On FL-13: In the link to one of Jennings' internal, I found this remark, which fuels my suspicions.
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/15848966.htm
"Buchanan dismissed the results, saying his internal polling shows him trailing "within the margin of error" of Jennings. He did not divulge details, and has not publicly released any of his poll results since the September primary."
I buy your rationales on NV-02, NV-03 and NH-02 and thanks for the link on the monthly DCCC, NRCC party stats. I often look at the day-by-day stuff, but I never could figure out how to get the monthlies. (my computer expertise sometimes leaves a lot to be desired) Also, the Becker Institute was a terrible NH polling company in 2004, so I can understand that.
On TX-23, I really think you should be counting Bonilla's number @ around Bush's 2004 number, not the base Republican number, simply because he's perhaps the one Republican candidate in Texas who can pull similar numbers at this time and place. (even though I know his Latino figures have been declining over the years) I also think the Republican breakdown in this area is going to be less than it is nationwide (just a gut feeling).
The real question I have in this "jungle primary" continues to be (and I can't answer it): Even if you vote a straight-party ticket, you still have to vote in the special election. How is this going to affect the numbers?
In a normal election, roughly 30%-35% of the voters in Bexar County vote straight party. These voters tend to fairly evenly divided (considering the usual low turnout among Democrats in south-side Bexar). The rural counties exhibit much less straight-party voting patterns on the whole.
For that reason, I think polling of this race is next to impossible and the poll we've both seen is stale anyway.
This also reminds me of a big Gilliland problem. Those South Siders that were added to the CD are simply not going to vote for a white guy at the local level, regardless of party. He's going to have to pick up votes from the border areas or Bonilla strongholds in order to make a runoff, imho.
I still think he makes it past a runoff, but that's just me. I doubt we really know for sure until Election Day.
That's interesting about Buchanan and certainly does suggest that FL-13 is slipping away. Hmm. I think I'm gonna switch FL-13 and MN-06 in my ratings above.
http://tray.com/cgi-win/x_IndepExp_SQL_By_State_Date.exe?DoFn=&Count=20060822&sYR=2006&sEndDate=20060906&sID=C00075820
As should be clear, you simply need to change the dates in your browser to whatever you want to see. Here's the segment with the date string again:
=&Count=20060822&sYR=2006&sEndDate=20060906&sID
I've underlined the part I changed.