This election cycle has largely been a frustrating one for the progressive poll watcher, as Republicans have slowly made gains over the past year. This morning, however, actually brings some good news:
Pennsylvania Senate--Sestak and Specter tied: This morning's tracking poll shows Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak tied at 43%. The tracking poll is a four-day rolling average, and so it does not even include many interviews who have seen Sestak's devastating new attack ad. I don't want to get ahead of myself here, but with 11 days to go, for all the reasons I discussed yesterday, Sestak may actually be the favorite now. Specter is hovering around 45% in the polling average, which is a very bad place to be for a candidate with nearly 100% name ID. Sestak still has a lot of room to grow in terms of name recognition, and has always led among Pennsylvania voters who knew both candidates.
Dem catches up in the Pennsylvania 12th special election: New polls on the special election in Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district to replace Jack Murtha suggest a true toss-up. The last five polls on the campaign, including both Republican and Democratic pollsters, put the race within 1% Even though the Democratic nominee is not very progressive, Democrats pulling out a victory in this district, in this political environment, would be welcome news.
Arkansas Senate--Run-off looking likely in Halter vs. Lincoln: A new Mason-Dixon poll shows Bill Halter within 12% of Blanche Lincoln, a gain of 6% for Halter since January. Just as importantly, Lincoln's numbers are well under 50%, and a third candidate has 7%. The polling average in the campaign is Lincoln 42.3%, Halter 32.7%, and Morrison 8.0%. All of this points to Lincoln being unable to secure a majority in the May 18th primary, which would lead to a June 8th run-off between Halter and Lincoln.
North Carolina Senate--Marshall leads run-off: The first poll on the June 22nd run-off between Elaine Marshall and Cal Cunningham shows Marshal ahead, 42%--37%.
Arizona--Dem lead for Governor, McCain vulnerable in primary: A third poll of Arizona has come out since the passage of the immigration law in the Senate. Like PPP last week, Daily Kos now finds Democrat Terry Goddard leading all Republicans, including incumbent Jan Brewer (Rasmussen rather unsurprisingly found Republicans gaining after the passage of the bill). Daily Kos also finds John McCain only 12% ahead of J.D. Hayworth in the Republican Senate primary, which is quite vulnerable for an incumbent three months from the election.
Iowa Senate--might Democrats have a shot? A new Research 2000 poll (not commissioned by Daily Kos) shows Democratic Roxanne Conlin with only 9% of Republican incumbent Charles Grassley, gaining 12% since February. This may just a fluky poll, but it could also mean that a second Republican incumbent Senator is threatened this cycle (Richard Burr in North Carolina is the other one).
Connecticut Governor--big Dem gains across the board: The latest Rasmussen poll in the nutmeg state shows Ned Lamont turning a seven-point deficit on Republican Tom Foley into a seven-point lead. In fact, Democrats lead all matchups now. A swing of this size likely means that either the previous Rasmussen poll, or the new Rasmussen poll--or both--had an unusually high amount of error.
Florida Senate:--Rubio drops out of the lead: I am not cheering for Charlie Crist to win this seat, but it is still worth noting that he has taken the lead in the Florida Senate campaign. A wave of polls have all put him ahead since he announced he was running as an independent, and the Pollster.com average has him ahead by 6%. His gains seem to have come primarily at the expense of Kendrick Meek, whose numbers have crashed to around 20%.
There may not be many days with positive polling news this election cycle, so it is nice to savor those few which do.
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