If you look at the trends in the actual races though things are getting sunnier for the Democrats. In June and July PPP polled eight Senate match ups that we had a previous poll to compare to- in all eight the Democratic candidate improved his/her position, by an average of 4.25 points.
There's a variety of reason the Democrats' numbers are improving. In Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina Joe Sestak, Lee Fisher, and Elaine Marshall respectively saw their numbers improve as their parties unified around them after hard fought wins in primary contests.
Barbara Boxer and Paul Hodes didn't have to deal with serious primaries themselves but may be benefiting from the nomination battles their Republican opponents are going through. Carly Fiorina had to lurch to the right to win her primary and Kelly Ayotte is now doing the same in hers.
And then of course there are the races with flawed Republican candidates: Charlie Melancon and Alexi Giannoulias have seen improvement as David Vitter and Mark Kirk have had to deal with character issues and Jack Conway has seen his standing rise as Kentuckians have had to consider whether Rand Paul is an extremist.
The national picture does matter and there's a real possibility the GOP will end up winning every close race. But the improvement Democrats are seeing is a reminder that candidates matter too and that the party may be able to buck the overall trends in the places where it proves to have a superior candidate.
Here are the before and after numbers:
| State | Most Recent Poll | Previous Poll | Shift |
| | D+2 | R+5 | D+7 |
| | D+9 | D+3 | D+6 |
| | Tie | R+6 | D+6 |
| | D+1 | R+4 | D+5 |
| | R+3 | R+7 | D+4 |
| | R+9 | R+12 | D+3 |
| | R+5 | R+7 | D+2 |
| | Tie | R+1 | D+1 |
16 comments:
Nice out you leave out the "character issues" of the high ranking Dems, LOL! This is supposedly non-partisan polling?
Not hardly.
You say: " Jack Conway has seen his standing rise as Kentuckians have had to consider whether Rand Paul is an extremist "
REALLY? Because the Survey USA poll released over the weekend showed Conway LOST two points while Rand Paul stayed at 51%, since the last poll they did.
Wonder what would happen if you included Republicans and Independents in your sampling?
I really wish Daily Kos hires you right now so we can get over this awkward audition process.
You talk about Kirk having character issues & you leave out Alexi G. bankrupting a bank & giving huge loans out to felons like Rezko? What a joke!
You forgot to mention the "character issues" of Mark Kirk's opponent Alexi G.
Amazing how out of step you are with virtually every other policy agency out there.
You're predicting ties where everyone else is predicting R+6.
You're predicting Democrat wins where everyone else is falling in the margin of error.
Might want to brush up on your trade skills again boys.
mind sharing your partisan breakdown/weightings? it appears highly suspect. you all appear to be outliers in every contest you have cited. but you'll tighten that up juuuust before november, right? since those last few are the ones that count. these, now.....as has already been said, just for the DKOS crowd. peace.
war is peace
freedom is slavery
Its no secret PPP is a far left loon biased poll. Expect them to replace Research 2000 at Daily Kos soon.
Rand Paul went from a six point lead in SurveyUSA in late May to an eight point lead just two days ago.
Oh yeah, his standing has really fallen....get real.
Rangel and Waters are the only two prominent Democrats with significant character issues this year, and both of them are in the House. There aren't any Democratic Senate candidates who have anywhere near the character issues of Angle, Paul, Rubio, Vitter, Kirk, Toomey, et cetera.
Tom,
Democratic gain you say? How about that Gallup poll that came out today? their generic Congressional poll had the Republicans up 48-43 (+5). Funny thing about it is that only two weeks ago Gallup had the Dems leading 49-43 (-6). All of which means that a 15% swing in voter preference has occurred in just two weeks. WOW!
Gallup also had the latest VERY enthusastic voter numbers favoring the Republicans 44% to 22%. That's DOUBLE! And also quite incredible!
Oh, by the way, did anyone see the latest Rasmussen poll, showing that the American people, by a 49% to 47% margin, now consider Obama more responsible than Bush for the current economic situation in this country. Kinda looks like the blame Bush for everything thing has finally had it's day.
By the way Tom, I hate to disagree with ya ole buddy, but your numbers showing Democratic candidates getting a recent surge in their numbers. I think that if you were to set aside that rather obvious left wing bias that you have - just for a moment or two - and then rerun those numbers that you have, versus those that most other pollsters have, you might just come up with a somewhat (if not totally) different conclusion than what you have.
Lets face it Tom, the situation is only getting worse for the Dems. And believe me, it's not going to get any better any time soon. Watch and weep.
"All of which means that a 15% swing in voter preference has occurred in just two weeks."
You get an F in math. +6 to -5 is an 11-point swing.
Anyone who uses Rasmussen to make a point is automatically suspect, IMO.
You can thank your TeaBagger mentality for this shift, cons, the more they open their flanholes, the less likely people are apt to vote for them. Sharon Angle knows this ...now... albeit to late. What could have been a great sweep of six senate seats will most likely be trimmed to 2 or 3 seats.
The more people learn about radical extremist Joe Sestak, the more they will reject Sestak and favor Pat Toomey.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Sestak_s-attempt-to-suppress-speech-1002118-98876174.html
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