The Oregonian reports polling data this morning suggesting that first term Democrat Kurt Schrader may no longer be in jeopardy. The FiveThirtyEight forecast currently has his opponent, Scott Bruun, with a 66% chance of winning.
http://www.oregonlive.com/...
If the rule this election season is one of an angry electorate sweeping Democrats from power, Oregon's 1st and 5th congressional districts may prove to be exceptions, according to a new poll commissioned by The Oregonian.
In both cases, Democratic incumbents lead their Republican challengers by double digits.
Incumbent Kurt Schrader is in front of Republican challenger Scott Bruun by 12 points -- 50 percent to 38 percent, and six-term Democrat David Wu is leading Republican Rob Cornilles by 13 points -- 51 percent to 38 percent.
That's not that surprising in the Northwest, said pollster Stuart Elway of Seattle.
"We've always been a little different up here from the national," Elway said. "It's a little less hard-core partisan here."
Deeper down in the article is an interesting observation. So much for the enthusiasm gap.
The two Democrats might have another advantage this year: Neither Bruun nor Cornilles seems to have rallied his party base, according to the data.
Seventy-one percent of the 5th District Republican respondents said they would definitely support Bruun. Cornilles drew 75 percent of his district's Republican respondents.
"In both of those cases, it looks like the Republican candidate has not really brought all the party faithful along as much as they would like," Elway said. Usually, he said, they'd want those numbers closer to 90 percent.
Democrats don't hit the 90 percent figure for their candidates either, but they come closer than the Republicans. Eighty-two percent of 5th District Democrats in the poll say they'll vote for Schrader and 81 percent of 1st District Democrats say they'll choose Wu.