WA SEN: Cantwell (D) 48%, McGavick (R) 44% (Strategic Vision)

[TheVirginian]

http://www.strategicvision.biz/political/washington_poll_072606.htm

This poll is in line with last month's Rasmussen poll, which had Cantwell at 44% and McGavick at 40%. Last month, Strategic Vision had Cantwell with a five point lead, and before that, she had an eight-to-ten point lead.

Clearly, Cantwell is in more danger now than she was six months ago.

This race has been slowly trending towards McGavick, though Cantwell has always maintained a small lead. Meanwhile, Minnesota has slowly been trending towards Klobuchar. I'm nearly to the point where I'm prepared to move Minnesota away from the "Vulnerable Democrat" category and move Washington into its place as a top-tier race.

Cantwell still faces a primary challenge from an anti-war activist, as well as a third-party challenge in the general election, both of which are expected to help McGavick.

[WI_DEM]

1. Cantwell is clearly one of our most endangered incumbents

and we need all of them to win in Nov. if we are to win the Senate.

[tritsofme]

2. Probably our only endangered incumbent in the Senate

depending on your view of Joe Lieberman I suppose.

[TheVirginian]

3. Bob Menendez of New Jersey is worse off than Cantwell.

He and Tom Kean have been trading the lead back and forth for the last four months.

[tritsofme]

4. eek, I forgot about him...

I read something though about Kean going off the deep end with some of his ads a few weeks ago though.

[longship]

5. Don't forget Mark Dayton's empty seat in MN.

That one could be a squeaker, too.

[Awsi Dooger]

6. The homeland terrorism expectation number went up

"Do you expect another terrorist attack in the United States in the next six months?"
Yes 75%
No 10%
Undecided 15%

That's the first thing I look at in all these SV polls. It was 71% in their previous Washington poll, and I expected a rise based on the Middle East.

That number can't help us in these close senate races. The key is white women returning to their pre-9/11 voting tendencies and I was counting on a big step in that regard this year, but now I'm not so sure.

Always difficult to handicap when you've got conflicting trends, and this one has many unique variables like Washington's new mail-in voting, plus the turnout level after the marathon and disputed (according to them) '04 governors race.

There's no thread here but I noticed SV also has a new poll on Florida. Davis leads Smith 40-35 in our gov primary, but Smith does slightly better in the general election matchup with Crist, down 8 points at 49-41, while Davis trails 49-39.

[Johnyawl]

7. There is a positive note to those numbers

McGavick has been campaigning full time for 5-6 months; making appearances, running newspaper and TV ads. During that same period Cantwell has been tied up in Washington, and has not run any ads until just recently. And McGavick is still behind, has been unable to pull ahead. Cantwell is definitely at risk, she needs to run a hard aggressive campaign, but if she does that she'll win. She has been stellar on the environment, and that plays well in Washington state, not only among the lefties, but with those who identify themselves as moderates and independents.

Yes, she has a single issue Green candidate to her left, who'll pull some anti-war votes from her; but there's also a Libertarian candidate to McGavicks right, and that'll pull some numbers from him. In the race in 2000 that Cantwell won by less than 2500 votes, the Libertarian drew 75,000 votes away from Gorton. Given the calculating way that Cantwell dealt with Wilson I would expect that she'll find a way to funnel some financing into the Libertarians. Which will make this a truly bizarre race: Republicans funding Greens, and Democrats funding Libertarians. Hey! We may get rid of the two party system yet!