Friday, September 17, 2010

Moving Forward

Next week we'll have numbers from California, West Virginia, and Michigan. I know Michigan isn't exactly on the top of anyone's watch list right now but we're giving a lecture in Ann Arbor on Thursday night and need some relevant data to talk about.

One of the states we'll definitely be polling next weekend is North Carolina. Obviously we'll poll the Senate race but what stuff should we ask to get some insight on what's happening in the state besides that?

Our other state for next weekend is your choice between:

-Colorado. I think Democrats are in better shape for the Senate race than is commonly perceived but we haven't polled since Buck won the nomination and I'm interested to see where things stand.

-Connecticut. We haven't polled the state since January and I'm interested in seeing whether Richard Blumenthal really has anything to worry about or not. Always up for some Lieberman polling as well.

-Florida. The polling seems to suggest Marco Rubio is pulling away but another set of eyes on that would be good, and I'm also interested to see how Alex Sink is holding up.

-Illinois. This Senate race is arguably the most competitive in the country and by next weekend it will have been 6 weeks since we last polled it.

-Washington. I was a little surprised to see this week's spate of polls suggesting Patty Murray's starting to run away with it and am curious to see if we would confirm or deny that finding.

Voting is open until Tuesday night and please give suggestions for other questions to ask in all of these states as well.

Have a great weekend- I'm looking forward to North Carolina crushing Georgia Tech tomorrow and Michigan getting out to a 3-0 start with a win over UMASS.

38 comments:

  1. Who will be delivering the lecture?

    I hope you poll the 2012 Republican Presidential primary, especially if you poll Washington or Connecticut.

    In Connecticut, I would definitely like to see a poll of Lieberman's reelection chances.

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  2. With today's announcement by Lisa Murkowski that she is going to run a write-in campaign, will you be re-polling Alaska soon? If so, I'd like to see the polling question follow the actual ballot:

    "If the election were today, would you vote for the Democratic candidate, Scott McAdams, the Republican candidate, Joe Miller, the Libertarian candidate, David Haase, write in a candidate, or none of the above?"

    Since I doubt either will clear 3% or be a factor, no point including the other two declared independent candidates, but since Murkowski won't be appearing by name on the ballot, I'd like to see results with her not named either. Then a follow-up could be the same set, but explicitly listing Murkowski to see if specifically adding her name changes the results.

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  3. Murkowski is going to run as a write-in. How do you poll a write-in? If you mention her name you give her an advantage she won't have at the voting booth. Do you offer "Write in/someone else?" You'd have to follow up that question with "If you said someone else, is that person Lisa Murkowski?"

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  4. If Connecticut wins, you don't even really need to conduct the poll. Blumenthal is winning by around 5-10. There, it's done.

    Vote Illinois.

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  5. Connecticut, definitely. Would be interesting to see how close PPP is to the others.

    As for Carolina, I'd love to see Kay Hagan's approval rating. Also, be interesting to see what a 2010 Dole-Hagan race would look like, if it were possible.

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  6. I'm hoping for a Colorado poll, but I lost out last time around. Blumenthal will take Connecticut, I don't think Murray will lose Washington and it seems Rubio is going to take Florida due to vote splitting between Crist and Meek. I would be down with an Illinois poll though seeing as how I may be moving to Chi-town soon.

    As a recent graduate of the BEST university in NC (hint: we hung a nice shiny banner recently), I definitely want to know how Kissell is doing. I would also be curious to know if there is any hangover in Etheridge's favorability after his YouTube explosion (he won't lose to Ellmers though, just curious. I also interned in his district office) and the Price race in the 4th race might be closer than expected, although I think he will be OK and the Duke College Republicans gay-bashing should help drive turnout amongst Duke-hating Dems in the area a bit and put it away for Prof. Price. If you have the resources, you can hit the McIntyre and Shuler races as well and that's everyone that could conceivably lose. Obama's fav/unfav would be interesting as well.

    You will probably poll in the opposite order of how I just listed them minus the Kissell race, but you asked what I thought!

