, but I think the temporary spike in Daggett says something entirely different: Both parties are in the doghouse to some extent or another, and if there's a takeaway it favors third parties of all stripes (centrist or wing-nut).