Posted on 10/02/2006 7:57:49 AM PDT by SmithL
WASHINGTON -- Democrats are within striking distance of taking control of the U.S. Senate on Election Day, a series of new polls for McClatchy Newspapers and MSNBC showed today.
Democratic Senate candidates are tied, have a slight edge or an outright lead in every one of 10 pivotal battleground states. No Democrat trails in those races; no Republican leads. Democrats must gain six seats to capture control of the 100-member Senate.
Democratic candidates have a strong chance to win all seven at-risk Republican Senate seats -- with their candidates tied in Virginia and Missouri, holding a slight edge in Ohio, Rhode Island and Tennessee, and leading in Montana and Pennsylvania.
Democrats are also in position to hold their three most vulnerable seats -- with a slight edge in New Jersey and leading in Maryland and Washington.
This in-depth, state-by-state look at the political landscape of 10 Senate battleground states five weeks before Election Day, Nov. 7, is based on a series of polls by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research, Inc.
Seven were conducted for McClatchy Newspapers and MSNBC, and three for other newspapers were made available to McClatchy. Each state poll was conducted by phoning 625 likely voters in the final week of September. The error margin is plus or minus four percentage points.
"These numbers look very encouraging for the Democrats to take control of the Senate," said Mason-Dixon pollster Brad Coker.
Democrats are faring well and Republicans are on the defensive for several reasons: dissatisfaction with President Bush, disapproval of the war in Iraq, anti-incumbent sentiment and some anxiety about the economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Foley will only affect the district that he represents in Florida and that is it.
Well, Wagglebee it has helped me feel better. I think the GOP is handling the matter as well as it can be handled. The Demonrats on the other hand don't expell their members even when they admit they have had actual not virtual sex with minors.
I think your post 15 is exactly right.
I'm not sure about Santorum. I hope he pulls it out, but I don't think he will.
Michael Steele is pulling in 1/3rd of the African-American vote. I think he pulls out a victory in Maryland.
I don't see voters changing their life long core values because of a little blip here or a little blip there. A conservative wouldn't vote for a high tax, failing school, pro-homo, pro-abort, fascist health care liberal just because Bush mispronounced a word.
Voters will vote like they always have. The election will depend on which party gets out the voters, and I see the democrats acting like blithering, hate filled idiots. My guess is the conservatives and traditional Americans will come out to vote just so the whining, bitchy democrats don't get any more seats. Lord knows they've got too many already.
I am guessing you never took a statistics course. Look up what a standard deviation is and then get back to us.
funny, these don't match Rasmussen but they sure do match the MSNBC agenda
I think you are right.
Ahhh...yes I did take statistics chief, that's how I know it isnt a good enough sample size. So, how about you do the same? Might help with that pretentiousness of yours.
Remember it is the media's job to make this thing look closer than it truly is. If the GOP gets their base out, Republicans hold serve.
If nothing else, in a few weeks we will have another round of data for whose polls matter most and whose are accurate, if any.
A lot of freepers have very dogmatic and condescending opinions about polls ("polls are useless" or "polls tell the whole story"). If these polls hold up and GOP loses, then, we will know that they aren't crap. If the GOP escapes narrowly, we will know they are good within the margin of error. If the GOP wins handily, then we will know that they are in fact crap.
I anticipate that the GOP will narrowly hang on to the Senate, b/c I think Allen wins. But I think we are going to end up with a mere 51 (but, no Chaffee to worry about).
In short, I think the polls are within the margin of error...but who the hell knows at this stage?
I wonder what the ratio of dems/Repubs/Independents was in these polls? I think pollsters, even Scott Rasmussen, oversample dems. Remember the last Harris Poll in 2004, the one a few days before the election that had Kerry up 9 or so points over Bush? The MSM wants everyone to believe the dems have all the momentum, that they have this massive powerful get out the vote machine (our is vastly superior, i.e. Ohio 2004), that the public is totally put out by the Repubs (the dems' numbers are just as bad) and that a dem "tidal wave" is going to hit the Repubs this fall because of Mark Foley (Norah O'Donnell on MSNBC at 11:05AM this morning).
I note also that Ohio, PA, Montana and NJ are also very localized elections. If the GOP loses in the first 3, and the dim in NJ, it is b/c of either corruption in the air, or in Santorum's case, b/c the candidate no longer fits the state.
Nothing in this election appears to be out GWB. Not sure if that helps or hurts us, but...I do think we can sort of ignore the polling questions about him. I do not think GWB hurts us at all this election and I think in fact that he has done and is doing all he can to help, in spite of people like Taft and Burns. GWB has always delivered in elections and if we lose, it won't be his fault b/c of the uniquely local aspect of these elections.
Rick Santorum is a great American - send him at least $5.00, more if you can.
Go on, Dems, keep thinking that Menendez is leading.
Remember the last Harris Poll in 2004, the one a few days before the election that had Kerry up 9 or so points over Bush?"
Everyone keeps saying how the polls showed Kerry up late in 2004. I don't recall that at all.
I recall it being within 1 or 2 points, and then in the final few days, GWB being up 1 or 2.
I do recall that the exit polls were showing a huge Kerry victory, which, in theory, would not have been inconsistent with the extremely close polls at the end of the camapign. We now know that those exit polls were manipulated in an effort to help Kerry. (Unlike the exit polls in 2000 which showed, correctly, Gore winning a very small majority of the "popular vote").
I think there is a lot of revision history going on to bad mouth polls in order to make people feel better. But then again, maybe my memory of 2004 is not accurate.
I do also recall that the Gallup national polls are almost always dead on in that the final poll ends up being within the margin of error of the final nationwide Presidential percentages (for whatever that is worth...seeing as Senate races are not nationwide, but local...and even more so in this cycle).
A final thought: just as it can be argued that many pollsters oversample Dems., they probably also under estimate the extent of St. Louis corruption, which is good for 3 % statewide (in my opinion).
Talent is going to have an uphill climb, friends.
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