Category Archives: Senate

It’s Official for Candidates in PA, OR

Two more states now have official 2014 candidates as office seekers in Pennsylvania and Oregon made their political intentions official this week.

Pennsylvania

Gov. Tom Corbett (R) is facing one Republican primary challenger, while six Democrats will battle for their party’s nomination to be decided May 20. The eventual Democrat standard bearer will have a strong chance of unseating Corbett, who continues to post some of the worst job approval ratings in the country.

With businessman Tom Wolf out to an early lead after unleashing a major positive and clever media buy, Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA-13), state Treasurer Rob McCord and three others who comprise the Democratic field are forced to play catch-up.

With no US Senate contest in the Keystone Continue reading >

Gary Peters’ Boonstra Blunder in the Michigan Senate Race

http://youtu.be/YC2LlVyPPxQ

Things haven’t gone quite to plan for Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI-14) in his bid to succeed retiring Sen. Carl Levin (D).

When the senator announced he wouldn’t be seeking re-election early last year, Rep. Peters immediately jumped into the race and very quickly sewed up consensus party Continue reading >

Underlying Poll Data Shows Cornyn on Shaky Ground

On Tuesday, Texas officially kicks-off the regular 2014 election cycle. Voters from both parties will visit the polls to begin the first step in choosing Republican and Democratic nominees for the fall. Illinois follows with their nomination process on March 18, but the heaviest voting months are May and June.

A new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll (Feb. 7-17; 1,200 registered Texas voters; online pre-selected group; number of likely Republican primary voters not released) is projecting that Sen. John Cornyn (R) commands a 62 percent support level in a Republican primary ballot test against Rep. Steve Stockman’s (R-TX-36) 16 percent, but digging below the polling toplines reveals a much different story. In actuality, Cornyn’s first ballot question percentage was 43 percent, the exact number that the Gravis Marketing poll (Feb. 10-12; 729 Texas Republican primary voters – Cornyn 43 percent, Stockman 28 percent) reported earlier in the month.
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A Cornyn Run-off?

Florida-based Gravis Marketing, one of the newer national pollsters, just released the findings from their recent survey of the Texas Republican US Senate primary (Dec. 10-12; 729 likely Republican Texas primary voters). The results, rather surprisingly, give Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn only a 43-28 percent lead over US Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX-36).

Though Sen. Cornyn registered just 43 percent support among a reflective voting segment within his own political party, his favorability rating was relatively positive, nonetheless. When asked if the respondents have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the Senator, by a ratio of 49:27 percent, they approved. Asked the same of Rep. Stockman, the results were 28:18 percent positive to negative, but with 55 percent saying they were “unsure” or had no opinion of the southeast Texas Congressman.

Gravis was active in the 2012 election cycle, but some of their polls produced questionably reliable data. In this Texas effort, 729 respondents is a healthy sample Continue reading >

New Michigan Numbers – Senate, Gov.

The Michigan Senate race is in flux. When Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) announced his retirement early last year, Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI-14) very quickly solidified himself as the consensus Democratic candidate with the help of the outgoing incumbent and his brother, Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI-9). The early maneuverings provided the Detroit congressman a favorite’s aura for the general election.

Initially, during Levin’s retirement announcement period, Republicans were making no secret of their inability to recruit a contender who they could proclaim as a top-flight candidate. When former two-term Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land came forward, the state and national party leaders continued to search for someone they felt would be stronger. Now, a fourth consecutive poll has forecast Land to be holding a small edge over Rep. Peters, thereby justifying the GOP’s renewed interest in making the Wolverine State a top Senatorial target.

According to the Michigan-based EPIC-MRA Continue reading >

Filings Close in Several States

Alabama (Primary: June 3; Run-off: July 15)

The most notable point from the Alabama candidate filings is that four of the state’s six House members seeking re-election will be running unopposed this November. Only representatives Martha Roby (R-AL-2) and Mike Rogers (R-AL-3) have Democratic opposition, but both appear headed for little trouble in securing re-election.

