FR Exclusive: Political Junkie's Guide To The Elections - Week Ending August 4, 2012

Rasmussen Reports ^ | August 4, 2012 | Political Junkie Too

[Impy]

My current ranking

1)NE
2)AZ
3)IN (new Ras poll has Mourdock up only 42-40 but I’m not worried, the high undecideds must be largley Lugar supporters who won’t break for the democrat as Osama loses the state)
4)MO (Claire looks like toast, this race could move up the list)
5)ND
6)NV (Heller is not in real jeopardy)
7)MT
8)WI ( GOP primary seems to be helping El Lesbo)
9)MA
10)VA
11)FL (moved it back ahead of OH)
12)OH
13)NM
14)MI
15)NJ
16)HI (it’s harder to rank these second tier races, NJ is lot less rat than Hawaii put you make a case to reverse them)
17)PA
18)CT
19)ME (polling looks bad, King has 100% name id though, the rat needs some)
20)WA
21)WV (This should way higher but retread Raese doesn’t seem to have a prayer, the few polls have Manchin running like Bob Byrd, WV is going big Nobama or else I’d put MN ahead even though the Paulbot has no chance in MN, such a shame)

[campaignPete R-CT]

if Impy didn’t send me pings, I could say that nobody talks to me.

Oh well, gotta give a talk tomorrow on the Obama Healthcare contraception mandate and gay radical alert. I bet they talk a little, but don’t want no yellin’.

[campaignPete R-CT]

any ideas on how I can get polling numbers or predictions on CT-5 primary 7 days from now?

Not easy to poll a 4-way light turnout CT primary. Liberal Roraback gotta be in trouble. Bernier running 4th. Any ideas?

[Sun]

“..who wins?”

Way to soon to tell, but yet interesting to watch for a possible early warning.

[fieldmarshaldj]

OurCampaigns predicts Roraback, but who knows ? I’ve not seen any data.

[Political Junkie Too]

The best I can do is this site from the New York Times. They are calling the race a toss-up, because the incumbant is leaving the seat to run for Lieberman's vacated Senate seat, and the Democrat replacing him is under a corruption investigation, as if that matters to Democrats.

-PJ

[campaignPete R-CT]

yes, PJ. Toss-up in NOV.
But trying to get primary polling so we can convince 4th place Bernier supporters to throw their support to somebody else vs. Roraback.

[Political Junkie Too]

Maybe this site - Connecticut 5th District might be useful to you.

[Impy]

Would you like more pings? I don’t think I ping you that much.

[Impy]

I have not seen a GOP primary poll for this race.

But Bernier has no money, and Wilson-Foley is tied to Rowland so Greenberg seems like the right choice to me if only by default.

Maybe call the campaigns and ask nicely for their internal polling numbers? ;d I’ve got nothing to suggest but simple common sense and reason but that won’t be enough I don’t think. In convincing hard cases not to waste their vote on a guy who will come in last you have your work cut out for you.

[InterceptPoint]

Ping to bookmark.

[Political Junkie Too]

Today's Rasmussen poll in Ohio shows the race is now tied. With the prior poll at -2% for Romney, Ohio's 18 Electoral College votes was being probabilistically split as roughly 12.6 going to Obama and 5.4 going to Romney.

With this new poll, Obama loses 3.6 EVs to Romney, and moves Ohio into the Toss-up column. Ohio started the election season at +4% for Obama, in June moved to +2% for Romney, in July moved to +2% for Obama, and is now moving back towards Romney.

Is this the start of the expected trend?

-PJ

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Thanks for the information on Ohio. What particular demographic puts Ohio “in play?”

[SumProVita]

Let’s pray that it will be!!!!

;-))

[randita]

Below is a list of competitive or potentially competitive Senate races. With input from several FR political experts, I have ranked the list from most to least likely GOP win. The rankings will probably change slightly as the election season progresses.

Note the differentiation between the seats that represent GOP Holds and those that represent opportunities for Gains. Democrats currently control 53 seats in the Senate (including two independents who caucus with the Democrats), Republicans 47. If Republicans hold all the seats they have currently, they will need to gain four more seats to have a majority.

