polling
While Professor Dan Drezner www.danieldrezner.com/blog noted that some are claiming the recent polling data shows a Republican surge, I am unfortunately skeptical. The new Survey USA poll casts some doubt on Dan's theory as well as it puts Jim Webb up 8 points in VA. It just seems there are wide discrepencies between polls. I tend to trust Rasmussen the most given his accurancy in the last view elections and Zogby the least based on past results (2000 not withstanding). For a good article detailing Zogby's methods which I find antiquated see http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/041018fa_fact5?041018fa_fact5.
The main two moves I have seen in a variety of polls are in the Montana and Rhode Island races where the gap has closed between the candidates and this is due more to the individual candidates than to the Republican party's increasing popularity. The fact that both of the Republicans candidates (Lincoln Chafee and Conrad Burns) trailed for so long and by so much is more surprising than their recent surge. I don't particularly like Burns but he is running in a heavily red state against a really inexperienced candidate, Tester, who has some fairly odd positions. A liberal Republican like Chafee whose father was the most prominent poltiician in the state, should have been doing better previously.
In other close races, the lead in the Talent/McCaskill race in Missouri really alternates depending on poll. In terms of the Webb/Allen race, I was more surprised at the backfiring of the leaked book material which gave Webb a surprising lead than I am that the race is now tied in some polls (although as mentioned above not in others). Allen at the beginning of the campaign was an extremely popular politician in VA. If he wins it will be less about a surge and more about him being a better qualified candidate who jut ran a poor campaign. As shown at powerline he was also in part a victim of really bad and sometimes unfair press from the Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110301462.html
The new Rasmussen poll actually shows the Democrat Harold Ford Jr. surging as he has narrowed the gap to 4 points, while other polls had previously shown Corker pulling away. Which provides evidence that is less about a surge and more about individual candidates. In just another interesting tidbit about this race is that 25% of Tennessee voters have already voted and it would be interesting to see if the polls are accounting for this and it would seem Ford who was leading through most of October would benefit from early voting.
The main two moves I have seen in a variety of polls are in the Montana and Rhode Island races where the gap has closed between the candidates and this is due more to the individual candidates than to the Republican party's increasing popularity. The fact that both of the Republicans candidates (Lincoln Chafee and Conrad Burns) trailed for so long and by so much is more surprising than their recent surge. I don't particularly like Burns but he is running in a heavily red state against a really inexperienced candidate, Tester, who has some fairly odd positions. A liberal Republican like Chafee whose father was the most prominent poltiician in the state, should have been doing better previously.
In other close races, the lead in the Talent/McCaskill race in Missouri really alternates depending on poll. In terms of the Webb/Allen race, I was more surprised at the backfiring of the leaked book material which gave Webb a surprising lead than I am that the race is now tied in some polls (although as mentioned above not in others). Allen at the beginning of the campaign was an extremely popular politician in VA. If he wins it will be less about a surge and more about him being a better qualified candidate who jut ran a poor campaign. As shown at powerline he was also in part a victim of really bad and sometimes unfair press from the Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110301462.html
The new Rasmussen poll actually shows the Democrat Harold Ford Jr. surging as he has narrowed the gap to 4 points, while other polls had previously shown Corker pulling away. Which provides evidence that is less about a surge and more about individual candidates. In just another interesting tidbit about this race is that 25% of Tennessee voters have already voted and it would be interesting to see if the polls are accounting for this and it would seem Ford who was leading through most of October would benefit from early voting.
posted by The partisan moderate at 2:12 PM
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