Also in today’s Jolt, a quick update on some key midterm races . . .
At least the polls are coming rapidly now, instead of the one-a-month schedule we endured this summer.
A slew of polls hit the public late Wednesday.
Kansas: A bit of relief for Republicans: A Fox News poll finds incumbent Senator Pat Roberts at 40 percent, and “Independent”-who’s-really-a-Democrat Greg Orman at 38 percent. As a couple of analysts have noted, it’s Kansas, and while Roberts survived a brutal primary, Kansas voters are not in the habit of tossing out Republicans in favor of options to the left. Republicans ought to keep this one on the radar screen, but a decent get-out-the-vote effort from the Kansas GOP should keep this one safe. Check back in early October.
Louisiana: Fox News puts Landrieu at 31 percent in the open primary, 38 percent when head-to-head with Republican Bill Cassidy. This is the worst poll for Landrieu in a while, but it’s not that much worse; she’s consistently been on course for a runoff and then trailed the head-to-head matchups for a runoff. Of course, national Democrats will spend every last dime they have to save her in a runoff.
Colorado Senate: Right after NRO posts my lengthy piece on how Cory Gardner still has a shot for a narrow win in this state, USA Today/Suffolk drops a poll showing Gardner ahead by 1. The guy needs money, he needs the outside conservative groups to come in and blast the airwaves, he needs to keep targeting those casual voters who are sour on Obama and the direction of the country, and he needs to chip a few percentage points off incumbent Democrat Mark Udall’s numbers among rural Democratic voters.
Of course, this morning Quinnipiac blew up the conventional wisdom on this race by showing a big Gardner lead.
Regarding the Gardner/Tillis strategy, one reader responded, “This mining for votes is a timid strategy that Karl Rove used to eke out two extremely narrow victories for a dismally poor politician. . . . Try to win big, try to win over large swaths of voters to your side. Talk about Obamacare, the IRS scandal, Benghazi. Call your opponents out on these issues. Make them answer for their pro-abortion extremism rather than cowering in fear lest you have to talk about the issue at all.”
I’d really like to live in a world where a Republican candidate can win big in a state like Colorado by talking about “Obamacare, the IRS scandal, Benghazi, and pro-abortion extremism.” But I’m about 99 percent convinced we don’t live in that world. The Coloradans who care about Obamacare, the IRS scandal, Benghazi and pro-abortion extremism are already voting for Gardner. We have yet to find a surefire way to get the low-information and low-interest voters to care about these sorts of issues; it’s not merely a matter of getting conservatives and GOP candidates to talk about these issues more.
Colorado Governor: Take your pick. Either incumbent Democrat John Hickenlooper is ahead by 2, or he’s trailing Republican Bob Beauprez by 10. For what it’s worth, the poll with Beauprez ahead big has a much bigger sample. Either way, Hickenlooper’s got good reason to work like he’s trailing.
Wisconsin Governor: Rasmussen puts Scott Walker up 2, Marquette puts him up 3. As ominous as that sounds, remember that this is a state Walker won 52–46 in 2010. Ron Johnson won the Senate race that year with 51.9 percent. A Republican candidate is going to have a hard ceiling of about 52–53 percent here. Yes, Walker won the recall election by a bigger margin, but he enjoyed the benefit of some voters who opposed the concept of the recall election and voted “no” on that basis — a factor not around in this routine election year.
Florida Governor: Survey USA puts incumbent Republican Rick Scott ahead of Charlie Crist, 44 percent to 39 percent. I feel like the national coverage of that race hasn’t really noted how consistently Scott has been ahead — usually by a small margin, but ahead nonetheless: