Tag Archives: WA-3

Significant Lead for Alsobrooks in Maryland; Senate Race Tightens in Nevada; Cori Bush in Dead Heat; Another Dead Heat in WA-3

By Jim Ellis — Thursday, June 27, 2024

Senate

Angela Alsobrooks

Maryland: Alsobrooks Develops Significant Lead — A new Public Policy Polling survey finds Prince Georges County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) opening an advantage over ex-Gov. Larry Hogan (R) despite his favorable ratings.

The PPP survey (June 19-20; 635 Maryland voters) sees Alsobrooks leading Hogan and a series of independents and minor party candidates (cumulatively), 45-34-5 percent. In a head-to-head ballot test, she leads Hogan 48-40 percent. This, despite a positive Hogan favorability index of 50:33 percent. The biggest drag for Hogan is from the top of the Maryland ticket where President Joe Biden leads former President Donald Trump, 56-30 percent.

Nevada: Race Tightens — A new survey from a Democratic and Republican polling team finds a closer Senate race than the Emerson College poll conducted during the same period. The Fabrizio Ward (R)/Impact Research (D) survey, commissioned for AARP (June 12-18; 600 likely Nevada general election voters; live interview & text) sees Sen. Jacky Rosen (D), riding a media ad blitz, leading Republican Sam Brown, 47-42 percent, while former President Trump has a 44-37-10 percent advantage over President Biden and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (I).

Conversely, Emerson College’s study (June 13-18; 1,000 registered Nevada voters; multiple sampling techniques) sees Sen. Rosen with a much larger lead over Brown, 50-38 percent. While there is a clear advantage for Sen. Rosen in the most recent polling, this race will still be highly competitive come November.

House

MO-1: Rep. Bush in Dead Heat –– The Mellman Group, conducting a survey for the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC (June 18-22; 400 registered MO-1 Democratic voters; live interview & text), sees challenger Wesley Bell, a former St. Louis County prosecutor, pulling into a one point, 43-42 percent, lead over Rep. Cori Bush (D-St. Louis), a member of the Socialist Democrat “Squad.” The Mellman analysis finds that Bell has closed the gap against the incumbent since January, seeing a net 17-point swing in his favor.

We can expect heavy outside spending coming into the district before the Aug. 6 primary. The pro-Israel organizations were successful in helping to defeat another Squad member, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), in Tuesday night’s Democratic primary. Rep. Bush is another of the most anti-Israel congressional members and a top target of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the DMFI PAC.

WA-3: Dead Heat Poll — A new Public Policy Polling survey, regularly conducted for the Northwest Progressive Institute (June 11-12; 649 registered WA-3 voters; live interview & text), sees Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Skamania County) trailing 2022 general election finalist Joe Kent (R), by a 46-45 percent dead heat margin.

Washington’s 3rd District, which lies in the far southwestern corner of the state and anchored in the city of Vancouver, is the second-most Republican district that a US House Democrat represents. The FiveThirtyEight data organization rates the seat as R+11. In 2022, Perez defeated Kent by less than a percentage point in one of the biggest upsets of that election year. The 2024 rematch, which is likely to occur after the state’s Aug. 6 jungle primary, portends to be just as close.

DeSantis Comfortably Ahead in Fla; Conflicting Results in Ga. Senate; McMullin Lead Reversed in Utah

By Jim Ellis — Friday, Sept. 23, 2022

Governor

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R)

Florida: DeSantis Comfortably Ahead — We haven’t seen a Florida governor’s poll in weeks that showed enough change to report upon, but yesterday we two were almost simultaneously released. Both largely confirmed that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has a lead beyond the polling margin of error.

Civiqs, polling for the Daily Kos Elections site (Sept. 17-20; 617 likely Florida general election voters; online), posts the governor to a 52-45 percent advantage over former governor and recently resigned Congressman Charlie Crist (D). Suffolk University (Sept. 15-18; 500 likely Florida general election voters; live interview) derived similar results. They project the governor’s lead to be 48-41 percent over Crist.