We will likely lose ME, so we'll need five gains for a majority. As of 8/14/12, the best opportunities for those gains are in the states of NE, MO, WI, ND, and MT.

Links to GOP primary winners' websites are included so you can learn more about the candidates and donate, if you feel so inclined.

If you're interested in polling on Senate races, check out Real Clear Politics Senate Polls.

It's widely thought that the GOP will keep the House, so besides the battle for the White House, the next focus has to be the Senate.

Florida, Wisconsin and Connecticut have their primaries today, so by this evening, we'll know who the candidates will be in those states.

 

8/14/12 - Race for the U.S. Senate Ranked Roughly From Most to Least Likely GOP Win
State	Republican Candidate	Democrat/IND Candidate	Hold OR Gain
NE*	Debra Fischer	Bob Kerrey	GAIN
AZ*	Primary 8/28/12		HOLD
IN*	Richard Mourdock	Joe Donnelly	HOLD
MO	Todd Akin	Claire McCaskill+	GAIN
WI*	Primary 8/14/12		GAIN
NV	Dean Heller+	Shelley Berkley	HOLD
ND*	Rick Berg	Heidi Heitcamp	GAIN
MT	Denny Rehberg	Jon Tester*	GAIN
MA	Scott Brown+	Elizabeth Warren	HOLD
VA*	George Allen	Tim Kaine	GAIN
OH	Josh Mandel	Sherrod Brown+	GAIN
FL	Primary 8/14/12	Bill Nelson+	GAIN
MI	Pete Hoekstra	Debbie Stabenow+	GAIN
NM*	Heather Wilson	Martin Heinrich	GAIN
NJ	Joe Kyrillos	Bob Menendez+	GAIN
PA	Tom Smith	Bob Casey+	GAIN
WV	John Raese	Joe Manchin+	GAIN
HI*	Linda Lingle	Mazie Hirono	GAIN
CT*	Primary 8/14/12		GAIN
ME*	Charles Summers	Angus King (Ind.)	HOLD
WA	Michael Baumgartner	Maria Cantwell+	GAIN
*Open Seat      +Incumbent      #GOP Frontrunner

 

[justiceseeker93]

I like Rasmussen as a pollster and he is generally more accurate than others because he does likely voters and generally comes up with a sample whose party identification percentages are closer to the anticipated electorate in November.

But you neglect two factors in your extensive analysis. (1) Those who tell Ras (or, more precisely, his robo-call apparatus) that they are undecided are much more likely to vote Romney than Obama come November, because merely saying you're undecided is actually a vote against re-electing the incumbent. Thus the axiom that undecideds generally break against the incumbent in any race, especially this one where the incumbent is very well known and consistently has job approval or favorability ratings in the 40s. (2) The same goes for those who say they favor a third party candidate, many of whom say that out of annoyance with the robo-call poll. Third party candidate support almost always tails off as the election approaches, and the majority of their supporters eventually go with one of the major candidates, feeling that they shouldn't "waste" their vote. (Do you really think that third party candidates will get the 6% of the vote in Ohio, for example, that Ras shows today? No way!) These respondents who drift away from their third party candidate as the election approaches also tend to go with the challenger over the incumbent.

Moral of the story: don't read Ras so literally as indicator of the November result. Those "hidden" undecideds and third party candidate supporters will give Romney the extra few points he needs in many of the swing states to achieve a comfortable enough plurality in the popular vote (which he even showing now, nationally, in Ras) and with that an almost inevitable majority in the electoral college - barring an Obama fraud factor to a degree never before seen in a presidential election.

If you don't believe me, ask Dickie Morris. (LOL!)

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks justiceseeker93. G’night all.

[Pollster1]

This is getting dated, but it’s still a good state by state reference. Thank you again.

[Political Junkie Too]

Sorry, did you not get pinged to my update from Sunday?

FR Exclusive: Political Junkie's Guide To The Elections - Week Ending August 11, 2012

-PJ