Polling and Political Wrap-Up, 11/17/09

There certainly is not a ton of 2010 polling today, but there is an interesting variety of polling data, at least. There are also a small handful of intriguing political headlines. With that in mind, let's put Tuesday to bed with this edition of the Wrap-Up.

IL-Sen: Candidate Poll Suggests Frontrunner Is Vulnerable in 2010
Take this with a couple of pounds of salt, as it is the result of two fairly sketchy metrics (an internal poll and an "informed ballot" question). With the caveats out of the way, here is the data: the campaign of former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman is claiming that an informed ballot test has Hoffman with a modest lead over Republican Mark Kirk, while Democratic frontrunner Alexi Giannoulias trails Kirk badly. Since Giannoulias performed better in the "uninformed" trial heat, the conclusion team Hoffman is trying to intimate is that Giannoulias will be unelectable once his negatives are known. It is worth noting that polling done by firms not on a campaign payroll show Giannoulias to be considerably more competitive against Mark Kirk than any other Democratic challenger.

MN-Gov: Coleman Clear Early GOP Leader, Dems a Two-Man Race So Far
There is a lot of time remaining in the campaign, and there are a lot of candidates to consider, but Rasmussen has gone into the field in Minnesota and taken an early reading of the temperature in the Minnesota Governor's race. On the Republican side, an undeclared candidate is lapping the field. Former US Senator Norm Coleman leads the Republican field with 50% of the vote, easily outpacing state legislator Marty Seifert, who sits at 11%. On the Democratic side, there are two early leaders: Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and former US Senator Mark Dayton are tied with 30% of the primary vote. A pair of Democratic stars from the legislature: Margaret Anderson Kelliher and Matt Etenza, come in third and fourth. For whatever reason, Rasmussen did not poll the early general election trial heats. Perhaps it was because with about 200 candidates in each primary, the permutations were virtually endless.

RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE: GOP's Pawlenty Can't Even Win Home State
This is not a sign of an emerging superstar candidate. Saint Cloud University tested a potential 2012 trial heat in the state of Minnesota, and found that GOP Governor Tim Pawlenty trails President Obama in the state by a sizeable margin (49-40). Their job approval ratings were fairly similar, which might indicate that the state is simply not conservative enough for Pawlenty (or any Republican) to be truly competitive.

ME-Gov: It's Tough To Be A Governor
As was discussed here over the weekend, current polling indicates that the present electoral climate is simply brutal for governors. We get an object lesson in that today from a new poll out of Maine done by Critical Insights. Unlike other recent polls in Maine, this poll shows Senator Olympia Snowe with extremely high job approval (70/21). It also shows Senator Susan Collins doing well (68/22), and even shows President Barack Obama more than holding his own on the favorability front (56/29). The exception to this voter lovefest? Governor John Baldacci, who is sitting on negative job approval (38/52).

IN POLITICAL NEWS....

• A warm and fuzzy reminder: you can now follow me on Twitter. There, you shall find lots of fun observations about politics, along with occasional commentary on matters like music and sports (losing to Cal State Fullerton, Bruins Basketball? Really?)
• CT-Sen/CT-05: Some interesting palace intrigue is evidently looming in the Connecticut GOP. According to several reports, there is a movement afoot to get state legislator Sam Caliguiri out of the U.S. Senate race and into a race for the U.S. Congress, where Caliguiri would take on sophomore Democrat Chris Murphy. The problem? There already is a Republican in the field--former Rob Simmons staffer Justin Bernier, and he is far from pleased about it. He even invoked the spectre of Scozzafava, warning the Connecticut GOP about the perils of interfering in the electoral process.
• There is a legislative special election tonight here in my backyard of Southern California. Orange County voters go to the polls to find a suitable replacement for lobbyist-lovin' Republican Assemblyman Mike Duvall (and if you don't know that story, you are letting the best things in life pass you by). The Democrat in the race is John MacMurray, who has a solid shot of making it to a runoff election against one of the two Republican leaders. DK diarist Seneca Doane has been all over this race, and blogged about it earlier today.
• FL-Sen: Apparently, Charlie Crist is tired of getting slapped around by Marco Rubio and his advocates. Apparently, Crist will now be gunning for for the right-wing insurgent former state legislator. According to Hotline On Call, direct engagement of the challenger by the presumptive frontrunner is in the very near future.
• CT-Sen: In an otherwise boilerplate appearance, there was a potetially interesting non-answer today from a live chat with GOP Senate candidate Linda McMahon conducted by The Day. When asked early in the session whether she would run as an Independent should she be unsuccessful in the GOP primary, McMahon only offered a rather equivocal statement: "I'm focused on winning the Republican nomination and expect to win."
• NY-23: Less than 36 hours after right-wing darling and de facto 2009 GOP special election nominee Doug Hoffman "unconceded" (at the behest of Glenn Beck), his spokesman told local media that he wasn't really retracting his concession. Which is probably a good thing, because after another day of counting absentee ballots, Bill Owens actually gained ground over yesterday's count, pushing his lead back over 3000 votes.