Georgia: As Close as Ever: Despite the serious attacks that Republican Herschel Walker has absorbed over the past ten days, a series of three polls, including one from a Democratic source, finds little change in the Senatorial campaign battle that pits the former football star against Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock.
All three of the polls were conducted over the October 8-11 period, with sample sizes ranging from 717 to 1,084, using multiple sampling techniques. Moore Information actually sees Mr. Walker leading the race, 46-44%. The Trafalgar Group posts a similar 46-45% cut, but with Sen. Warnock on top. Civiqs, polling for the Daily Kos Elections website, gives Mr. Warnock his best showing, but even that is a tepid, 49-46%. Louisiana: Sen. Kennedy Poised for Outright Win: Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy (R) is on the ballot for a second term and a just released Public Policy Polling survey (10/10-11; 633 LA likely general election voters; interactive voice response system & text) projects that his outright win is probable. Sen. Kennedy leads retired Navy officer Luke Mixon (D) and community organizer Gary Chambers (D), 53-16-8%. Even after the PPP surveyors posed negative questions about Sen. Kennedy in an effort to push respondents away from him, the ballot test did not change. On election night, expect Sen. Kennedy to be re-elected in Louisiana’s jungle primary system with a majority vote and thus avoiding a secondary December 10th runoff election. Utah: McMullin Tops Sen. Lee in Poll: The Hill Research Consultants, polling for the Put Utah First Super PAC (10/5-11; 500 UT likely general election voters; live interview & online) has found Independent Evan McMullin posting his first significant lead over Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R). The ballot test reveals a 46-42% McMullin edge over the two-term incumbent. Sen. Lee’s favorability index has gone south, and now reaches a 42:52% favorable to unfavorable ratio. The failure of Utah’s junior Senator, Mitt Romney (R), to endorse Sen. Lee has also attracted a large amount of attention. This is another race to watch as the election cycle continues to wind down. Georgia: Two More Surveys Find Gov. Kemp with the Advantage: Two of the three pollsters that surveyed the Georgia Senate race (see GA Senate race above) also released numbers for the Peach State Governor’s campaign. Both the Trafalgar Group and Civiqs, polling for the Daily Kos Elections website, find that Gov. Kemp has a lead beyond the polling margin of error over 2018 gubernatorial nominee and former state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams (D). Trafalgar sees the Governor holding a nine-point advantage over Ms. Abrams, 53-44%. Civiqs projects a closer contest, posting the Governor to a 51-46% edge.
In 2022, a total of 40 polls have been publicly released of the Georgia Governor’s campaign, and Mr. Kemp has the lead in 39 of these surveys. Alaska: Trump Attacks McConnell Over Campaign Spending: The media is covering comments former President Donald Trump is making over the Senate Leadership Fund’s campaign spending as it relates to the Alaska race featuring Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) and the ex-President’s endorsed candidate, Kelly Tshibaka (R). The SLF, an organization that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) former staff members and political allies control, is committing $9 million in media money to support Sen. Murkowski.
