Most candidates anonymous for now

One aspect of this fall's elections that perhaps has not received as much play as it should with all the focus on national trends is that most of the actual human bodies running for Governor and Senate across the country are largely unknown within their states so far.

We've polled on 34 non-incumbents running for Senate or Governor since mid-April. 22 of them are unknown to more than 40% of the voters in their states. Only 6 have greater than 70% name recognition and out of those 3 have already served as Governor of their states (Bob Ehrlich, Terry Branstad, Jerry Brown), one is Mayor of the biggest city in the state (John Hickenlooper), one currently represents half the state in Congress (Paul Hodes), and the other, well, he's found ways to increase his name recognition for better or worse (Rand Paul.)

The current standing of a lot of these races is being driven by national trends, for now. But candidates matter and when voters start really paying attention and actually getting to know who these folks are there's a high potential for some of these races to take a different turn. That could end up being good news for Democrats in the long run. Let's face it- it's going to be a brutal year if all these contests end up just going with the tide. But a lot of folks in the party are optimistic that when Ohio really gets to know Lee Fisher and Rob Portman and that when Pennsylvania really gets to know Joe Sestak and Pat Toomey, for a couple of examples, that they're going to end up deciding they like the Democrats better.

If the PA-12 and NY-23 special elections had just been determined by the national winds there'd be Republicans in those seats right now- but Democrats proved to have superior candidates and superior campaigns and ended up pulling off a couple good wins. They have to hope that as voters get to know the candidates better in other races across the country this year that the trend continues.

Here's the 'no opinion' numbers on challengers we've polled across the country:

Rodney Glassman	Dem	AZ	Sen	78
John Stephen	Rep	NH	Gov	68
Vincent Sheheen	Dem	SC	Gov	67
Ron Johnson	Rep	WI	Sen	62
Elaine Marshall	Dem	NC	Sen	58
Ken Buck	Rep	CO	Sen	57
Bill Brady	Rep	IL	Gov	56
Rob Portman	Rep	OH	Sen	53
Dan Onorato	Dem	PA	Gov	53
Roxanne Conlin	Dem	IA	Sen	52
Tom Corbett	Rep	PA	Gov	50
Carly Fiorina	Rep	CA	Sen	48
Alex Giannoulias	Dem	IL	Sen	46
Mark Kirk	Rep	IL	Sen	46
Nikki Haley	Rep	SC	Gov	45
Lee Fisher	Dem	OH	Sen	45
Joe Sestak	Dem	PA	Sen	43
John Kasich	Rep	OH	Gov	42
Tom Barrett	Dem	WI	Gov	42
Pat Toomey	Rep	PA	Sen	42
Kelly Ayotte	Rep	NH	Sen	42
Jack Conway	Dem	KY	Sen	40
Scott McInnis	Rep	CO	Gov	39
Bill White	Dem	TX	Gov	38
Charlie Melancon	Dem	LA	Sen	37
Scott Walker	Rep	WI	Gov	36
Terry Goddard	Dem	AZ	Gov	34
Meg Whitman	Rep	CA	Gov	32
Paul Hodes	Dem	NH	Sen	28
Jerry Brown	Dem	CA	Gov	24
Rand Paul	Rep	KY	Sen	24
Robert Ehrlich	Rep	MD	Gov	22
Terry Branstad	Rep	IA	Gov	21
John Hickenlooper	Dem	CO	Gov	20