With five candidates running for Senate, fourteen running in the 4th Congressional District and seven in the 5th CD, we’re bound to be in for a lot of poll numbers to come from campaigns over the next nine weeks before the primary.

A few weeks ago, a 5th CD candidate came out with his own poll, from Bellwether Research showing, that Congressman Dan Burton’s re-elect numbers were low.  But when Burton was taken out of the equation, a push poll showed that none of the candidates broke 16%, while “undecided” scored a whopping 43%.  Turns out, that 43% ends up voting for Dan Burton.

Results from a poll taken January 20-21, 2010 and recently released by the Burton Campaign showed:

Congressman Burton currently leads his closest opponent by 34%, as the ballot currently stands at 43% Burton/9% Messer/8% McVey/8% McGoff/4% Murphy/2% Lyons and 26% undecided.

(Read more after the leap)

Or within the margin of error and thus effectively tied.

From The Hill:

Former Sen. Dan Coats (R) is in a statistical tie with Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D) in a hypothetical match-up in this fall’s Indiana Senate race, according to a Daily Kos poll set to be released Monday.

Coats is considered the GOP establishment’s top choice to replace Sen. Evan Bayh (D) and Ellsworth emerged as the main Democratic contender after Rep. Baron Hill (D) said he will not seek the Democratic nod on Saturday.

The Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll was sent around Sunday by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). It showed Coats leading Ellsworth 37 percent to 36 percent with 27 percent undecided among all those surveyed, but the poll has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

On the other hand, ex-Rep. John Hostettler (R), who is one of five GOPers seeking the nomination, leads Ellsworth 40 percent to 24 percent with 26 percent undecided.

The surveyed polled 600 likely voters in Indiana from Feb. 22-24. The party breakdown of the 600 likely voters is 41 percent Republican, 36 percent Democrat and 23 percent Independent.

Even though Hostettler looks more attractive than Coats in the poll, it was taken before Hill ruled himself out of the race and has a high-number of undecided voters, meaning that the results are still up in the air.

I look forward to seeing the internals of this poll when it comes out tomorrow.

My initial observation is that this poll fits into my evolving theory that Coats is weak against Ellsworth because of Coats’ moderate (some would say liberal) voting record on things like judges and gun control, and his (almost proudly-touted) Washington insider status.

Of course, at the same time, this result is at odds with a recent Rasmussen poll. It is, after all, a lefty poll. But then why would Hostettler lead? The internals should be interesting.

Alas, it was not to be. Mike Pence isn’t running, as I cynically expected. Cynicism is useful. If you’re cynical from the outset, you’re less likely to be disappointed.

However, Pence’s pass doesn’t mean that Evan Bayh is out of the woods.

Not by a long shot.

Bayh’s bad polling numbers have caught the attention of political analyst and American politics guru Michael Barone, who finds Bayh’s situation quite troubling indeed:

Sen. Bayh in danger; a look at the numbers

Pollster Scott Rasmussen has taken the first poll on the 2010 Senate race in Indiana—a race that until the last couple of weeks no one thought would be seriously contested. Rasmussen shows Democratic incumbent Evan Bayh trailing Republican Congressman Mike Pence 47%-44% and leading former Congressman John Hostettler 44%-41% and state Senator Martin Stutzman 45%-33%.

These are astounding numbers. A general rule in polling is that what an incumbent gets in a poll he gets in a general election. Everyone knows him; those not voting for him now are not likely to vote for him later. This is particularly the case with Evan Bayh, who was elected secretary of state of Indiana in 1986 at age 30, then was elected governor of Indiana in 1988 and 1992 (and saw a Democrat hold the governorship in 1996) and who was elected senator from Indiana in 1998 (when incumbent Dan Coats retired rather than face Bayh) and 2004. Bayh has to be universally known in Indiana, and over the years he has built a reputation as a moderate Democrat, which has helped him win in a state which voted Republican in every presidential election from 1968 to 2004 and which voted for Barack Obama in 2008 by the narrow margin of 50%-49%.

Moreover, Bayh’s potential opponents are not well known. Mike Pence may have been getting a fair amount of local coverage as a Republican leader in the House, but he is hardly a household name statewide. Hostettler served six terms in the House, but he is from the sparsely populated southwest corner of the state, he never spent much money on his campaigns and he lost his seat in 2006 by the unambiguous margin of 61%-39%. Stutzman is a freshman state senator.