Mr. Trump attacks the group, and Sen. McConnell by name, for spending this money against another Republican instead of in places where GOP candidates are opposing strong Democratic incumbents such as Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada. Many agree with Trump’s assessment since, particularly in Arizona, more money is needed to counter Sen. Mark Kelly’s (D) huge financial edge. Because of Alaska’s new electoral system, it is clear that the general election is coming down to a battle between the two Republicans, hence not endangering the Senate’s party division count. Georgia: Attacks Not Destroying Walker: Republican Herschel Walker has been under intense attack recently in his Senate battle against Sen. Raphael Warnock (D), but several new polls, so far, suggest that the attacks about his personal life have not yet devastated his campaign. A series of six polls were released in the past few days, and only one, from Survey USA, shows Sen. Warnock holding a substantial lead. Four of the six find the margin between the two candidates falling within a 1-3 percentage point margin. A total of four surveys, from The Trafalgar Group, Quinnipiac University, Emerson College, and Insider Advantage, conducted their studies between the October 4-11 period. The other two, from the aforementioned Survey USA and the University of Georgia, polled between September 25 through October 4. The sample sizes range from 550 to 1,157 likely voters. S-USA is most out of line, showing Warnock up 50-38%. Quinnipiac sees the second largest Warnock edge, 52-45%. The group of polls allows observers to arrive at two conclusions. First, Sen. Warnock leads the race. Second, Mr. Walker is still very competitive and remains within striking distance. Nevada: Sen. Cortez Masto Rebounds in New Poll: After trailing in seven consecutive polls among likely voters, a new Suffolk University survey (10/4-7; 500 NV likely voters; live interview) finds Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) pulling back in front of former Attorney General Adam Laxalt (R), 46-44%. Clearly, the cumulative result from these many polls is that both candidates are alive heading into voter decision making time. The bad sign for Sen. Cortez Masto is that she has failed to reach 50% support in the last dozen consecutive polls, dating all the way back to July. Such is a troubling indication for any incumbent. Georgia: Conflicting Polls: From the myriad of Georgia Senate polling (see Georgia Senate above), two of the survey research entities released numbers for the Peach State Governor’s race. Quinnipiac University (10/7-10; 1,157 GA likely general election voters; live interview) plots Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) lead over former state House Minority Leader Stacy Abrams (D) at just 50-49%. The University of Georgia (9/25-10/4; 1,030 GA likely general election voters; live interview), however, sees a much wider Kemp advantage, 51-41%.
Nevada: Sheriff’s Edge: The aforementioned Suffolk University survey (see Nevada Senate above) that found Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) re-claiming a small lead over her Republican opponent instead finds Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo (R) holding a slight 44-43% edge over Gov. Steve Sisolak (D). Just as in the Senate race where either candidate can win, such is also the case in the Silver State’s Governor’s contest. Oklahoma: Rare Senate Polls: The Sooner Poll that was released earlier in the week and gave Democrat Hoy Hofmeister a surprising 47-43% lead over Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) yesterday publicized numbers in both US Senate races, the regular election featuring Sen. James Lankford (R) and the special election to replace resigning Sen. Jim Inhofe (R). The poll is flawed in that only 301 respondents comprise the entire statewide sample, but the Senate results appear reasonable, nonetheless.
In the regular election, Sen. Lankford holds a 52-40% lead over high tech businessman Madison Horn (D) and US Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Westville) tops former US Rep. Kendra Horn (D), 51-42%. Both Sen. Lankford and Rep. Mullin are heavy favorites to win in November. Conflicting Polls: We have two examples of pollsters surveying the same race within the equivalent time realm and reporting wholly conflicting results. In Arizona, the Big Data Poll (polling for the CD Media site; 10/2-5; 970 AZ likely general election voters; text & oversampling) sees a dead heat, 46-45%, result between Sen. Mark Kelly (D) and challenger Blake Masters (R). Conversely, OH Predictive Insights (10/4-6; 674 AZ likely general election voters) finds a 46-33% split in the Senator’s favor with Libertarian Marc Victor posting 15%. The OH data is certainly outside the overall polling pattern, and no other entity has found the Libertarian candidate drawing such a high preference number. We also see conflict in the Washington Senate race. The Senate Opportunity Fund (10/4; 600 WA likely general election voters; mechanized) released their survey that gives Sen. Patty Murray (D) only a 46-42% edge over Republican Tiffany Smiley. Emerson College (9/21-10/1; 782 WA likely general election voters; multiple sampling techniques), over a slightly earlier time frame, posted the Senator to a 51-40% lead. The latter Emerson poll is closer to this race’s polling average. RI-2: Republican Fung Leads in Fourth Poll: Though the Ocean State’s western congressional district is heavily Democratic – D+17 according to the FiveThirtyEight data organization – the fourth consecutive survey, this one coming from Suffolk University for the Boston Globe (10/1-4; 422 RI-2 likely general election voters; live interview), confirms that Republican Allan Fung holds the lead over Democratic state Treasurer Seth Magaziner. The Suffolk results post Mr. Fung, the former Mayor of Cranston and a two-time Republican gubernatorial nominee, to an eight point, 45-37%, lead, well beyond the polling margin of error.
