The deluge finally lets up today on the polling front, tapering off to a steady rain of numerical goodness. After two days where the polling total registered in the high 20s/low 30s, we see "only" 21 polls in the inbox today.
New York gets the big treatment today, with three different pollsters hitting the triumvirate of top-level contests (and coming to wildly different conclusions). We also see some new Dem internals that look good, and one public poll of a tight House race that looks anything but good.
All that (and more!) in the Thursday edition of the Wrap...
THE U.S. SENATE
NY-Sen: Polls all over the map in the Empire State
Well, at least we can say for sure that Chuck Schumer has a dominant lead in his Senate re-election bid. The health of freshman Kirsten Gillibrand's campaign depends wildly on the pollster crunching the numbers. Three different polls were released today, with a mind-boggling difference of twenty-five points between the best result for Gillibrand and the worst result for the Democrat. On the more optimistic end of the scale is the new poll from Siena (PDF file), which puts Gillibrand up by a 57-31 margin over Republican nominee Joe DioGuardi. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we find SurveyUSA, who claims that DioGuardi looms just a single point behind Gillibrand (45-44). Splitting the difference, to some extent, is Quinnipiac. The Q poll has Gillibrand at 48%, and DioGuardi sitting at 42%.
What to make of this? Conservatives say the Siena poll should be disregarded because it didn't screen likely voters (clearly, they didn't read my piece this weekend on Sunday Kos. Liberals say that a look under the hood of the SUSA poll raises eyebrows (almost twice as many conservatives as liberals?!? In New York?!?). My guess? Gillibrand is up 10-15 points. DioGuardi was going to get a primary bounce, so the two-to-one polling leads Gillibrand enjoyed before were probably unrealistic. But DioGuardi will be hard pressed to make this race a coin flip in November.
Meanwhile, in the state's "other" Senate race (Gillibrand's is a special election to complete the unexpired term of Hillary Clinton), Chuck Schumer can feel pretty confident about his status in the race. He leads Jay Townsend easily in all three polls of the race. Quinnipiac has it closest (54-38), but SUSA (54-33) and Siena (63-30) put the two-term incumbent in a more comfortable position.
WA-Sen: SurveyUSA reverses course--puts Murray out front
Now, every pollster that saw a Dino Rossi surge has now seen the momentum move back in the direction of the incumbent, Democrat Patty Murray. After all, it was SurveyUSA that sent collective gasps through the Washington political scene by giving the GOP nominee a seven-point lead over Murray in a post-primary poll. Now, SUSA matches the recent trend, putting Murray ahead of Rossi by two points (50-48).
THE U.S. HOUSE
KY-06: Barr drops internal, showing him losing (but not too bad)
If you are a regular reader of the Wrap, you know that a cardinal rule here at the Wrap is that it is rarely wise to release an internal poll showing you getting beat. The exception: if every poll shows you getting smooshed, and you have one saying you...well...aren't getting smooshed. That was the apparent incentive for Kentucky Republican Andy Barr, who laid out an internal poll from Tarrance Group showing him losing to Democratic Rep. Ben Chandler by seven points (49-42). This comes after a twin hit of Democratic polling, which put the Chandler lead well into the double digits.
MI-07: GOP pollster puts Schauer down four in Walberg rematch
Polling newcomers The Rossman Group (which, as poster Paleo at SSP noted last week, is a firm with GOP ties) are out with a new survey in Michigan, and it shows another Democratic incumbent trailing by four points. This poll is in the 7th district, where Democrat Mark Schauer trails in his rematch with former GOP Rep. Tim Walberg, according to the poll. The margin currently sits at four points (42-38), which is actually better than some GOP internals had it earlier in the cycle.
NY-23: Stay the course, Dougie! Hoffman eyes November
As his imminent defeat in the GOP primary looms, Doug Hoffman has made a potentially momentous decision in the 23rd district: he's sticking around and fighting. Hoffman, while swearing up and down that he is not fueled by spite, has decided to continue to campaign for Congress on the Conservative Party line. Such a move will go a long way towards moving Democratic Rep. Bill Owens into position to earn his re-election in November.
