Today marks one of the better polling days of recent vintage for the Democrats, cause perhaps for renewed optimism as the countdown now goes to T-Minus three weeks and counting until the 2010 midterms are visited upon us.
The House of Ras, for the second day in a row, has good numbers for Democrats that the Ras-sies work very, very hard to ignore. Meanwhile, Patty Murray and Virg Bernero enjoy their best polling in weeks, and we see an object lesson in when a challenger's internal poll actually is bad news for that challenger.
All that (and more!) as we peruse the 34 polls that made the cut in this, the Tuesday edition of the Wrap...
THE U.S. SENATE
- Arizona Senate (Behavior Research Center):
Sen. John McCain (R) 56%, Rodney Glassman (D) 22%, Others 3%
- Delaware Senate (Monmouth Univ):
Chris Coons (D) 57%, Christine O'Donnell (R) 38%
- Florida Senate (PPP):
Marco Rubio (R) 44%, Charlie Crist (I) 33%, Kendrick Meek (D) 21%
- Illinois Senate (Southern Illinois Univ):
Mark Kirk (R) 38%, Alexi Giannoulias (D) 38%, Others 8%
- Louisiana Senate (Magellan--R):
Sen. David Vitter (R) 51%, Charlie Melancon (D) 35%
- Nevada Senate (PPP):
Sen. Harry Reid (D) 47%, Sharron Angle (R) 45%, Others 7%
- Washington Senate (Elway):
Sen. Patty Murray (D) 55%, Dino Rossi (R) 40%
- West Virginia Senate (PPP):
Joe Manchin (D) 48%, John Raese (R) 45%
- Wisconsin Senate (Ipsos/Reuters):
Ron Johnson (R) 51%, Sen. Russ Feingold (D) 44%
- Wisconsin Senate (Fairbank Maslin Maullin Metz--D):
Sen. Russ Feingold (D) 48%, Ron Johnson (R) 48%
THE ANALYSIS: This is a pretty big turnaround day for the Democrats, with leads in races where polling leads have been somewhat hard to come by lately. The Dems even produce a poll in Wisconsin showing Russ Feingold still drawing breath in that uphill battle. Joe Manchin and Harry Reid move back into a lead, and Patty Murray enjoys her biggest lead to date in the Elway Poll. The biggest downer here might be Arizona, where the Behavior Research Poll that showed the gubernatorial race tightening show no such positive movement in the Senate race. Which is good news for....oh, never mind.
THE U.S. HOUSE
THE ANALYSIS: Perhaps the most interesting poll of the bunch is SurveyUSA's latest poll from southern Virginia. They release two different models: one with Random Digit Dialing (RDD) and the other with what they have used this year (Registration Based Sampling--RBS). The RDD poll shows a race where the margin for Republican Rob Hurt is halved from previous SUSA polls. Perhaps a tacit admission that they, too, were concerned about having numbers in the 5th dramatically different from even GOP internal polls? Meanwhile, AZ-05 is looking more and more interesting, as even Republican pollsters concede that any lead enjoyed by Republican David Schweikert seems to have disappeared. Meanwhile, Dems in PA-13 smack down any notion that their race is close, while Dems in IL-11 are trying to reassure their voters that the race is still close. Finally, Delaware still is on track to be a Democratic pickup, according to a public poll from Monmouth.
THE GUBERNATORIAL RACES
THE ANALYSIS: If the new poll out of Michigan is to be believed (the pollster, FWIW, is a new name to me), Virg Bernero might be in the midst of a bounceback. We also see some Democratic polling in Iowa that hints at a bit of a Chet Culver renaissance, as well. Tom Barrett's relative health in Wisconsin depends on who polls the race, as a Dem poll there has it pulling into a toss-up.
THE RAS-A-POLL-OOZA
A hilarious tweet from Nate over at 538 today noted that it was curious to see Rasmussen bury the lede by being surprisingly mute about the two biggest headlines in their polling the last two days. Both polls (coincidentally, I am sure) showed good news for Democrats.
Yesterday, it was John Kitzhaber in Oregon. Today, it's Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois.
Also, the Ras/Fox nexus throws new data on the pile. Even they can't show anything close to momentum for Christine O'Donnell. Wow...she must really be toast.
CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 47%, Tom Foley (R) 43%**
CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 49%, Linda McMahon (R) 43%**
DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 54%, Christine O'Donnell (R) 38%**
IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 44%, Mark Kirk (R) 43%
NV-Sen: Sharron Angle (R) 49%, Sen. Harry Reid (D) 47%**
NH-Gov: Gov. John Lynch (D) 53%, John Stephen (R) 43%
OH-Gov: John Kasich (R) 47%, Gov. Ted Strickland (D) 42%**
OH-Sen: Rob Portman (R) 52%, Lee Fisher (D) 35%**
OH-Sen: Rob Portman (R) 57%, Lee Fisher (D) 34%
OR-Sen: Sen. Ron Wyden (D) 52%, Jim Huffman (R) 36%
WA-Sen: Dino Rossi (R) 47%, Sen. Patty Murray (D) 46%**
WI-Sen: Ron Johnson (R) 52%, Sen. Russ Feingold (D) 45%
(**)--Fox News/Pulse Opinion Research polls