Just four polls, from May to the present, have been released of the race, but Mr. Fung has led in all with margins between six and 15 percentage points. Despite the Democratic voting history here, Mr. Fung looks to be positioning himself to score a major political upset. South Dakota: Gov. Noem’s Small Lead: South Dakota State University is releasing a series of political polls, but there is scant information accompanying the ballot test numbers. University polls can often be suspect, and this one without survey dates or sample sizes may fall into such a category. The ballot test finds Gov. Kristi Noem (R) leading state House Minority Leader Jamie Smith (D-Sioux Falls) by only a 46-42% count.
The same unidentified sample, however, also posts Sen. John Thune (R) to a 53-28% advantage over Democratic attorney Brian Bengs, which sounds like a reasonable result and provides the gubernatorial ballot test more credibility. Therefore, the South Dakota Governor’s race may be another worth watching as we enter the campaigns’ closing weeks. In 2018, Ms. Noem, then the state’s at-large Congresswoman scored a 51-48% win over then-state Sen. Billie Sutton (D). LA-3: Double Republican Race Brewing: We haven’t focused much on the Louisiana races this year largely because the state’s primary election runs concurrently with the general election. Using the jungle primary format, candidates can win outright in the one election if they command majority support. If all contenders fall below the 50% marker in a particular race, the top two finishers advance to a December runoff, this year scheduled for December 10th.
Yesterday, former Rep. Charles Boustany (R), Rep. Higgins’ GOP predecessor in the 3rd District seat, endorsed another Republican in the jungle format, prosecutor Holden Hoggatt. The move suggests we could see a late developing double-Republican race in Cajun Country, though Rep. Clay Higgins (R-Lafayette), a former police captain who came to fame for his tough law enforcement videos, largely has become a folk hero in southern Louisiana and will be difficult to dislodge. Rep. Higgins has averaged 62% of the vote in his two re-election campaigns, winning both contests outright. Nebraska: Gov. Ricketts Makes Succession Statement: Sen. Ben Sasse’s (R) resignation, to occur once he is confirmed as the University of Florida’s new president, has spurred discussion as to who will be appointed as Nebraska’s replacement junior Senator. Term-limited Governor Pete Ricketts (R), who refused to comment about his interest in assuming the position when Sen. Sasse announced his future plans, uttered a clarifying comment over the weekend.
Under Nebraska state law, a Governor has 45 days to replace a resigning Senator after the seat becomes officially vacant. Sen. Sasse indicated he will resign before the end of the year. Therefore, it is possible that Gov. Ricketts could make the appointment as one of his last official acts, or the likely incoming chief executive, University of Nebraska Regent Jim Pillen (R), would do so as one of his first duties. Mr. Ricketts now indicates if he develops an interest in receiving the appointment, he will let the new Governor choose the new Senator and not appoint himself. In a crowded 2022 Republican gubernatorial primary, Gov. Ricketts endorsement of Mr. Pillen helped him win the nomination, so the early tea leaves are suggesting that the outgoing Governor could be headed to the Senate. New Hampshire: Dollars Changing Direction: Earlier, we speculated upon the National Republican Senatorial Committee eventually making the move to pull their media reservation dollars from New Hampshire and moving the money to places where the GOP candidate looks to be in better victory position, namely Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. With the NRSC’s canceling its $2.6 million budget for the Boston market, as reported by the Adminpact and Daily Kos Elections organizations, the move has been made. This, however, does not mean the Republican sector is abandoning New Hampshire, especially since polling still shows nominee Don Bolduc within high single-digits of Sen. Maggie Hassan (D). The Senate Leadership Fund and other outside right-of-center allies have reserved another $23 million in media time, so they are clearly not giving up on the NH Senate race even though the state and national party leadership overtly attempted to deny Bolduc his nomination. |
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