Senate

Georgia: Conflicting Results — Continuing the seesaw political affair between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) and former NFL and University of Georgia football star Herschel Walker (R), we reported yesterday that the new Atlanta Journal-Constitution/University of Georgia poll (Sept. 5-16; 861 likely Georgia general election voters) finds Walker leading Sen. Raphael Warnock (D), 46-44 percent.

Later in the day, YouGov, polling for CBS News (Sept. 14-19; 1,148 registered Georgia voters; online) released their Georgia survey that pushed voters to make a Senate race choice, and found the same two-point margin but in Sen. Warnock’s favor, 51-49 percent. The exhaustive poll asked 72 questions, and while Sen. Warnock is clearly more favorably viewed than Walker, the vote continues to remain virtually even. The University of Georgia and YouGov/CBS News surveys are even more evidence that the Georgia Senate campaign will be decided in a turnout battle.

Utah: McMullin Lead Reversed — It took awhile to rebuff the Impact Research group’s early September poll that posted Independent Evan McMullin to a 48-47 percent lead over two-term Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R), but we now see conflicting looks as to what may be happening in this largely under-the-radar Senate challenge. OnMessage (Sept. 13-15; 700 likely Utah voters; live interview), polling for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), reports Sen. Lee to be holding a 51-34 percent advantage, a major difference from the Impact Research survey of two weeks earlier.

Following OnMessage, Lighthouse Research (Aug. 30-Sept. 13; 509 likely Utah voters), polling for the Utah Debate Commission, sees the senator holding a similar 48-37 percent margin over McMullin. Utah’s strongly Republican voting history suggests that these two latter polls finding Sen. Lee holding a substantial edge are likely more reflective of what will happen on Election Day.

House

WA-3: GOP Rebound — In late August, Expedition Strategies released a survey (Sept. 19-20; 400 likely WA-3 general election voters) that was cause for concern among local southwest Washington GOP activists and supporters. After Republican Joe Kent and Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez denied Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Battle Ground) advancement into the general election from the Aug. 2 jungle primary, ES released their survey that gave the Democrat a 47-45 percent lead in the general election.

Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling, surveying for the Northwest Progressive Institute, (Sept. 19-20; 834 WA-3 voters; live interview & text) now projects Kent to have overtaken Perez with a slight 47-44 percent margin. The WA-3 race is a must-win for the GOP if they are to reclaim the House majority, so this race merits further national attention.

Tied Poll for Florida Senate Race? Ryan Leads in Ohio; Hererra Beutler Behind in WA-3

By Jim Ellis — August 11, 2022

Senate

Florida: Demings Touting Tied Poll — Rep. Val Demings (D-Orlando) is brandishing a new poll that finds she and Sen. Marco Rubio (R) tied at 45 percent apiece. This is only the second poll of the 10 released this year that does not project the senator as the race leader. The Clarity Campaigns survey (July 26-31) conducted an online survey of 2,244 registered voters from a pre-selected panel. Since 2016, pollsters have typically underestimated Republican strength in Florida, so it is reasonable to add a couple of percentage points for the Republican candidate in a typical Sunshine State poll.

Ohio: Heavy Campaign Spending Keeps Rep. Ryan in Lead — Riding a major campaign spending wave, thus taking advantage of his abundant campaign war chest, US Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Warren/Youngstown) again sees a developing lead in his race against Republican nominee and author J.D. Vance. The just released Impact Research survey (July 21-28; 800 likely Ohio general election voters) projects Ryan as holding a 48-45 percent edge in the race for the open Ohio Senate seat. Last month, the same firm also found Ryan holding an almost identical lead at 48-45 percent.

The Ryan campaign has spent over $6.5 million on the airwaves since the end of May according to the Politico news publication, with virtually no counter media push from the Vance forces. Though Rep. Ryan has had the field virtually to himself in the early going, he still does not expand beyond the polling margin of error. When Vance does counter, we are likely to see a Republican rebound here.

House

Trump-endorsed former retired Army officer Joe Kent (R)

WA-3: Rep. Hererra Beutler Now Behind — New results from the laborious Washington ballot counting process have put Trump-endorsed former retired Army officer Joe Kent (R) ahead of six-term incumbent Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Battle Ground/ Vancouver) by 960 votes with still several thousand ballots left to count. Officials report that it may be as long as Aug. 16 before the totals are finalized.

