Put your lip between your teeth and bite down, it’ll make this go by much, much slower. In other news:
- B/C rated East Carolina University gives Rep Budd (R) a 50% to 44% over former state Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley (D) in North Carolina with a
margin of errorCredibility Interval of ± 3.8 points. Pick the size of the grain of salt you prefer. If you prefer a different spice, unknown pollster Carolina Forward is giving Rep Budd a dead heat 46% – 45% lead, the balance of those surveyed undecided. Notable: Independents are split almost neatly in half, with just a 2-point advantage towards Budd and 16% remaining undecided[.] If independents continue to break towards the Democrats, then Beasley may win an upset victory. But she still has to make that case. - Is Rep Ryan (D) seeing Ohio slip away, or is Suffolk University just slipping? The B+ rated pollster is now giving J. D. Vance (R) a 47% – 45% lead in Ohio, with a margin of error of ± 4.4 points.
- FabrizioWard/Impact Research’s latest poll for the AARP finds New Hampshire Senator Hassan (D) maintaining a comfortable 52% – 45% lead over challenger Don Bolduc (R), who must be eyeing that 50% barrier and wondering how to convince some of Hassan’s voters to change their minds. I think both pollsters are B/C rated. Or is it three firms? A read of the report is ambiguous.
- In New York, A- rated Quinnipiac University Poll has Senator Schumer (D) with a 54% – 42% lead over challenger Joe Pinion (R). This is, again, a drop for Senator Schumer, but the rate of decline is itself declining, and he would seem to have little to worry about.
- B/C rated Amber Integrated weighs in on the reelection effort of Senator Lankford (R) in Oklahoma, giving him a 16 point advantage over challenger Madison Horn (D). Yeah, that’s all we get. The latest Sooner Poll has Lankford by 12 points, but over 50%. While 16 points is more than comfortable, Lankford’s victory in 2016 was by 43+ points, suggesting either Lankford and the Republicans are too extreme, or Lankford is too moderate for many Republicans, or both. Yes, that is possible.
- In the same survey as above, Amber Integrated is giving Rep Mullin (R) a 13 point lead of former Rep Kendra Horn (D) in the special election to fill Oklahoma Senator Inhofe’s soon-to-be empty seat in the Senate, as he is retiring in mid-term. Former Rep Horn had reduced Mullin’s lead to 9 points in the latest Sooner Poll, so she must be a bit disappointed in his poll. While it’s worth noting that Inhofe’s final victory was by 30+ points, comparing relative newcomer Mullin’s lead to that victory margin hardly seems appropriate. Still, a drop of 17 points does mean disappointment in the Republicans, although from which direction isn’t clear. The survey has a ± 4.4 point margin of error.
- Any attempts to portray myself as competent at this job should be disregarded, as just moments ago I realized I have lost track of the Missouri race. Again. Not that it’s an exciting race: AG Schmitt (R) still leads nurse & heiress Trudy Busch Valentine (D) by 11 points, 49% – 38%, according to the latest (late September) poll from Emerson College. That gap is exactly the same in the four polls recorded by RealClearPolitics, regardless of the pollster. This is actually a larger gap than the margin of victory for the current occupant of the seat, retiring Senator Blunt (R), had in 2016, which was less than 3 points. Eleven points is substantially larger. I wonder if the state shifted right or if the independents are finding Valentine to be repugnant for some reason. On the other hand, Blunt won by nearly 14 points in 2010, so perhaps 2016 is more a commentary on Blunt’s extremism.
- Apparently, the Iowa survey by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register, showing challenger Admiral (ret.) Franken (D) down by three points, rather than Senator Grassley’s (R) normal margin of victory of around 33 points, hit a nerve out in pundit land. What struck me was WaPo’s resident data analyst cum political columnist trying to explain it away, and, I think, failing. I briefly wrote about what David Byler missed here.
The surprised! update from last time is here.