(Read more after the leap)

You read that right. It’s not a typo.

In a new poll by SurveyUSA (which has polled the district before) has Mike Sodrel leading Baron Hill, 49% to 41%. That’s well outside the margin of error, and probably the first time that a Republican has ever led outside of the margin of error in a poll in the 9th Congressional District in perhaps half a century (assuming they even polled back when Republican Earl Wilson was winning the seat).

Sauce for the goose? The poll was commissioned by lefty blog Firedoglake.

read more

Back in late April, the Indiana Democratic Party did some polling to prove to everyone how invincible Evan Bayh really was.

Their results were thus, as quoted from the Howey Report by Frugal Hoosiers (Howey has since changed his website, so the citation link in their post no longer works):

Indiana Democratic Chairman Dan Parker also released a Hamilton Campaign poll that revealed Bayh’s favorable/unfavorable rating was 74/23 percent, including 89 percent among Democrats and 61 percent among Republicans. It also showed that 73 percent gave Bayh a positive job rating.

President Obama’s job rating was 61/36 percent and his personal rating was also 61 percent.

In November, the Indiana Democratic Party touted some new polling on Evan Bayh, which got quoted in The Fix, the Washington Post’s politics blog:

Polling conducted for the Indiana Democratic Party suggests that Sen. Evan Bayh (D) remains extremely popular in the Hoosier State despite criticism from the liberal left over his stance on health care. The poll, which was conducted in 20 competitive legislative districts across the state, showed that 63 percent of Indiana voters approved of the job Bayh is doing while 31 percent disapproved — including a solid 55 percent job approval score among critical independent voters.

Of course, I can’t help but thinking that Dan Parker’s definition of a swing district is different from the Republican definition of a swing district, particularly given Republican recruiting successes. Most of the swing districts in this cycle are going to have been held by Democrats, since they’re defending and the Republicans are clearly on offense. In other words, the swing districts aren’t going to be representative of the entire state.

(Read more after the leap)

The Environmental Defense Fund, which favors cap-and-trade legislation, commissioned a push poll in three conservative districts held by Democrats to build support for a renewed push for cap-and-trade legislation that will raise taxes on energy.

From Who Runs Gov:

It’s become a Beltway article of faith that Blue Dog and conservative Dems have to tread really carefully on health care because their vote on cap and trade earlier this year was tremendously risky in so-called “marginal” districts.

But is this really true? I’ve obtained a new poll done for the Environmental Defense Fund which found that in three conserva-Dem districts, backing cap and trade vote may not be a huge risk, after all. The poll, done by respected Dem firm Garin Hart Yang, found:

* In Blue Dog Dem Heath Shuler’s North Carolina dictrict, cap and trade is supported by 55% of voters, versus 29% opposed.

* In Blue Dog Dem Baron Hill’s Indiana district, cap and trade is supported by 45%, versus 30% opposed.

* In Dem Rep. Tom Perriello’s conservative Virginia district, cap and trade is supported by 42%, versus 25% opposed.

“We went into three districts where conventional wisdom held that Demorats took a tough vote on cap and trade,” Allan Rivlin, a partner with Garin Hart Yang, told me. “The poll shows that it didn’t hurt these members in these districts. It actually helps them. Even in districts that are represented by moderate or conservative Democrats, supporting action on climate change is the popular position to take.”

Garin Hart Yang is the same pollster that does Baron Hill’s campaign polling (or at least has in the past).

The full poll is available here (PDF warning) from Politico, which has already started to cite the poll as proof that this tax hike vote would actually be popular in these conservative (and in at least IN-9, coal-dependent) districts.

The question was one of those absurd “do you like clean air” questions that the respondent would have to think for a moment about before realizing that they were being asked about cap-and-trade:

(Read more after the leap)

Power Line:

You Can Fool 6 Percent of the People All the Time

Every once in a while you see something like this, and have reason to hope that common sense is not dead: only 6 percent of voters expect their own taxes to decline during the Obama administration. 42 percent expect their taxes to rise, while 40 percent expect little change.

