[Loaded Orygun, Oregon's Progressive Community and the very first blog in Oregon to endorse Steve Novick for Senate in April 2007, is doing "pregame" Senate columns designed for both regular readers and newcomers. Check out the page as we hold our historic primaries!]
For so long in this race, we had to suffer without decent polling, or use way-too-early general election heats as a stand in for comparing the two major Dem candidates for Senate, Steve Novick and Jeff Merkley. Then when polling finally got going earnestly in January, we discovered why no one was wasting their money all that time before--huge numbers of undecideds, starting at about 70%.. Not only had almost no one heard of the activist with the hook, they didn't know who the Speaker of the House was, either.
Of course, now that we're finally at Election Day there has been more interest and thus more polling--although to a large degree true polling results are STILL hampered by undecided figures approaching 20%.. However, in the last eight days four polls have been done by three different outfits, with two final looks coming yesterday. Let's dive in and see what they tell us, shall we?
{ah, but not before I make you jump below the fold!}
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