PA-08: Murphy down double digits in new public poll
Franklin and Marshall, one day removed from showing Democrat Kathy Dahlkemper trailing, came through with a real downer for the Democrats. Their latest poll shows Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy trailing by double digits in a rematch with former Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick (49-35). Among the larger group of registered voters, the margin narrows, but only a little (46-36).
RI-01: Cicilline internal poll gives him double-digit lead
Given that a public poll gave him an incrementally larger lead earlier in the week, the internal poll released today by the campaign of Democrat David Cicilline in Rhode Island has the ring of truth. A Feldman Group poll on the campaign's behalf gave Cicilline a fifteen-point edge (53-38) over Republican nominee John Loughlin. An "informed ballot" test blew the margin even wider (59-34), but those should always be treated with a healty dollop of skepticism. Either way, it is good news for Cicilline, who emerged victorious from a pretty bloody primary that does not seem (based on this poll and the Quest Research poll earlier in the week) to have done any permanent damage to the Democrat.
TX-17: GOP internal poll shows Edwards losing in a landslide
Speaking of downer polls, a new GOP internal poll from On Message shows longtime Democratic Rep. Chet Edwards down a whopping nineteen points to Republican challenger Bill Flores. The poll puts Flores well over the 50% threshold (55-36). This is one of those races where there has been a very noticeable dearth of polling or confident whispers coming from the incumbent.
THE GUBERNATORIAL RACES
CA-Gov: Field Poll has the race deadlocked
The respected Field Poll, considered a real yardstick among Golden State pollsters, looks at the gubernatorial race in California, and sees an absolute coin flip (PDF file). Both Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown draw 41% of the vote in the new survey. While this is a one-point improvement for Whitman over the last survey by Field, it is worth noting that Field never had a poll in the field during the recent surge that Whitman enjoyed at the end of the summer.
FL-Gov: Sink leads by seven in new Mason Dixon poll
Mason Dixon returns to the Sunshine State, and they see Democrat Alex Sink up by a respectable margin to Republican Rick Scott. The favorabilities here tell the story: Sink holds a pretty positive favorability spread (44/23), while Scott's are still underwater (30/47), something he has endured since his bloody primary with state AG Bill McCollum.
NY-Gov: Paladino is within six! Or is it nine?! Or is it 33?!
Nothing like a little twenty-seven point spread in polling results to really muddle the living shit out of an election forecast. Either Republican Carl Paladino is within striking distance, or he is getting absolutely blasted. That is the split decision from a trio of polls out over the past 36 hours from a variety of pollsters in the Empire State. Quinnipiac was out of the gate yesterday, with the jaw-dropping report that Paladino had pulled within six points (49-43) of Democratic frontrunner Andrew Cuomo. SurveyUSA piled on late last night, giving Cuomo a nine-point edge over Paladino (49-40). Democrats who barely slept Wednesday night got a dose of relief from Siena College (PDF file), which came out this morning with Cuomo lapping the field at 57%, with Paladino well behind (24%). The distinction, besides the LV/RV conundrum? Siena was also the only pollster to test Rick Lazio on the Conservative line (where he drew 8% of the vote).
To muddy the waters even further, Pollster contributor Harry Enten tweeted last night that Marist will be out tomorrow morning, and looks like it is somewhere in between Quinnipiac and Siena.
THE RAS-A-POLL-OOZA
A quartet of numbers from The House of Ras, and they show the Democratic candidates making incremental gains on GOP frontrunners in all four races. They return to Alabama (Someone else wanna poll this race? Pretty please?), and they also confirm that Democrat Earl Pomeroy may not be down for the count yet in North Dakota.
AL-Gov: Robert Bentley (R) 55%, Ron Sparks (D) 35%
GA-Gov: Nathan Deal (R) 45%, Roy Barnes (D) 39%
MO-Sen: Roy Blunt (R) 52%, Robin Carnahan (D) 44%
ND-AL: Rick Berg (R) 48%, Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D) 45%