If you haven't seen it yet, yesterday DailyKos presented a poll that was conducted for us by Public Policy Polling, a North Carolina-based Democratic polling firm. Despite it's affiliation with the Democrats, PPP doesn't have a big noticeable House effect though.
The poll's results were an absolute shocker: (relatively conservative) Democrat Jon Hulburd leads the former Vice President's son Ben Quayle 46-44 in the district that is still held by retiring Republican Representative John Shadegg, one of the most conservative Republicans in the House, in a district that has a Cook PVI of R+9- that means that in the last few election cycles it voted on average 9 points more Republican than the nation as a whole.
John McCain, who admittedly stems from Arizona, won 57% of the vote there, Bush got 54% in 2000 and 58% in 2004.
Another note: The huge paragraph breaks are intentional. They don't look very aesthetically pleasing, but I think that without them the numerical density of the diary would pretty much kill every reader.
Pat Toomey (R) 48
Arlen Specter (D) 36
Other 4
Not Sure 12
Pat Toomey (R) 43
Joe Sestak (D) 35
Other 5
Not Sure 18
Two obvious takeaways here. One, Toomey has taken the lead. Is it discontent over the protracted health care reform debate? Is it burgeoning discontent with Specter himself harming the Democratic brand in Pennsylvania? And how temporary will this lead be? Unclear.
Two, the "electability" argument in the Democratic primary has flipped. In previous polls, Specter matched up against Toomey better than Congressman Sestak did (no doubt relying largely on Specter's strong name ID). In this poll, however, Congressman Sestak matches up better. His deficit against Toomey is only 8 points (and, remember, Congressman Sestak has never run statewide, unlike Toomey, and is still working to build name recognition across the state, which should improve his numbers significantly), while Specter's deficit against Toomey is 12 points. This is probably due to a plummetting favorable-unfavorable rating for Specter, as Rasmussen points out; Specter's is down to 43-54.
While the numbers against Toomey are nothing to celebrate, this poll further cements the notion that Arlen Specter would not serve Democrats well as the Party's Senate nominee.
Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) got mix of good but mostly bad news with the latest Quinnipiac University Poll testing his long held Senate seat.
Overall, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, former Congressman Rob Simmons (R-CT) has increased his lead over Dodd and now leads him 48%-39%. In May Simmons had only lead Dodd 45%-39%
Dodd also polls poorly for a longtime incumbent against poorly known Republicans in the race. Dodd is tied with former ambassador (and not former US House Speaker) Tom Foley with 42% each, and barely leads state Sen. Sam Caligiuri and investor Peter Schiff.
The poll also tested the primaries on both sides of the isle. Dodd still has some strengh left, at least with Democrats, leading former aide to Vice President Al Gore Merrick Alpert 52%-18% in the primary. On the GOP side, Simmons holds a strong 37 point lead over Foley and Caligiuri, both of whom didnt break 5%, and Schiff, who got a whopping 0%.
The best news for Dodd perhaps? Its still only 2009.
Don't Know still winds in a landslide, naturally - but I'm wondering what is keeping Gillibrand's numbers so far in the pits, considering that she's fairly smoothly transitioned from upstate conservative Democrat to the liberal New York mainstream. My thought was a sort of "throw the bums out" mentality, considering how badly Paterson is doing.
The fav/unfav of Gillibrand and Maloney are pretty similar - not many people have heard enough about them yet to really form an opinion one way or the other.
I think Gillibrand will be fine in the primary in the end. I don't know that any of the attacks from the downstate Democrats will necessarily stick as her voting record in the Senate gets fleshed out over the next year or so, and Upstate Democrats adore her, so she really just has to win a plurality of the NYC vote to carry the primary (or even a close second).
Arlen Specter (D-inc): 45
Jim Gerlach (R): 36
Undecided: 15
Joe Sestak (D): 37
Pat Toomey (R): 35
Undecided: 23
Joe Sestak (D): 36
Jim Gerlach (R): 30
Undecided: 30
(MoE: ±2.8%)
I still gag whenever I have to put a (D) after Arlen Specter's name, and I don't think I'm the only one. Specter's approval margin among both Dems and independents dropped a dozen points over the last month. And the ratio of Dems willing to vote for him fell from 85-4 to 73-10. These numbers are still pretty high, though, so is there enough discontent for Joe Sestak to get in?