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  7. Also, any chance we get a shot to vote for a KY poll anytime soon? Good Senate race going on, the KY-06 race is competitive, and KY-03 came in as close in a recent Bluegrass Poll (although the poll isn't a representative sample of KY-03 voters). Give some love to the KY!

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  8. Please poll McIntyre's head-to-head. I'm interested in why NRCC just dropped over $100k in that district, which to me seems pretty Likely D.

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  9. It'd be interesting to see if the numbers on DADT in North Carolina have changed much.

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  10. Dustin, do you plan to poll any North Carolina House races before Election Day?

    With Republicans likely to make good gains, I'm sure that there are certain seats which we expect the D to win, where the R has a chance, and where the D is supposed to lose, and he will win.

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  11. I think after today's Rasmussen poll of Wisconsin that it might be interesting to see if your poll would confirm or deny that Johnson is making the kind of advance that their poll suggested (ahead of Feingold by 7-points).

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  13. Where are you lecturing in A^2?

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  14. I'd like to see numbers for Colorado.

    For NC, you could ask which is more important for Obama and Congress to do - tax cuts or deficit reduction?

    Also, ask about DADT repeal and free trade vs protecting US jobs.

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  15. I would personally like a poll of NC Voters who believe that Burr needs to get his head out of his a$$ with those stupid ads he runs. Does he seriously think I care what a couple of old geezes who haven't left their rocking chairs since 1992 and some chick with a bad southern accent think about who I should vote for? It's a little condescending if you ask me, but what do I know. But maybe that's not really what you serious pollsters are looking for in the way of suggestions. I still get a kick out of the fact that I went to school with such smart and important people!

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  16. I'd rather see a poll of Alaska now with Murkowski running as a write-in candidate.

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  17. "I'd rather see a poll of Alaska now with Murkowski running as a write-in candidate."

    Too soon since we just did it after the primary, but we might have it as an option in a few weeks.

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  18. I vote Illinois. That Senate race is tight. The Governors race has 3 other options, including Scott Lee Cohen who has started spending big, so they should definitely be included. It would also be interesting to know the Presidents approval rating in his own state and test if voters want Rahm to come back to Illinois to run for Mayor. And I would like to see if it makes voters more or less likely to vote for a candidate if Obama endorses them.

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  19. Oh, I'm glad to hear that you are doing Wisconsin for Kos. Past time someone other than Rasmussen took a look at that race.

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  20. I love what if questions, so why don't you guys do the numbers if roy cooper were the candidate. Pretty pretty please!

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  21. "Who will be delivering the lecture?"

    Tom, who's from Ann Arbor.

    "As for Carolina, I'd love to see Kay Hagan's approval rating. Also, be interesting to see what a 2010 Dole-Hagan race would look like, if it were possible."

    We poll Hagan's approval every month. She isn't up until 2014, though I assume you mean what it would look like if Dole ran against her this time instead of 2008.

    "As a recent graduate of the BEST university in NC (hint: we hung a nice shiny banner recently)"

    You could only be talking about a 2009 banner. Some school from New Jersey hung one this year.

    We won't be doing any NC congressional races as part of a statewide poll. It's just not possible to get a large enough sample in such a large state. We only do congressionals in small states with 2 or 3 districts, like WV, ME, and NV. We did do the 8th before the primary runoff, and Kissell was in OK shape then, even against Johnson.

    "Also, any chance we get a shot to vote for a KY poll anytime soon?"

    We just did KY for DailyKos last weekend (released this week), so no chance we do that again until at least another few weeks.

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  22. "And I would like to see if it makes voters more or less likely to vote for a candidate if Obama endorses them."

    We've tested that twice in Illinois, along with his approval rating.

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  23. Can you poll Hawaii soon, I'm interested to see what you find for the governor's race and HI-1

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  24. Thanks for making the executive decision to poll WV. I was disappointed that didn't win the reader poll last time, and thought it was an important race to poll.

    Good that you'll have numbers out soon detailing the latest on the Senate race.

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  25. Florida is by far the most interesting state to poll at the moment. I know this because Nathan Daschle says so.

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  26. I vote CT first - both an important Senate race, and Gov. race, there. Do poll on Lieberman's approval, and Obama's. And numbers on CT-04 and CT-05 would be awesome.

