Oh, No! Election Day is Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010...

I've been wrestling with that impression for a while. Your impressions are intresting.

Like any "fresh, new" political movement, the tea party has its warts which are beginning to show. The swing against the Democrats appears undeniable, but in many races, the outcome remains hard to predict.

Not much new to report in polling.
WEST VIRGINIA SENATE
A new poll, albeit one with a Dem bias, perhaps, has Gov Joe Manchin (D) tied with his challenger John Raese in the Senate race to fill the seat of Robert Byrd (D), who died a few months ago.
Manchin is popular amongst voters as Gov, but he is faulted for having too close ties to President Obama. Nonetheless, Obama will be campaigning for him later in the week.
A new ad by Manchin - I swear I am not making this up - claims that the agency producing Raese's ads put out a casting call in Philadelphia seeking actors who could come across as "hicky."
"Hicky?" I assume they meant hicks, or dumb-white-rednecks. Hicky is not in our admittedly limited vocabulary.
The Repubs say, probably correctly, that they were not responsible for that gaffe.
So it goes.

PPP has a new poll out today on Manchin in WV...he's leading by 3!!! 48-45. Their poll of 3 weeks ago had him trailing. I think he's had some effective TV ads.



Link

PPP strikes me as having a Dem bias. It is interesting that Manchin has such a high approval rating as Governor but is in such a tight battle for going to the Senate.

Dem bias, perhaps. I didn't look at the internals before posting the poll, but this morning I notice they're getting some criticism in the comments section. I think we'd almost have to go back to the exit polls of 2006 to compare, since this particular Senate seat will be up for re-election in 2012. If the poll was substantially outside the MoE, I'd be more suspicious, but Manchin's new ads are impressive (shooting the energy bill) confirming his will to protect the coal industry for the state (if he launches a grenade at the 2,000+ page healthcare bill in the next one he'll have it locked up lol).

Partisan pollsters, for the most part, aren't all that troublesome to me. Stu Rothenberg (whom Kos calls a GOP mouthpiece) wrote an interesting article on the subject a couple of months ago. If you're interested, I'll try to get the link for you.

15 days until election day. Early voting has begun in earnest where that is permitted.
The consensus of most of the pundits and pollsters I follow has the Dems holding onto the Senate by 3 or 4 seats while losing control of the House. How well the Repubs will do is unclear as polls in House races are relatively rare. In addition the Repubs are likely to add a number of Governors to their column. That is significant as states in 2011 will go through redistricting after the recent census.
In the Senate races, there are 6 that could fall into the "Tossup" category.
California: Incumbent Barbara Boxer (Dem) has a lead of a couple of percentage points over Carly Fiorina (Rep). Also on the ballot is a measure to legalize marijuana.
Colorado: Challenger Ken Buck (Rep) continues to hold a slim lead over incumbent Michael Bennett (Dem). Bennett is incumbent in name only as he was appointed in 2009 to fill a vacant seat.
Illinois: This one, between Alexi Giannoulias (Dem) and Mark Kirk (Rep), is a tie. This is a race for the seat Barack Obama once held.
Nevada: Veteran incumbent and Senate majority leader Harry Reid (Dem) is in a nasty contest with Sharron Angle (Rep) - who has been aggressively supported by the Tea Party movement. Earlier polls had Reid winning as many voters regarded Angle as too extreme, but the race now seems to be a dead heat, but with Angle perhaps inching ahead.
Washington: Incumbent Patty Murray (Dem) was considered to be vulnerable in a race with Dino Rossi (Rep) but Murray now seems to be polling ahead by 6%.
West Virginia: Governor Joe Manchin (Dem) is in a surprisingly close contest with John Raese (Rep). Manchin is popular but Obama is not. Manchin in backpeddling furiously to distance himself from Obama. He seems to be up by 2+%.

In Wisconsin, veteran Russ Feingold (Dem) is toast.
Marco Rubio (Rep) is way ahead in a 3 man race against erstwhile Rep, now independent Charlie Crist and Kendrick Meek (Dem). There was noise last week about getting Meek to withdraw in support of Crist but that effort seems unlikely to happen.
Richard Blumenthal (Dem) has opened up a 6 point lead over Linda McMahon (Rep) in Connecticut. He seems headed for a win.
And in Kentucky, Rand Paul (Rep) clings to about a 5 point lead over Jack Conway (Dem). This also has been a vicious campaign with, in a debate last night, Conway making some bizarre accusations (from an unnamed source) of Rand having been involved in some pagan-like or at least anti-Christian ritual.
So it goes.
President and Mrs Obama and the Dems are trying to rally the faithful to vote on November 2nd. It is a tough sell. One poll I saw has only 1/2 of Dems who voted in 2008 intending to vote vs 2/3 of Repubs.

