Call tonight's edition of the Wrap the "Democratic Response" edition. After the close of last week was punctuated with pretty gaudy numbers for the GOP courtesy of some red-tinted partisan pollsters, the blue team came firing back to open the week. The DCCC polling dump was a prodigious one (seven races!), and acted as quite the counterweight to some recent polling.
In other news, we have a caveat to explore on the newest name in the 2010 polling game (applying some salt to some really good-looking Dem numbers over the weekend), and a shocker from the House of Ras. In all, we hit 29 new polls, and only a couple of them (PA-06, in particular, seems to defy belief) hit back.
All this (and more!) as we open up the week with the Monday edition of the Wrap...
THE U.S. SENATE
THE ANALYSIS: A word about those Angus-Reid polls (the California installment of which I hit on the weekend edition of the Wrap). They are an internet-sample poll, which is a format of polling that has proven pretty damned suspect in the past (who can forget those Zogby Interactive polls from '06?!?). And, to be perfectly fair and balanced, the numbers in all three states explored by this Canada-based pollster have been damned rosy for the Democrats. Meanwhile, a college poll out of the Tar Heel State puts Republican Richard Burr ahead double-digits, but maybe a few points less optimistic than the incumbent than some other recent polls.
THE U.S. HOUSE
- Arizona-05 (Benenson Strategies--D):
Rep. Harry Mitchell (D) 46%, David Schweikert (R) 39%
- Arizona-07 (Magellan--R):
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D) 40%, Ruth McClung (R) 38%
- Hawaii-01 (Global Strategy Group--D):
Colleen Hanabusa (D) 48%, Rep. Charles Djou (R) 44%
- Illinois-14 (Benenson Strategies--D):
Rep. Bill Foster (D) 48%, Randy Hultgren (R) 38%
- Indiana-07 (EPIC-MRA):
Rep. Andre Carson (D) 50%, Marvin Scott (R) 33%, Dave Wilson (L) 6%
- Iowa-03 (Bennett Petts Normington--D):
Rep. Leonard Boswell (D) 49%, Brad Zaun (R) 41%
- Maine-01 (Maine Center for Public Opinion):
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D) 46%, Dean Scontras (R) 38%
- North Carolina-07 (Grove Insight):
Rep. Mike McIntyre (D) 52%, Ilario Pantano (R) 41%
- North Carolina-11 (Greenberg Quinlan Rosner--D):
Rep. Heath Shuler (D) 54%, Jeff Miller (R) 41%
- Pennsylvania-03 (Mercyhurst College):
Mike Kelly (R) 44%, Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D) 37%
- Pennsylvania-06 (Susquehanna--R):
Rep. Jim Gerlach (R) 61%, Manan Trivedi (D) 31%
- Pennsylvania-15 (Grove Insight--D):
Rep. Charlie Dent (R) 45%, John Callahan (D) 43%
- Tennessee-03 (Wilson Research--R):
Chuck Fleischmann (R) 50%, John Wolfe (D) 20%, Others 12%
THE ANALYSIS: The DCCC comes up with quite a magnificent seven in the internal polling department. What is most welcome in this polling dump is it hits a couple of races (IL-14 and NC-07) where there really hasn't been a competing narrative to the GOP internal/sponsored polls which showed very shaky ground for the Democrats. Nice to see a contrary view developing. A little skepticism is warranted on that Maine poll. When the distributors of the poll (a site called Pine Tree Politics) feel compelled to point out that they really weren't asking for a rosier GOP sample than normal (as one local journalist alleged), then it is fair to grab the salt. Speaking of grabbing salt, I will make a $100 donation to the charity of Jim Gerlach's choosing if he actually wins in PA-06 by thirty, as his polling alleges. Given his past history in the district, color me very, very skeptical.
THE GUBERNATORIAL RACES
THE ANALYSIS: The previous caveats apply for both the Maine Center poll and the Angus Reid polls. In a just world, however, that 2-to-1 lead for Cuomo over the increasingly wretched Carl Paladino would become a reality in three weeks. Meanwhile, no movement is bad news for the Democrats in Michigan and Georgia. Movement, meanwhile, is good news in Arizona, where that eleven point edge among "likely voters" drops to a mere three-point lead for the GOP incumbent among registered voters.
THE RAS-A-POLL-OOZA
The House of Ras sends up a shocker...kinda. The headline bouncing around the Twitter today was that the right-leaning pollster had numbers with John Kitzhaber returning to the lead in Oregon. But if you go to their frontpage this evening (I checked it at 5:00 PM PT), it is nowhere to be found. Indeed, I had to go to Blue Oregon to find it.
Well, in the Ras-sies' defense, maybe they didn't have enough room, what with the "[Insert Republican's Name Here] has most support yet in latest poll" (they do that particular construction twice).
FL-Gov: Rick Scott (R) 50%, Alex Sink (D) 47%
GA-Sen: Sen. Johnny Isakson (R) 53%, Michael Thurmond (D) 38%, Others 6%
NE-Gov: Gov. Dave Heineman (R) 66%, Mike Meister (D) 24%
NH-Sen: Kelly Ayotte (R) 51%, Paul Hodes (D) 44%
NM-Gov: Susana Martinez (R) 52%, Diane Denish (D) 43%
OR-Gov: John Kitzhaber (D) 48%, Chris Dudley (R) 46%
TN-Gov: Bill Haslam (R) 59%, Mike McWherter (D) 31%