Which means that when Barack Obama says that he intends to reduce taxes for 95% of Americans, almost no one believes him.

Amidst chaotic health care legislation that has seen President Obama spend much of his political capital, new NBC/WSJ and Rasmussen polls continue to show Obama’s approval numbers are tanking.  There is a five point discrepency between the two polls with NBC/WSJ having the president’s approval numbers at 53% and Rasmussen at 48%.  Check out the nifty Rasmussen graph below.

The results coming out of these and recent polls are pretty alarming for the president and Congressional Democrats

Consider the following from the polling from Rassmussen:

• Overall, 48% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance. That is the lowest level of total approval yet recorded for this President. Fifty-one percent (51%) now disapprove. A plurality of voters now believe the President views American society as unfair and discriminatory.
• Just 23% believe health care costs will go down if health care reform is passed. Most (53%) expect prices would rise and 50% expect the quality of care would decline.
• Fifty-four percent (54%) now say interest rates will be higher in a year. That’s a 20-point jump since April.
• Most voters still have an unfavorable opinion of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The good news is, is that Republicans still have a slight edge on a generic congressional ballot.  Now that’s nothing to get too excited about, but it will be interesting to see if and how those numbers continue to move up after the August recess when Congressman go back home and listen to their constituents at Town Hall meetings.

Rasmussen just came out with a poll that shows President Obama’s numbers falling below 50%.  The poll is represented in the nifty graph below.

Now, it’s not altogether strange for a president’s numbers to fall below the popular mark, but not only are his numbers falling hard, so are the numbers for his policy measures and government interventionist ways.

Fifty-three percent (53%) now oppose the Congressional health care reform package. That’s up eight points over the past month. Just 20% now see health care as the most important of the President’s priorities. Nearly twice as many, 37%, say deficit reduction is most important.

Nationwide, 72% don’t want the federal government determining what type of light bulbs they should purchase.

Thirty-one percent (31%) now say the U.S. is heading in the right direction. That’s down nine points from the 2009 peak. Republicans continue to enjoy a slight edge on the Generic Congressional Ballot.

(Emphasis mine)

With Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wanting to push back the timetable for a vote on health care reform to fall and Blue Dog Democrats in the House bucking public options and gigantic tax increases, the public is not buying the President’s blame game rhetoric while the drumbeat of “Hands off my health care!” as well as questions regarding his leadership continue to get louder.

Meet Mike Murphy. He’s a political consultant. He was a campaign strategist and pollster for Mitt Romney and John McCain. He hated the pick of Sarah Palin as vice president.

He’s now a talking head on MSNBC. He likes to write columns proclaiming doom and gloom and the end of the Republican Party unless it runs more people like John McCain. Funny how that worked out this last time, right?

He’s also an idiot.

In his latest column, Murphy singles out Indiana to prove his hypothesis of the need for more candidates like John McCain:

(Read more after the leap)

Hah:

While both the president and first lady enjoy higher favorability ratings than either of their predecessors did early in their first terms, the same cannot be said for the current vice president. Only about half of Americans (51%) say they have a favorable impression of Joe Biden — comparable to the 55% who felt favorably toward Al Gore in April 1993 and lower than the 58% favorability rating Dick Cheney received in July 2001.

Biden’s favorability has slipped 12 points since January, when 63% offered a favorable impression of him on the eve of his inauguration.

From WISH TV:

INDIANAPOLIS – A Statehouse scandal is now an issue in the race for attorney general. Democrat Linda Pence is under fire from Republicans for her role in an old case.

When State Senator Sam Smith went to court six years ago accused of tax evasion, Linda Pence was his defense attorney. Smith eventually made a plea deal and paid his back taxes, but the case is back in a campaign commercial purchased by Indiana Republicans that criticizes Pence’s choice of clients.

Both the Pence and Greg Zoeller (R) campaigns have traded attack ads. The Pence campaign said it welcomes comparisons.

“People come to Linda Pence because she’s good and she’s effective and she’s a fighter and she wins. So we’re not surprised at all that they’re gonna attack Linda’s clients. Her shoulders are broad, she can take that,” said Joel Miller of the Pence campaign.

Meantime Republicans believe Sam Smith could be a deciding factor in a close race.

(Read more after the leap)