In the next week or so I expect we'll get some new polling numbers out of Kansas. Everyone is going to be wondering how the head to head match between Roberts and Orman is going to show up in the new polls. Polls being what they are, we'll get a scattering of numbers that'll be all over the place.
But before those new poll numbers come out, I thought I'd dig around in the numbers we've got, and see if we can't make a good guestimate about those upcoming polls.
So here are the numbers we've got.
We've got the results of 2 polls that were conducted about 2-3 weeks ago.
08/14/2014 - 08/17/2014 KS Senator '14 PPP (D)
Roberts 32.0 Taylor 25.0 Orman 23.0 Undecided 20
08/20/2014 - 08/23/2014 KS Senator '14 SurveyUSA (Sponsored by KSN News Wichita)
Roberts 37.0 Taylor 32.0 Orman 20.0 Undecided 11
These 2 polls are a little bit different but given PPP leans Dem and there's a week's difference from when they were taken, and the margin of error, they seem to be in reasonable agreement.
So now let's look at the Kansas state registration numbers.
Democrats Republicans Independents
24.3% 44.1% 30.8%
Lets work with the last poll which was from SurveyUSA. Some things should stand out immediately. For instance, 44% of the electorate is Republican, yet Roberts has only 37% in the poll. 24% of the electorate is Democrat, yet Taylor has 32% in the poll.
Question 1: Where are the 7% of Republicans who are not supporting Roberts? Would they go to Taylor when Orman is available? Or are they just in the undecideds?
Question 2: Who are the extra 8% above the Democratic base that is currently supporting Taylor? Are there a significant number or Republicans in that 8% when they could go to Orman or Undecided?
So now for the big question, where does everybody go now that Taylor is effectively out?
Does it make any sense that some of Roberts people go to Orman? Not really, so let's say Roberts keeps his 37%.
Does it make any sense that Taylor's Dems and strong Dem leaning Indies go to Roberts? Not really, but let's be kind and say there's some strange voters out there and 1% of Taylor's people jump to Roberts. But let's also say that despite what's going to be a strong information campaign to get out the word that Taylor isn't running even though his name is on the ballot, 2% stay with Taylor.
So What about Orman's support? How much of that wondering 7% Republicans is actually supporting Orman today? Let's kind of split that and say 3% are currently supporting Orman, but 2% are going to go home to Roberts. So are there any independents or maybe a few Dems who would now jump ship from Orman to Roberts because Taylor is out of the race? I don't see why, but let's say 1% does.
Now we're left with Independents. Of the 11% of independents, we have 4% that are Republicans. Let's say they all go home to Roberts. Now we have 7% left. In a normal election, undecideds usually split pretty closely down the middle. But this is super red Kansas, but we're also not splitting between an R and a D, but rather an R and an Indie. So I think it's reasonable that these conditions balance out and we split the remaining independents down the middle.
So lets tally up Roberts vote.
Base 37
From Taylor 1
From Orman 3
From Undecideds 7.5
TOTAL 48.5
Don't forget we gave Taylor 2% from people who don't know he really isn't running, or it could be just kind of a "none of the above" vote. In fact, if I were a Republican strategist I might have a SuperPac come in and run ads saying a vote for Taylor is a vote for none of the above.
So what does that leave Orman with? 49.5% In other words, this is as close of a race as anywhere in the country. A lot of prognosticators are saying Roberts has a pretty big edge right now. I don't see it.
I suspect the first polls we see next week will show Roberts ahead by a few points, but that will be because the word hasn't gotten out to everyone that Taylor is definitely out.
So that's my little exercise in the Kansas numbers on a Saturday afternoon. So hopefully we'll get some real poll numbers sometime next week that either confirm this, or cause it to be tossed in the circular file with an infinite number of other election forecasts.