Janice Hahn (D)
Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos & SEIU (7/8-10, likely voters, no trendlines):
Janice Hahn (D): 52
Craig Huey (R): 44
Undecided: 4
(MoE: ±3.9%)
Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn faces off against businessman Craig Huey in tomorrow's special election runoff to replace Dem ex-Rep. Jane Harman, who resigned from Congress earlier this year to run an organization called the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The 36th District is ordinarily very blue—it voted for Barack Obama by a 30-point margin and for John Kerry by 20—and indeed, most folks expected the runoff to feature two Democrats, thanks to California's new "top two" primary system.
But thanks in part to a split in the left-leaning vote, Huey snuck through to face Hahn, creating a traditional D-versus-R matchup. There's been no public polling until now, leaving observers to read a mess of tea leaves that had offered a very muddy picture. On the one hand, Hahn aired a lot of negative ads targeting Huey's alleged extremism, suggesting she was worried the race could grow close. On the other hand, Huey never released an internal poll showing the race was close, and no major outside groups ever came to his aid.
And it looks like those groups made the right call. While the eight-point margin is, I'm sure, closer than Hahn would like, it's a wide gap to overcome. There's also reason to believe the race isn't even this close. We asked respondents about whom they voted for in 2008; they reported supporting Obama by a 56-39 spread. In reality, voters here went for Obama by 64-34. That's a 13-point net dropoff, which would constitute an enthusiasm gap larger than what PPP found in most states last year, when Democratic energy was at an unusually low ebb. It's possible that Hahn really is that uninspiring, but it's also possible she could outperform these numbers a bit, if our poll is overstating the extent of this enthusiasm gap.
One other note: We also asked if people had already voted—early voting by mail is now very popular in California. Almost half the sample had, and these folks went for Hahn by a 51-46 margin. That's not surprising, since the early vote generally favors Republicans. What this means, though, is that those planning to vote on election day support Hahn by a wider spread than the overall toplines, 52-42. So while the first batch of results tomorrow night might appear close-ish, it's very likely that the day-of votes will favor Hahn. All in all, it looks like this one probably won't be a nail-biter.