A new Public Policy Polling survey in Connecticut finds Gov. Dan Malloy (D) leads challenger Tom Foley (R) in the race for governor, 44% to 41%, with independent Joe Visconti getting 6%.
Conflicting Polls in Massachusetts
A new Western New England University poll in Massachusetts finds Charlie Baker leading Martha Coakley (D) in the race for governor, 46% to 41%.
A new University of Massachusetts poll has Coakley ahead, 47% to 44%.
Landrieu Leads Multi-Candidate Race
A new University of New Orleans poll in Louisiana finds Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) leads challenger Bill Cassidy (R) by five points, 38% to 33%, with retired Rob Maness (R) at 7%.
In a head-to-head match up, Cassidy leads Landrieu by 51% to 43%.
Conversation with David King
David King from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government joined us on the Political Wire podcast for a great preview of Tuesday’s midterm elections.
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Special thanks to our friends at the Cook Political Report for sponsoring this episode. If you’re not reading them, you should.
Obama Midterm Losses May Set Record
Stu Rothenberg: “President Obama is about to do what no president has done in the past 50 years: Have two horrible, terrible, awful midterm elections in a row. In fact, Obama is likely to have the worst midterm numbers of any two-term president going back to Democrat Harry S. Truman.”
How to Tell Early if the Polls are Wrong
Sam Wang admits that everyone’s election forecasts “are, to an extent, built on sand. Historically, in any given year midterm polls have been off in the same direction by a median of 2 or 3 percentage points. Depending on the year, either Democrats or Republicans end up outperforming polls. In current poll medians, six races are within less than 2 percentage points: Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, and North Carolina. Therefore all six of these races could be won by Republicans…or all six could be won by Democrats.”
“The polls will be off, on average, by some amount in one direction or the other. Let’s call that average amount Delta. On Election Night, I will be watching returns carefully for clues about how large Delta is. In particular, I’ll be watching Kentucky and New Hampshire. Even though both races have a clear favorite, they have the advantage that voting ends fairly early in the evening. If either party outperforms polls in these states, that might indicate a broader trend nationwide.”
Why Don’t Democrats Vote?
A new Pew Research study shows that, among people who either aren’t registered to vote or are unlikely to vote in the 2014 midterm elections, 51% favor or lean toward the Democrats, while 30% favor or lean toward the Republicans — a 21-point gap.
The Fix: “With only a few exceptions over the last several decades, more Americans have identified as or leaned toward he Democratic Party than the GOP, according to data from Gallup. And Democrats even today often lead on the generic ballot among registered voters, but not likely voters. But, for Democrats, it’s not just the people who are registered to vote but choose not to; it’s also people who choose not to even register to vote.”
Democrats Are Counting on Women to Save Senate
New York Times: “Democrats are nervously counting on an enduring edge among female voters in most states to prevent a Republican rout in Tuesday’s elections. Yet so great is the uncertainty that even before the returns are in, some are second-guessing the party’s strategy of focusing more on issues like abortion and birth control than on jobs and the economy.”
“The danger for Democratic candidates is that their advantage among women could be so reduced by dissatisfaction with President Obama and the country’s course that it is not enough to offset Republicans’ usual edge among the smaller population of male voters.”
Can Rand Paul Attract Young Voters?
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) “is preparing a 2016 presidential run based on a gamble that his libertarian policies can appeal to young people and minorities. And a poll out this week gave a big boost to Paul’s rationale for running,” Dana Millbank reports.
“The Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School released a survey of millennial voters showing that this 18- to 29-year-old demographic, a rock-solid Democratic constituency a few years ago, is now up for grabs. If this is true, the Republican Party, in the right hands, might be able to defuse the demographic time bomb ticking at party headquarters.”
Begich Trails in Alaska
A new Rasmussen survey in Alaska finds Dan Sullivan (R) five points ahead of Sen. Mark Begich (D) in the race for U.S. Senate, 47% to 42%.
Technology Allows Campaigns to Track Voters
The New York Times reports on digital efforts to “track and chase” voters, “an integral part of the modern ground game. Now campaigns know where you eat, what you watch, what you read, where you work, if you commute — and are tracking it in real time, delivering specifically tailored messages to individual voters and hounding them until the ballots are cast. And in an election cycle with so many close races, the outcome, with control of Congress at stake, may turn on which party does the better job of, in effect, engineering the vote.”
“The use of this technology is not without risk. Its relentless and intrusive nature can quickly turn off voters, even though campaigns and committees on both sides work to address privacy concerns by making sure that at the individual level, each targeted voter remains anonymous.”
Grimm Opens Huge Lead Despite Federal Indictment
A new Siena College Poll finds Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) has opened a wide, 19-point lead over challenger Domenic Recchia (D), 53% to 34%.
Said pollster Steven Greenberg: “Early on, this race looked like it was going to be one of the closest in the state – a former Democratic City Council member taking on an embattled incumbent Republican under Federal indictment in a district that is – at least by enrollment – dominated by Democrats. That no longer seems to be the case, as Grimm has taken a commanding 19-point lead into the final days of the campaign.”
Hagan Narrowly Ahead in North Carolina
A new CNN/ORC poll in North Carolina finds Sen. Kay Hagan (D) leads challenger Thom Tillis (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 48% to 46%.
A new Fox News poll finds Hagan ahead by one point, 43% to 42%.
Ernst Holds Narrow Lead in Iowa
A new CNN/ORC survey in Iowa finds Joni Ernst (R) leading Bruce Braley (D) in the U.S. Senate race by two points, 49% to 47%.
A new Rasmussen survey has Ernst ahead by one point, 48% to 47%.
A new Fox News poll also has Ernst ahead by one point, 45% to 44%.
A new Des Moines Register poll will be released on Saturday night.
Orman Edges Ahead in Kansas
A new Fox News poll in Kansas Greg Orman (I) holds a one-point edge over Sen. Pat Roberts (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 44% to 43%.
A similar poll three weeks ago found Roberts leading by three points.
Republicans Have a Math Problem
Glen Bolger and Neil Newhouse: “Democrats like to accuse Republicans of being bad at science, but in fact we’re really bad at math. Winning in a non-presidential-turnout year, when older and white voters make up a larger percentage of the electorate, should convince no one that we’ve fixed our basic shortfalls with key electoral groups, including minorities and younger voters.”
“Assuming that the Democrats replicate their 2012 electoral success with minority voters two years from now, and assuming that Hispanics grow as a percentage of the overall electorate, which they will, we calculate that Democrats will already have almost half (24 percent) of the votes they need to win a majority of Americans in 2016. To win 50.1 percent of the popular vote, we estimate, Republicans will need nearly 64 percent of the white vote — which would be a record for a non-incumbent Republican presidential candidate. Remember, Mitt Romney and John McCain won 59 percent and 55 percent of the white vote, respectively; and even in victory, George W. Bush took only 58 percent of the white vote in 2004.”
Still Very Tight in Wisconsin
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Wisconsin finds Gov. Scott Walker (R) leading challenger Mary Burke (D)by just one point, 48% to 47%.
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“Let me tell you something: The Ohio Supreme Court is the backstop for all those other votes you are going to cast. Whatever the governor does, whatever your state representative, your state senator does, whatever they do, we are the ones that will decide whether it is constitutional; we decide whether it’s lawful. We decide what it means, and we decide how to implement it in a given case. So, forget all those other votes if you don’t keep the Ohio Supreme Court conservative.”
— Ohio Supreme Court Justice Judith French, quoted by the Columbus Dispatch.