    Next choice would be IL - same thing (Sen. & Gov. races), and some important House races. In IL, you could poll on Durbin's approval, and Obama's.

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  27. Connecticut: The Democrat to poll in the Lieberman race is Chris Murphy. I don't know if you would poll Lieberman as an I, a D, or both.

    Colorado: Ask whether Dan Maes should drop out & and if people believe Denver is a "United Nations Biking Community" If you don't know, Maes accused Denver of using a bike program to promote abortion and population control (what he thinks is the UN, I guess) (See Wikipedia page for more)

    Ken Buck recently said schools need to go back to how they were pre-1960. Ask if Colorado voters agree with that.

    Ask about the high heels comment in Colorado.

    Ask about the generic Congressional Ballot. CO-03 and CO-04 are potential Colorado takeovers, with CO-07 a farther back opportunity.

    Poll the approvals of Ken Salazar to see if an Obama administration employee is popular like you did with Gary Locke in Washington.

    Florida:
    Offshore drilling.
    Baseball Team: Rays vs Marlins
    Generic Congressional Ballot with so many competitive seats

    Should Kendrick Meek or Charlie Crist drop out?

    Do you think Crist should caucus with the Democrats or Republicans?

    Illinois:
    Thoughts on the Blago trial.
    Which is more important: The Giannoulias Bank thing or the Kirk embellishing?
    Generic ballot.

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  28. Is there any chance that you could poll South Carolina to see if Sheheen or Clements are getting any momentum in the Gov and Senate races respectively?

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  29. Your Colorado Senate Primary polling numbers that came out Aug. 9 caused jaws to drop everywhere but was absolutely predictive!

    Robert Gibbs credited first-time and one-time primary voters who supported Obama (60% of Colo. Dem turnout) with Bennet's decisive victory on primary night.

    I suspect the majority of these last-minute voters were 18-29 year-old Obama supporters. It will be interesting to know if they are now poised to repeat their impressive August 10 performance.

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  30. Can we also get numbers on Bloomberg in NC and/or whichever state ends up winning the polling vote? I would like to see his favorability amongst Dems/Indeps/Repubs and Liberals/Moderates/Conservatives. In other words, if he runs in 2012, who does he siphon votes from? Maybe there is a better way to answer that question than the framework I mentioned... you're the expert!

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  31. "Baseball Team: Rays vs Marlins"

    We've done that in the past; probably won't have room to do it again with the hotly contested Sen. and Gov. races. Some good other suggestions, though.

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  32. What happened? Illinois suddenly leap-froged ahead in the poll. I was curious about Colorado, but it will be interesting to see if your poll will show, as others do, that IL is extremely competitive in the senate race, and if the governors race will have tightened.

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  33. In Michigan, could you add any of

    (A) Secretary of State (because of interesting candidates)

    (B) one of the education races (2 seats each for State Board of Education, MSU, UM, Wayne State) as a proxy for partisan turnout when the candidates are almost entirely anonymous?

    (C) Supreme Court (officially non-partisan -- I'm wondering if the recent Republican attacks have made a difference).

    (D) Attorney General (same reasons as A and B, but not as strong)

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  34. Dustin, when are you going to release the baseball teams thing? I feel like you've done it for several states but haven't released it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

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  35. Jim, we already did our MI poll last week; governor results tomorrow. We did poll SoS and AG races, but not those others.

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  36. "Dustin, when are you going to release the baseball teams thing? I feel like you've done it for several states but haven't released it. Correct me if I'm wrong."

    Tom did do a post on the various manager approval ratings awhile back, but we haven't released data on which teams people favor in each state except in CA, which is the first state we did it in.

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  37. If you do baseball stuff in Illinois and can get enough White Sox fans to do Ozzie Guillen and Kenny Williams approval ratings.

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  38. "If you do baseball stuff in Illinois and can get enough White Sox fans to do Ozzie Guillen and Kenny Williams approval ratings."

    We did Ozzie one of the last times we did IL, but we haven't done GMs. I'm not sure enough people know who their GM is to really get an accurate gauge. As interested as I would be, as a baseball nut, I don't think most people care about anything but the on-the-field team and staff.

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