It seems each day brings some poll almost too good to be true for Republicans.
In Michigan:
A new independent poll has the dean of the U.S. House, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., trailing his Republican opponent, Rob Steele, by 4 percentage points.
The automated phone survey of 300 people in the 15th Congressional District shows Steele getting 43.8 percent of the vote while Dingell, a Dearborn Democrat and the longest-serving member of Congress, at 39.5 percent and undecided voters at 11 percent. The gap is within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 5.6 percentage points. The poll was conducted Monday.
Dingell’s campaign said the survey — conducted by the Rossman Group of Lansing and Team TelCom — is a Republican front and is contradicted by other polls in recent weeks.
That sample size is a bit small, but even if Steele is a few points behind that number, he’s still in really good shape for a GOP challenger against the guy who’s proven unbeatable for the past four decades or so.
In Hawaii:
The race for Hawaii governor is in a dead heat between Neil Abercrombie and Duke Aiona, according to the latest poll.
It’s 48 percent for Abercrombie, 48 percent for Aiona. It’s not a statewide sampling, but instead represents much of Oahu.
The poll was taken by Public Policy Polling over the weekend on behalf of the online political blog Daily Kos. It surveyed more that 640 voters in the First Congressional District and found the governor’s race neck and neck.
The margin of error in the poll is cited as plus or minus 3.9 percent. According to the polling organization, 43 percent of respondents identified as Democratic, 22 percent as Republican and 35 percent independent.
Obviously, that congressional district is only half the state and is the one represented by Republican Charles Djou. But Aiona wasn’t supposed to come close this year.
Of course, this morning Quinnipiac puts all three New York Democrats running statewide — Chuck Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Andrew Cuomo — up by double digits.