Interestingly, Sestak & Jim Gerlach have almost identical approvals, yet Sestak starts with a six-point lead. That points up the natural advantage Dems hold over Republicans in Pennsylvania these days.
P.S. In a move sure to anger wingnuts already steamed about the NRSC's endorsement of Charlie Crist, Big John Cornyn said it was "premature" for the GOP to back Toomey, even though there are no other Republicans in the race (and the prospects of any getting in look slim).
The discussion regarding "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" surprised me in that a number of people volunteered their age and were, on the whole, younger than I imagined the members of this site to be. To test this hypothesis, (since the Bueller sample may have been self selecting, for obvious reasons) I've created a poll. The age spreads are a bit narrower for the younger ages. If people enjoy this, I will perhaps do more demographic polls in the future.
New Yorkers are sending a strong message to Governor David Paterson, "Shape Up!" Just 26% of registered voters report the governor is doing either an excellent or good job in office. That's a drop of 20 percentage points since the Marist Poll last asked this question at the end of January. In fact, Governor Paterson's approval rating is the lowest approval rating a New York State governor has received in the Marist Poll's nearly thirty year history of statewide surveys. Has the governor lost favor within his own party? Here's the party breakdown. Among registered Democrats in New York State, 30% think Paterson is doing an above average job while 65% disagree. Across the aisle, Republicans also overwhelmingly disapprove of Paterson's performance. Just 26% of members of New York's GOP approve of the job Paterson is doing as governor while 72% think he is doing a fair or poor job. Only 20% of non-enrolled voters agree that Paterson is doing well in the position. Opinions across the state are consistently low. 24% of upstate voters approve of the job Paterson is doing as governor. 26% of suburban voters say he is doing an above average job, and 30% of New York City voters share this position.
The short version, which is all I have time for: David Paterson under water in New York, according to SUSA's latest tracking poll.
By 2:1 Margin, New York Disapproves of Paterson Performance as Governor: 66% of New York State adults today say they disapprove of the job performance of Governor David Paterson
[. . .]
One month ago, 54% of New York adults approved of Paterson's performance as Governor.
Strategic Vision (R) has a new poll of the Florida Senate race, with some different names being polled than past polls. The poll results are based on telephone interviews with 1200 likely voters in Florida, aged 18+, and conducted February 6-8, 2009. The margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.
2010 Senate Democratic Primary Ron Klein 12%
Kendrick Meek 10%
Pam Iorio 8%
Dan Gelber 4%
Undecided 66%
2010 Senate Republican Primary with Crist Charlie Crist 54%
Connie Mack IV 16%
Vern Buchanan 10%
Alan Bense 7%
Marco Rubio 4%
Undecided 9%
2010 Senate Republican Primary without Crist Connie Mack IV 21%
Vern Buchanan 11%
Alan Bense 8%
Marco Rubio 5%
Undecided 9%
2010 Senate General Election Crist 58%, Klein 24%
Crist 60%, Meek 26%
Crist 57%, Iorio 29%
Crist 58%, Gelber 27%
Not sure if this poll tells us too much. Clearly, Crist dominates if he runs. If he doesn't, then the race is wide open.
Among the Democrats, Iorio consistently polled best in the general election match-ups, followed by Klein, then Meek, with Gelber last. Of course, there are huge numbers of undecideds, so it's impossible to say who would be the strongest general election candidate for the Democrats this far out. When the primary is this open, I hope the DSCC stays out, as I think the strongest candidate tends to emerge from the primary.
Heinous wingnut Michelle Malkin is breathlessly reporting a leaked GOP internal poll in PA-12 showing incumbent John Murtha (D) losing by approximately 13 points to GOP challenger Bill Russell.
Update: I should point out that we don't have a full press release on this, and as one commenter pointed out, for all we know this could be a message-testing poll. In other words, they might be preceding the poll question with negative information about Murtha and/or positive info about Russell. If more info is released, I will update further.
