Political Wire: New Poll Suggests Democrats May Hold Senate

[flpoljunkie]

October 06, 2014

New Poll Suggests Democrats May Hold Senate

A new Democracy Corps (D) poll finds "a consistent move toward the Democrats across a broad range of indicators that suggest the Democrats are more likely to hold control of the U.S. Senate than not."

"This election is still on a knife-edge; the overall vote remains unchanged and many states are within a couple of points. But the underlying dynamics and key metrics have all moved away from the Republicans. Some of these changes are dramatic, though the context remains a battleground that Romney won by 8 points. However, Democrats are poised to hold on."

Some results from key races:

North Carolina: Kay Hagan (D) 45%, Thom Tillis (R) 41%
Iowa: Joni Ernst (R) 45%, Bruce Braley (D) 44%
Colorado: Mark Udall (D) 45%, Cory Gardner (R), 45%
Georgia: David Perdue (R) 46%, Michelle Nunn (D) 41%


http://politicalwire.com/archives/2014/10/06/new_poll_suggests_democrats_may_hold_senate.html

[merrily]

1. The ground game is everything now, esp. in purple states.

That helps the whole ticket, state and federal.

[FBaggins]

2. There's nothing new about a claim that we "may" hold the Senate

Unfortunately... there's nothing new about a party-affiliated pollster claiming that things are better than they appear either.

Some results from key races:

North Carolina: Kay Hagan (D) 45%, Thom Tillis (R) 41%
Iowa: Joni Ernst (R) 45%, Bruce Braley (D) 44%
Colorado: Mark Udall (D) 45%, Cory Gardner (R), 45%
Georgia: David Perdue (R) 46%, Michelle Nunn (D) 41%

NC was once thought (by me anyway) to be the real dividing line between holding/losing the Senate... but we've put lots of effort into supporting Hagan down here (and Tillis has helped out enormously with his missteps)... so this is no longer a belweather race. If we lose NC, then we're probably talking about a 54-46 Senate. This poll doesn't show movement for us... it's essentially where the race has been for a month or more.

Iowa also isn't much of a shift for us. Ernst has never had a large lead, but seems to be the slight favorite.

Colorado is a slight improvement over the most recent polls, but the current picture isn't an improvement from a month ago. Also... Udall is an incumbent... that 48% (even with a small lead) is troubling.

Georgia - I'm not sure why this one is on there. A five-point deficit isn't a move in our direction. That's basically where the race has been for months now. If anything, the state has been slipping farther away.

[WI_DEM]

3. That poll was conducted 9/20-9/24--after two weeks its pretty meaningless

but certainly there have been other polls out recently which suggest that Dems can hold the senate.