Since the bulk of the outstanding ballots are from Thurston County, an entity where Kent placed first, some analysts are declaring that Rep. Herrera Beutler will not be able to rebound. At this point, Democrat Marie Glusenkamp Perez places first and will advance to the general election presumably to face Kent.

If this trend holds and Herrera Beutler is defeated, it will mean that 11 House incumbents will have already lost their seats in the 2022 election cycle, and 68 seats will be open in the general election. Republican prospects to hold the 3rd District are strong despite the incumbent losing and a Democrat placing first in the jungle primary, however. A total of 64.8 percent of the more than 208,000 primary voters at this point voted for a Republican candidate.

Governor

Oklahoma Poll: Governor’s Race Closer Than Expected — The Democratic online polling firm Change Research released their latest Oklahoma Governor’s survey (July 22-26; 2,079 likely Oklahoma general election voters; online) and sees Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) in a tighter battle than expected against Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister (D). The ballot test projects the governor to be holding only a 42-34 percent advantage.

The main reason for Stitt’s downturn apparently relates to his falling job approval rating. According to the Change numbers, the governor’s favorability index has slid to 42:56 percent favorable to unfavorable. It is probable, however, that the governor will be able to rebound and score a convincing win in November. It is difficult to predict a deep red state like Oklahoma going Democratic in what appears to be at least a relatively strong Republican election year.

Rep. Beutler Trailing in New Poll

Six-term Washington Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Battle Ground/Vancouver)

By Jim Ellis

Nov. 9, 2021 — Another of the House Republican Trump impeachment supporters appears to be having trouble back home. A new Trafalgar Group poll (Oct. 30-Nov. 2; 682 likely WA-3 primary voters; combination live interview, interactive voice response system, and text) finds six-term Washington Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Battle Ground/Vancouver) placing third in a field of four as a prelude to next year’s jungle primary.

According to Trafalgar, former Green Beret Joe Kent (R), who has former President Trump’s endorsement, leads the candidate field with 35 percent preference. Next is Democrat Brian Hennrich, a movie theatre technician, who records 24 percent. For this poll, Hennrich realistically serves as a placebo candidate to test Democratic support. Rep. Beutler then places third with 23 percent and another Republican, pastor and author Heidi St. John, posts 10 percent support. An additional eight percent said they would vote for “another Democrat.”

Surveys such as this will likely spur the Democrats to recruit a much stronger candidate in what plays as a marginal southwestern Evergreen State congressional district.

Washington is one of three states that employs a top-two jungle primary system. All candidates are placed on the same ballot and the top two finishers, regardless of percentage or party, advance into the general election. Therefore, this poll would suggest that Rep. Beutler, at least today, could be eliminated before the general election cycle even officially begins. Washington has a late primary, Aug. 2, 2022, so plenty of time remains for the congresswoman to right her political ship.

The Washington districts won’t likely change a great deal in redistricting. Washington redistricts by commission, and has since 1991. Because none of the state’s 10 districts need a major population influx, it is probable that most of the seats, and especially District 3 (largely because it must only shed 2,222 individuals) will remain relatively constant.

The 3rd District is nestled into the southwestern corner of the state, bordering Oregon and the Pacific Ocean. The seat needing to gain the most people is Rep. Derek Kilmer’s (D-Gig Harbor) 6th District, but the 33,730 residents it requires is still a relatively small number in comparison to some other states.

Currently, the Beutler district votes as a marginal Republican seat. Former President Trump carried WA-3 in 2020 with a 51-47 percent margin after posting a 50-42 percent showing against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Rep. Beutler, in what was billed as a competitive race at the beginning of the 2020 election cycle, scored a 56-43 percent re-election victory. She has averaged 57.6 percent of the vote in her six successful congressional elections.

Fundraising so far has been significant. The September 30 FEC reports find Rep. Beutler already raising $1.73 million for the cycle with $1.38 million cash-on-hand. Kent has also done well, especially for a challenger, raising $1.09 million with $837,000 in the bank. St. John (R) has also raised a respectable $334,000, and held just over $213,000 in her campaign account at the reporting period’s end.

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