Thanks for the info. I wasn’t aware that the Dems were realistically hoping to win that Montana seat. Yeah, that’s looking like a nail-biter, and might be an interesting test of whether we eventually look back on the “Harris bounce” as a long-momentum, broad-impact trend, or more of a short-term, moderate-impact regression to the basically-fifty-fifty partisan mean (nationally).
Here are five polls (June-August) for that race. No discernible trend at this time – just a pretty consistent razor-thin lead (on average) for the Republican.
Yep. Since the start of the cycle Democrats’ Senate majority has depended on holding seats in the ruby red states of WV, OH, and MT or picking up some “big reach” races in TX and Fl. With WV off the table, they need the White House AND no more net loses to be able to control the Senate (due to the VP’s tie breaker).
Another seat the Democrats have been worried about is in Nevada. The good news is, Jacky Rosen is polling okay – up 3 in a Rasmussen poll a few weeks ago – but it will probably be close.
In case they lose Montana, is there hope for a Democratic pickup somewhere else (to balance a loss in West Virginia)? This CNN article only mentions one: Texas! That sounds nuts, but Allrud polled only 3 points behind Ted Cruz in a U. of Houston-conducted poll a month ago. Anyone know what the “vibes” are down in Texas now?
So not much new polling since Harris has exploded out of the blocks?
It seems like Harris has created a four to five point swing over Biden’s position. He had been polling a bit below multiple Senate candidates. How much coattails effect do you expect to realistically see from her surge on these races?
My WAG is that it is enough to pull the toss ups of OH, and AZ over the line and maybe MT. The lean blues stay. FL and TX will stay out of reach.
Correcting myself: Allred.
If this guy has a 25% or better chance of beating that putz Cruz, let me know, 'cause then I’ll contribute a little to his campaign.
Texan here. My own sense is that Allred has done what he needs to have a “plausible” shot at winning. Not likely, or even money. But plausible. Good bio, his fundraising is good, he has the party unified behind him.
But the problem with being “only” 3% behind in Texas is that could mean needing to persuade an additional half a million voters to support you. That’s a big haul. Realistically, he’s going to need some help (like Harris performing unexpectedly well in Texas) to make it happen.
Biden’s polling drop never seemed to affect the senate races much. One of the concerns with Biden was that he was polling much worse than senators in swing state. Kamala’s numbers are more in line with democratic senators, but it doesn’t seem like she has caused the senate polling to move either.
Well that’s the question. I don’t think we have enough new polling to say yet but I do think (going into cycling metaphor now) that Biden was some degree of a headwind and that Harris will be some degree of tailwind.
Will Team Harris engage in states like Texas where they have very very little chance of winning, just in order to help the down ballot races, like Allred?
Trump and Sheehy rally tomorrow and the town is awash in merch vendors. Very disheartening. You would hope that a state that elected Bullock and Tester multiple times and has had a large influx from CA and CO (although maybe the more conservative ones) wouldn’t fall under the thrall of the orange one.
Yes…but tend to be pro-Republican shitty, which gives me hope that Allred is doing even better than 3 points behind. (Or, maybe it’s a nefarious ploy to sucker Dems into overspending for a hopeless cause.)
I meant that maybe, just this time, Rasmussen was intentionally reporting a better result for the Democratic candidate than their data actually showed, for the reason I suggested.
In the new NYT Siena poll that has Harris up 4 in a two way and 7 with RFK in WI Baldwin is up by 7. Just one poll but still nice to see a rise with Harris as a tailwind. (Gift link in the Harris campaign thread.)
Which is interesting as the poll also has Harris only up by one in MI with RFK included as a choice. I wonder why the fairly big positive move in their data for WI and not for MI?
But in any case much more lockstep of presidential and Senate selections.
Here in Wisconsin, two anti-Baldwin ads are pissing me off. One blames her because some guy died of a fentanyl overdose. The other blames her because some other guy was crashed into by an undocumented immigrant.
The first has nothing to do with anything. The second doesn’t either, but even worse, crime among all immigrants is LOWER than among native-born.
Just now there was a THIRD anti-Baldwin ad, this one blaming her for inflation one to three years ago. Again, she’s not responsible…but at least there’s a tiny kernel of fact involved (to the limited extent one country’s legislature helps shape policy to deal with the rebound effect of an unprecedented global pandemic).
The National Republican Senatorial Committee has canceled $700,000 in ad reservations in the Ohio Senate race, having already taken a similar approach in Montana. Obviously, they’re not giving up on these races – they’re key to a Republican majority – but they seem to be shifting to relying more on affiliated PACs to pick up the difference. They did something similar last cycle but that was due to massive budget shortfalls at the NRSC – I hadn’t heard they were having similar issues this cycle. Interesting.