Let’s close the circle after my final wrap of the Senate polls, by looking at the races for governor. The picture is not pretty:
We’re still not playing with a full set of data. A few key races haven’t been polled in the final week, including Georgia, Oregon, and Wisconsin. Others have poll averages that may be misleading. Jim Pillen in Nebraska is looking up, pulling above 50 percent in the two polls taken since the end of September. Phil Scott in Vermont, by contrast, trailed 51 percent to 43 percent in the one poll taken in that period. The averages show both of them in something closer to a dead heat.
The gravitational pull of the bad environment for Republicans has also dragged down Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire and Ty Masterson in Kansas, both with commanding leads not long ago; Ayotte still looks safe, Masterson less so if the dismal polling for Roger Marshall reflects an accurate view of things in Kansas.
Looking at the trends since mid-September, those are among the races where the Republican position has eroded the most, along with Minnesota and Ohio. Only Maine, Alaska, Georgia, and Arizona have improved, and Georgia may be reflecting out-of-date polls, while Arizona is more of a “dead cat bounce” in a race that’s over, as the Republican base comes home to Andy Biggs too late to matter.
Our final chart of the cycle looks at how the races for governor and Senate interact. Ayotte, Masterson, Rick Jackson in Georgia, Alan Wilson in South Carolina, and Greg Abbott in Texas are still running way ahead of their Senate counterparts, while the governor candidates are a drag on Senate races in Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Alaska, and Michigan.