Polls:
- CA-22: Strategies 360 (D) for Andrew Janz: Devin Nunes (R-inc): 50, Andrew Janz (D): 44
- CA-39: Monmouth: Young Kim (R): 51, Gil Cisneros (D): 41
- FL-26: Siena for the New York Times: Carlos Curbelo (R-inc): 47, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D): 44
- VA-02: Garin-Hart-Yang (D) for Elaine Luria: Elaine Luria (D): 51, Scott Taylor (R-inc): 43
Last month, Janz's campaign released a poll from Tulchin Research that gave Nunes a similar 48-43 lead. So far, neither national party has made any moves to spend in this 52-43 Trump Central Valley seat, and Janz has not hid his frustration with the DCCC.
Monmouth's poll is one of the worst results for a Democrat we've seen this year in a seriously contested House seat, but we don't have enough data yet to know how on-target it is. The only other poll we've seen in months was an early August Tulchin Research survey for Cisneros that showed him up 53-42, which is almost the opposite of what Monmouth finds.
However, that poll was done before Kim's allies at the Congressional Leadership Fund ran a series of ads against Cisneros over allegations by a woman named Melissa Fazli, who claims Cisneros sexually harassed her. As we've noted before, Fazli first made her accusations in May, but even though Cisneros' primary opponents called attention to them, traditional media outlets all chose not to cover the story. However, it's very plausible that the ads are hurting Cisneros and he'll need to find an effective way to respond before it's too late.
Still, even if Monmouth is right and Cisneros is down, there's one reason to suspect that their sample is a bit too conservative. The poll gives Donald Trump posts an even 47-47 approval rating with registered voters in a seat he lost 51-43.
Monmouth does indeed note that Cisneros could struggle to turn out anti-Trump voters who don't normally show up in midterms (the poll gives Young a much-smaller 46-42 lead among what they define as all potential voters), but it still feels unlikely that Trump is in relatively good shape with the entire potential electorate, especially since he's been so toxic in other well-educated suburban seats. However, as we noted above, there just isn't much other data to work with here, and we'll want to see if Team Blue releases better numbers in response.
By contrast, Siena's Florida poll is better for Democrats than what their own polling has shown: In July, a GBA survey for the DCCC gave Curbelo a 48-41 lead. Siena's poll also underscores why this race looks like it could go either way. On the one hand, they give Trump a 39-54 approval rating in a seat he lost by a similar 57-41 margin, and finds that voters want a Democratic House to a GOP-led chamber by a 50-43 margin. However, the survey also gives Curbelo a strong 52-27 favorable rating, while Mucarsel-Powell is still largely undefined at 19-13.
This is the first poll we've seen of Virginia's 2nd District since April.