Tag Archives: Gov. Martin O’Malley

Masters Opens Significant Lead in AZ; Faulty FL Poll; Fung Unopposed in RI

By Jim Ellis — July 5, 2022

Senate

Venture capitalist Blake Masters (R)

Arizona: Masters Staked to Significant Lead — Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling went into the Arizona Republican field at the beginning of this week to test the GOP battle for the party’s Senate nomination. The survey (June 28; 595 likely Arizona Republican primary voters; interactive voice response system) finds venture capitalist Blake Masters, who former President Donald Trump endorses, opening up a significant 29-15-10 percent advantage over Attorney General Mark Brnovich and businessman Jim Lamon. This is the first time since the early campaign days when we’ve seen a poll featuring any one of the three candidates holding a significant edge.

When asked if the Trump endorsement would make voters more or less likely to vote for Masters, 53 percent of the respondent sample said much more likely (31 percent) or somewhat more likely (22 percent), while those saying they would be less inclined to support Masters because of the endorsement reached only 20 percent.

House

FL-27: Close Poll Not What it Seems — State Sen. Annette Taddeo (D-Miami) until quite recently was in the governor’s race challenging Rep. Charlie Crist (D-St. Petersburg) for the Democratic nomination, even though he chose her as his lieutenant governor running mate in 2014. Now a congressional candidate, Taddeo’s campaign released a SEA Polling & Strategic Design survey that shows her trailing Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Miami) by just two percentage points, 47-45 percent.

This poll should be discounted. It was conducted well over a month ago, during the May 23-25 period, which is before Taddeo even left the governor’s race. Therefore, too much has changed for this survey to be taken seriously.

RI-2: Fung Unopposed — It appears Republicans are uniting around former Cranston mayor and two-time Republican gubernatorial nominee Allan Fung to make a serious run at converting Rhode Island’s open 2nd Congressional District. Former state Rep. Bob Lancia (R) decided not to enter the race at the filing deadline. Trailing badly in the polls to Fung, Lancia ended his campaign, which opened the door for Fung to run unopposed for the party nomination. A published Suffolk University poll (June 19-22; 423 likely Rhode Island general election voters; live interview) finds Fung leading all six top Democratic candidates, including perceived leader Seth Magaziner, the Rhode Island general treasurer.

The 2nd District covers most of the small state’s western region including a portion of Providence County where more than half of Rhode Island’s population resides. The FiveThirtyEight data organization rates the 2nd as D+17 and Dave’s Redistricting App calculates the “partisan lean” as 56.9 percent D to just 41 percent R. Though a long shot, it appears this district is on the GOP conversion target list. Veteran US Rep. Jim Langevin (D-Warwick) is retiring after serving what will be 11 terms at the end of the current Congress.

States

Maryland: Rep. Brown in AG Dogfight — When US Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Bowie) announced for the open state attorney general position, he looked difficult to beat. A new poll, however, shows him dropping into a dead heat with retired state judge Katie Curran O’Malley, the wife of former Gov. Martin O’Malley (D).

The Goucher College poll conducted for the Baltimore Banner news site (June 15-19; 501 Democratic Maryland registered voters; 403 likely Maryland Democratic primary voters) finds O’Malley now edging ahead of Rep. Brown with a 30-29 percent margin. The O’Malley campaign is running ads crediting Rep. Brown with being an able congressman, but saying he does not have the legal experience to be an effective attorney general. The delayed Maryland primary is July 19.

Kentucky Action for Paul;
Without Hillary?

Kentucky Senate

The Kentucky Republican Party Executive Committee members just did Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) a big favor. The panel is recommending that the full GOP state committee change the Blue Grass State’s presidential nominating format from a primary to a caucus.

The move would help Sen. Paul because, at least in the short term, it would allow him to simultaneously seek re-election and run for president. But, selling this to the state convention delegates (they meet in August) might not be so easy, since a negative ramification could result from adopting such a change.