Please document if you find it again...this would be catastrophic for the dems if it came to pass..

I will have to search for that. I have been bouncing around from Rasmussen to RCP and E-Pro this afternoon trying to cobble together info to post an update on this thread.

I gotcha, RJB -

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2010/10/poll_many_obama_2008_supporters_defecting_to_gop.php?ref=fpblg

The same poll however did say that a lot of McCain voters are doing the same thing, the other direction; and the Generic Ballot attached to that same poll showed a 5-point lead - For the Democrats!

Not exactly a disastrous poll.

Cycloptichorn

Most of the stuff I've been reading about our election next month is that most democrats - especially the younger ones - will be staying home from the polls. They seem disenchanted with government, and disappointed in Obama.

So, as the wheels turn....

Thanks, Cyclo, for finding that. You beat me by a few minutes in retrieving the article.
I thought it was interesting that the poll was able to go back to the 1250 people they followed numerous times in 2008.
Here in the 5th District House Race in Virginia, the Dem incumbent Perriello is in danger after just one term. He swept in by 800 votes because of the support of minorities and the young (and an overly complacent Repub incumbent). I see no active support here in liberal Charlottesville from the student Dems.

I realize, hawkeye, that I probably should do a better job of sourcing things I say. I reckon I rely more than I should on my reputation as trying to be balanced on a thread like this one. I will try to do better.

There are 435 seats in our lower chamber, the House of Representatives. All seats are in play every two years. Thanks to gerrymandering (which both parties claim to object to but both parties eagerly engage in) a much smaller number of races are actually going to be close.
The Dems now hold 256 vs 179 for Repubs.
Projections for the make-up after election day (E-Pro for example) suggest that the Repubs could end up with a 232-203 majority (with 217 needed to control).
I think the Repubs could do better. But we cover projections on a different thread.
Talk is already shifting to how things in D.C. might me different for Obama, for the Senate and House, for Repubs and Dems, after the election and in the lead up to the next Presidential race in 2012.

NEVADA SENATE
The website Politico posted an article, available through RCP, on early voting in the Senate election between incumbent Harry Reid (Dem) and Sharron Angle (Rep).
Politico claims its source is voting officials in the counties that include the most populous areas of Reno and Las Vegas.
Reno is split evenly (39% to 39%) between Repubs and Dems. Thus far, 11,000 people have voted. 47% are registered Repubs vs 40% registered Dems.
In Las Vegas, 47,000 votes are in in a county that has 46% registered Dems vs 33% registered Repubs. So far, 46% of the voters have been Dems while 39% have been Repubs.
For whom people voted is, of course, unknown.

rjb, Those numbers would reveal much more if we had the numbers and the percentages.

Huh?

I can't help but notice that the polling for Dem candidates, in several areas of the country, seems to be somewhat higher than it was a few weeks ago.

Cycloptichorn

I was just pleasantly shocked to learn that Stupak has pulled well ahead of Toomey in PA. Is the public coming to its senses?

Well ahead? RCP has Toomey up by 2. Did I miss a poll?

And, I think you mean Sestak and not Stupak?

Nate Silver weighed in on this race yesterday...pretty good.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/pennsylvania-revisited/

PENNSYLVANIA SENATE-
A 10/19 poll by Morning Call has Joe Sestak (D) ahead of Pat Toomey (R) by 3 points. PPP, a day earlier, has Sestak up 46% to 45%. I don't know Morning Call. PPP is considered to have a Dem bias.
The race does seem to be tightening. Several polls from a week or so ago had Toomey up by high single digits.
There was a column in the Huffington Post today saying that Joe "The Comeback Kid" Sestak has $3.3M left to spend vs $2.7M for Toomey. I am not sure that is a big deal this late in the campaign.
The writer speculates that Dem voters in PA may be taking more interest in this race due to contests in neighboring states that feature controversial Repub candidates: O'Donnell in Delaware and Paladino in New York.
I would add that President Obama has been hitting the campaign trail aggressively to try to get Dems to turn out to vote. My take is that there is no real evidence that that will be successful.