Sunday, December 6, 2009

Pick a CD

After we looked at Vic Snyder's Congressional District in Arkansas last month I had some requests that we poll a non-Southern one, so I've put together some finalists and you can vote on which one we do.

I've grouped these into two sets: ones that are clearly competitive and ones that are potentially competitive because of the political climate.

Here are the clearly competitive choices:

CO-4: Betsy Markey won at least in part because incumbent Marilyn Musgrave was nuttier than the average Republican. We could also get a look at the races for Governor and Senate within that district.

ID-1: Walt Minnick is probably the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent next year.

NH-1: Carol Shea-Porter was successful in two very Democratic years but given what happened in Virginia this year it may be premature to declare New Hampshire a blue state...will things be far different next year?

NM-2: Harry Teague won last year when Steve Pearce unsuccessfully tried for the Senate...will Pearce be able to take his old seat back?

And here are the potentially competitive ones:

CO-3: John Salazar has shown good staying power after his somewhat surprising victory in 2004 but his district voted for McCain even as Colorado went Democratic last year.

NM-1: Martin Heinrich won by a pretty solid margin last year, but will it hold up without Barack Obama on the ballot?

SD-AL: In addition to looking at Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin's standing this would also give us a chance to look at races for Governor and Senate next year that there's been little if any public polling about.

Voting is open until Wednesday. We'll do another vote next week looking at seats held by Republicans who won narrowly in 2008, trying to get a look at the extent to which all incumbents are in trouble next year and not just Democratic ones.

9 comments:

  1. Martin Heinrich is NM-1. Ben Ray Lujan is NM-3.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good picks! Do you plan to poll competitive statewide races in any of the winning districts or just Colorado's?

    Small error- Heinrich is in NM-1, not NM-3.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the corrections. Yes, we'll do statewides in any of the districts.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tom,

    I live in Martin Heinrich's district (NM-01) and so while I'm curious about how he's doing, I'm more interested in the NM-02 race, I want to see if Steve Pearce is really all that popular given his embarassing Senate run.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Tom,
    A good GOP choice would be Nebraksa-2. Obama won the district in 2008, and Terry barely hung on with 51% of the vote.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'd be interested in seeing a poll of Herseth-Sandlin's standing

    ReplyDelete
  7. When are you coming back to look @ Arkansas CD 1&2 Senate Race.. it is getting real interesting.. especially since nationally appointed candidates are overshadowing more qualified in tune persons in these districts since outsiders do not have the true sense of the ppls attitude.. media spinning these elections

    ReplyDelete