It was somewhat inevitable—we have an ever-thinning pile of presidential polls in front of us. For all intents and purposes, the primary campaign is a done deal. Pollsters have really scaled back on primary polling, since there really are a limited number of ways to write the lede: "Romney kicking Santorum's butt."
And, while one can assume a deluge of Obama v. Romney polling in the future, most media outlets are going to be loath to blow their polling budgets in April.
The net result? Expect a lot of the polling we see over the next couple of months to be of the downballot variety, especially with so many big races in the near future. So, while we have some polling on the presidential front today, our focus today is going to be downballot. Especially since one poll released today might tell us something about what to expect in the battle for control of the House of Representatives this coming year.
With that, on to the numbers:
GOP (PRESIDENTIAL) PRIMARY POLLING:
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Romney 42, Santorum 25, Paul 11, Gingrich 9
(PRESIDENTIAL) GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:
NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama d. Romney (46-44); Obama d. Santorum (47-41)
NATIONAL/INDEPENDENT VOTERS (Third Way/Global Strategy Group): Obama d. Romney (35-29)
MICHIGAN (EPIC/MRA): Obama d. Romney (47-43)
DOWNBALLOT POLLING:
MN-08--D (Lincoln Park Strategies for Anderson): Rick Nolan 19, Jeff Anderson 16, Taryl Clark 16
PA-17--D (Thirty Ninth St. Strategies for Cartwright): Matt Cartwright 42, Tim Holden 36
A thought about that PA-17 poll, just beyond the jump.
Until now, most of the attention in the Keystone State's upcoming primaries (beyond, of course, that home-state presidential candidate's final shot at redemption) has been fixed on the incumbent-on-incumbent contretemps between Democrats Jason Altmire and Mark Critz in PA-12.
Today's release of internal polling from challenger Matt Cartwright in PA-17, however, has to vault that into co-main event status in two weeks. Of course, as with any internal polls, the standard caveats apply. We've all seen rosy internal numbers that eventually come up snake eyes, for any number of reasons.
However, there's reason to believe that Cartwright's polling is at least somewhere on the fairway. For one thing, Holden's campaign went hard negative last week on Cartwright, not usually a gesture by an incumbent confident of victory. For another, Holden's district was jumbled around pretty considerably in the redistricting process. In the process, the district went from the red-tinted district that might've been tailor-made for a more conservative Democrat like Holden, to a more reliably Democratic district that a more standard-issue Democrat like Cartwright could thrive in.
The third reason, however, is cause for considerable debate. While others in the political conversation have pooh-poohed this notion, I would argue that the current political climate, coupled with the vagaries of redistricting, has created a climate that is less than ideal for incumbents.
Critics of this theory will point out that only a single incumbent (Ohio's Jean Schmidt) has been defeated in a competitive primary that did not involve another incumbent. However, that ignores the fact that several other incumbents have generally underperformed despite having pretty solid financial edges over primary challengers that waver on the periphery of "Some Dude"-ness. The most recent example: Roscoe Bartlett's less-than-stellar 43 percent performance last week in Maryland, where a multitude of challengers might've been the only thing sparing him from early retirement.
Now, one challenger's claim of a lead in an internal poll of six points is not probative of a whole heck of a lot. For all we know, Holden may drop an internal poll tomorrow showing him up 20. But, it would seem that the general level of discontent felt by the electorate has manifested itself in what can be described as at least a moderately hostile environment for incumbents. My educated guess? Mean Jean won't be the only incumbent out of a job by the end of this primary cycle, and that modestly "pissed off" mood in the electorate may well lead to a more volatile November at the House level than we previously might've guessed or thought. It may not be uniformly good news for Republicans or Democrats, by the way. I merely suspect that incumbents with halfway decent challengers might be more imperiled this year than most analysts are currently willing to admit.