Representatives Robert Aderholt (R-AL-4), Mo Brooks (R-AL-5), and Terri Sewell (D-AL-7) all drew primary opponents. Rep. Sewell’s challenger seems to be the strongest intra-party candidate. Former Birmingham city attorney Tamara Harris Johnson filed in the Democratic primary, but the incumbent remains the heavy favorite for renomination. In all three of these cases, once the individuals win their respective party primaries, the political opposition ends.

The governor’s race yielded an interesting political twist. Former Rep. Parker Griffith, who was elected to the 5th District in 2008 as a Democrat but became a Republican Continue reading >

Polls Confirm Key Senate Races are Toss-ups; Walsh’s Appointment Both Helps and Hurts

Karl Rove’s American Crossroads entered into the Senate polling arena in January, contracting with Harper Polling to provide surveys in seven key states. The HP results appear to be in line with other findings, except for one place.

Harper’s Alaska poll (Jan. 20-22; 677 registered Alaska voters) projects Sen. Mark Begich (D) to be trailing two Republican challengers, Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell and former Attorney General Dan Sullivan, by identical 41-47 percent margins. This is a much different result than found in the Public Policy Polling survey from a little more than a week ago (Jan. 30-Feb. 1; 850 registered Alaska voters), which posted the senator to a 43-37 percent advantage over Treadwell and 41-37 percent against Sullivan. Begich’s troubling factor, detected in both firms’ data, however, is his low 40s standing even when leading.
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Three New Senate Polls Show Rocky Roads Ahead for Incumbents

Colorado

We now have confirming data that Sen. Mark Udall (D) must traverse a rocky political road to secure re-election.

Last December, Public Policy Polling (Dec. 3-4; 928 registered Colorado voters) released a surprising survey that showed the senator leading a potential general election Republican opponent by a mere four points, 46-42 percent. The result occurred when pairing Udall with 2010 Republican nominee and Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck. As you will remember, Buck lost to Sen. Michael Bennet (D) 46-48 percent even though they faced each other during the Republican landslide of 2010.

Yesterday, Quinnipiac University made public their latest Colorado poll (Jan. 29-Feb. 2; 1,139 registered Colorado voters) and the result verified PPP’s pre-Christmas finding. In fact, the current Q-Poll’s 45-42 Continue reading >

New Hampshire Consistent in its Inconsistency

No state has had more wild political swings than the Granite State of New Hampshire during the past four elections. Over that time, NH voters have turned out a US senator, defeated more members than they have re-elected, and deposed the majority party in five of the past 10 legislative chamber elections. A new early 2014 poll suggests that more upheaval is on the way.

The University of New Hampshire’s polling directors just released a survey completed during the Jan. 21-26 period in which 584 registered Granite State voters were questioned. A total of 304 respondents were in the eastern 1st Congressional District; 280 in the western 2nd CD. As has been the pattern with UNH polls, bizarre results are often produced that many times prove inconsistent with the findings of other pollsters and even their own previous data.

The Senate

The first bit of inconsistency in their latest poll comes in the Senate race. UNH finds Continue reading >

The Fourteen Key Senate Races

Since venturing into 2014, a new round of US Senate polls came into the public domain giving us a better picture of the current state of political affairs. Now it appears that 14 seats can be considered competitive, or are on their way to becoming so. The early tightness of so many of these campaigns tells us that we are a long way from being able to confidently predict a national outcome.

For Republicans, the first step in achieving their goal of capturing the Senate majority revolves around the ability to convert the three seats from retiring Democratic senators in states that normally elect GOP candidates. Winning the Montana (Rep. Steve Daines), South Dakota (ex-Gov. Mike Rounds), and West Virginia (Rep. Shelley Moore Capito) seats becomes the foundation for the Republican drive to obtain Senate control. Democrats, on the other hand, need merely to re-elect their incumbents.

As we know, the Senate’s partisan division features 55 Democrats and 45 Republicans. If we remove the 14 competitive seats from Continue reading >