WV Senate Race

[jtgain]

Anyone have any thoughts on popular incumbent Democratic Governor Joe Manchin only leading GOP challenger John Raese by 4 points in the latest poll?

Could this be an unexpected GOP pickup?

[BrainGlutton]

Polls from July through September show Manchin leading consistently by a roughly constant margin. No sign of a gap closing.

No surprise, this is for Robert Byrd's seat.

[BaneSidhe]

Manchin is pretty much a shoo-in. The quicker he gets out of WV the happier I'll be, even though his replacement for the interim isn't exactly much better.

[CandidGamera]

As an aside, Manchin's ads are all about how he'll do things to help the state like Robert C Byrd, and Raese's ads are all about how Manchin will be a 'rubber stamp' for President Obama.

[jtgain]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

Polls from July through September show Manchin leading consistently by a roughly constant margin. No sign of a gap closing.

No surprise, this is for Robert Byrd's seat.

From your own link it shows:

Manchin +16, +22, +6, +5

That says to me that a gap is closing.

[Simplicio]

Originally Posted by jtgain

From your own link it shows:

Manchin +16, +22, +6, +5

That says to me that a gap is closing.

Manchin's ratings don't change though. Raese just gains about ten points in the polls after he wins the GOP primary in late August, presumably because Republican supporters of Raese's opponents weren't willing to say they'd vote for him until their guys dropped out of the race.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by jtgain

From your own link it shows:

Manchin +16, +22, +6, +5

That says to me that a gap is closing.

Allow me to clarify. The polls show Manchin's share as 51%, 54%, 48%, 50%; Raese's as 35%, 32%, 43%, 45%. The only "gap closing" is voters switching from undecided to Raese -- which is up to increasing name-recognition, I suppose; and Manchin being governor, he has no more name-recognition to gain. But he definitely is not losing any ground here.

Furthermore, three of the four polls listed being Rassmussen polls, we should probably correct by shaving about 5% off Raese's score.

[Jas09]

The point being that you can't win if your opponent is above 50%, even if you take all of the undecideds. Add in Rasmussen's house lean, and the low level of Undecided at this point (3%), and I'll go with Nate Silver's assessment of this race: 90% chance that Manchin wins and holds the seat for the Dems.

Here's his assessment: http://elections.nytimes.com/2010/fo.../west-virginia

[Ravenman]

I do think that it is interesting that Manchin, whose approval ratings are consistently quite high, isn't running away with this race.

Raese is not a good candidate. When he ran against Byrd a few years back, he was embarrassed by the fact that his wife claims a homestead exemption for a multi-million dollar house in Palm Beach, Fla, while he says he spends all his time in West Virginia. Yeah, right.

Manchin will win the race, but he should win it by 30 plus points.

[jtgain]

http://elections.nytimes.com/2010/fo.../west-virginia

Latest poll from PPP shows Raese up 3. Five Thirty Eight now projecting only a 72% chance of a Manchin win.

Manchin shouldn't be measuring the drapes for his Senate office just yet.

btw...what is this PPP group?

[jtgain]

Originally Posted by Ravenman

Raese is not a good candidate. When he ran against Byrd a few years back, he was embarrassed by the fact that his wife claims a homestead exemption for a multi-million dollar house in Palm Beach, Fla, while he says he spends all his time in West Virginia. Yeah, right.

I don't know what you mean by "Yeah, right." Raese certainly spends all of his time in WV. He is the CEO of many large (by WV standards) companies and he's seen around town all of the time.

Sure, it was embarrassing, but I'm sure his wife claimed homestead in Florida for tax purposes (both income and property tax). His campaign against Byrd was poor, but in fairness, Byrd is a legend in WV and I don't think that Jesus Christ himself could have won.

In 1984, Raese almost beat current Sen. Jay Rockefeller (who was then Gov.) by losing only 52-48. Four years later he ran against sitting icon of WV Arch Moore in the GOP primary (again losing 52-48).

Raese runs good campaigns because he is personally wealthy and can get his message out. If I had to predict right now, I would put the 52-48 loss on his back once again. But he has a chance. This "rubber stamp" message is sticking in a state where Obama only has a 30% approval rating.

[jtgain]

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ...ecial_election

Raese up 6 in the latest Rasmussen poll. Anyone want to back off their statements?