Under Kentucky law, an individual may not appear on the ballot for two offices in the same election. By switching to a caucus format, no state ballot would be involved because the caucuses are comprised of an internal party series of meetings and does not involve the state election system.
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Cochran Defies Pollsters; Lankford, Clawson, Rangel Win

Mississippi

Defying all pollsters’ projections, veteran Sen. Thad Cochran rebounded from his under-performance in the June 3 primary election to win the Mississippi run-off campaign. State Sen. Chris McDaniel came within one-half percent of claiming the Republican nomination in the primary vote, but failed to capitalize on his early momentum.

Virtually all published polling projected the 42-year congressional veteran to be falling significantly behind his Tea Party-backed Republican challenger. Yet, the actual results gave the incumbent a 51-49 percent victory, a margin of 6,373 votes out of the 372,000-plus ballots cast, some 60,000 more than were recorded in the primary. Therefore, the secondary election campaign defied not only the pollsters who almost unanimously predicted a McDaniel win going away, but also voter history that virtually always sees an incumbent lose a run-off election when forced into one. Additionally, this run-off produced more Continue reading >

Christie, Clinton Up in New Presidential Poll

CNN released the results of their latest 2016 presidential poll (ORC International; Nov. 18-20; 843 adults; 595 landline respondents; 248 via cellphone) during the Thanksgiving break, but their methodology leaves much to be desired, hence the conclusions are unreliable.

As we know, contemporary polls conducted on a national basis for a series of nomination elections that will occur more than two years into the future are merely for news consumption and have little real political value. Furthermore, polling “adults” as opposed to registered or likely voters yields even less reliability.

That being said, the data gives both New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) and former Secretary of State and First Lady Hillary Clinton (D) clear leads for their respective party nominations.

According to CNN/ORC, Christie leads the GOP field of potential candidates with 24 percent support from the poll respondents. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is second with 13 percent; Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI-1), the 2012 Continue reading >

A Tale of Two Governor’s Races

Rep. Charles. A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger (D) Gov. Chris Christie (R)

Maryland

Late last week, Rep. Charles. A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger (D-MD-2) confirmed that he is considering a race for governor next year. Incumbent Martin O’Malley (D) is term-limited, and the open race already is attracting a great deal of attention, particularly from Democrats. Virtually all of the strong candidates hail from the Washington, DC suburbs, while Ruppersberger would, at this point, be the only contender from the Baltimore metropolitan area. The geographic split would give him a clear advantage if the DC-area vote becomes split.

Ruppersberger won election to his sixth US House term last November. He represents the largest portion of Baltimore County of any Maryland congressman, in addition to having more than 83,000 residents from Baltimore city. His district also covers significant portions of Anne Arundel and Hartford Counties, with a sliver of Howard County.

The congressman defeated state Sen. Nancy Jacobs (R) 65.6-31.1 percent in November, but the Republican spent less than $300,000 on her challenge.

Other Democratic likely candidates are Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, who already has scheduled his formal announcement for early May, Attorney General Doug Gansler, state Del. Heather Mizeur and Howard County Executive Ken Ulman. The Democratic primary will almost assuredly Continue reading >

Hillary Flies High on a Low-Flying Poll

A new Public Policy Polling national survey (Jan. 3-6; 1,100 registered voters; 400 Democratic and 536 regular Republican primary participants) projects Hillary Clinton to be in the strongest position of all potential 2016 presidential candidates from either party, but the poll has methodological flaws.

According to the data, Clinton would easily capture the Democratic nomination, scoring a 57-16 percent margin over Vice President Joe Biden. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren notched 4 percent, followed by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley at 3 percent, while Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner tallied 2 percent apiece.

The poll then paired only Clinton against a myriad of Republican potential candidates such as former vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Clinton beats them all in hypothetical individual ballot test match-ups, but early results such as these are inconsequential and particularly so in this poll. Of the aforementioned, Christie fares best coming within two points of Clinton, behind 42-44 percent. All of the others trail her in double-digits.
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