All of the following polls were taken before Terrible Thursday and the catastrophic debate.
A new Quinnipiac poll finds Donald Trump leads with 43% support, Joe Biden receives 37% support, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. receives 11% support, Jill Stein receives 2% support, Cornel West receives 2% support, and Chase Oliver receives 1% support.
A new New York Times/Siena poll finds Trump leading BIden nationally, 48% to 44% among likely voters.
The Washington Post's new polling averages show Donald Trump is leading in 5 of the 7 battleground states that are most likely to determine the outcome of the election.
The polls are particularly close in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, meaning the average is within a normal-sized polling error of 3.5 points and either a Trump or Biden victory is plausible.
In the other four battlegrounds — North Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia — Trump's polling leads are larger, but the race is still close.
A new Marquette Law School Poll in Wisconsin finds Joe Biden and Donald Trump are tied with 50% each in a two-candidate matchup. In a five-way contest including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Jill Stein and Cornel West, Trump receives 40%, Biden 37%, Kennedy 17% and Stein and West 3% each.
Among likely voters Trump receives 51% and Biden 49% in the two-candidate choice. In the five-candidate race Trump has 44%, Biden 41%, Kennedy 11%, and Stein and West 2% each, among likely voters.
A new Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll in Georgia finds Donald Trump leading Joe Biden by 5 points in a multi-candidate field, 43% to 38%.
NEW JERSEY GOVENROR. Former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli's allies at Kitchen Table Conservatives last week publicized a poll from KAConsulting that showed the 2021 nominee decisively defeating conservative radio host Bill Spadea 44-11 in next year's GOP primary, with none of the other candidates taking more than 3%. This survey, which comes from Kellyanne Conway's company, is the first we've seen of the 2025 GOP nomination battle.
Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer finally confirmed his interest in running for governor next year in separate interviews with Punchbowl News and the New Jersey Globe, though not everyone thinks he's just "thinking about it." Politico's Matt Friedman wrote earlier this month that Gottheimer and fellow Rep. Mikie Sherrill will each announce they're in after they're reelected in November even though they're already "all-but-running."
WISCONSIN U.S. SENATOR. Eric Hovde (R), who is running for Senate in Wisconsin, said he is familiar with Black culture because he has spent "a lot of time" in Africa and because he runs "homeless shelters for abandoned kids," the Washington Post reports.
MICHIGAN and NEVADA U.S. SENATOR. An unnamed Republican source tells the Detroit News' Melissa Nann Burke that the NRSC is reserving $10 million for TV ads in Michigan starting in August. The NRSC is backing former Rep. Mike Rogers in the Aug. 6 primary.
Meanwhil, the Nevada Independent reports that the NRSC has booked $2.1 million for TV ads from mid-August through Election Day to support Republican Sam Brown against Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen in Nevada.
These reports came a day after Politico wrote that the NRSC plans to book over $100 million across several races, including Michigan and Nevada. However, the committee didn't provide a state-by-state breakdown.
It's also possible that the totals could go up, particularly in Nevada, where the committee's reported reservation is much smaller than that of other outfits. One Nation, a dark money group tied to Senate Republican leadership, reserved $5.9 million for ads starting this summer, while Rosen and Democratic groups have booked tens of millions for this fall.
VIRGINIA U.S. SENATOR. "The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Virginia, a decorated Navy veteran, has made repeated references to becoming disabled after he was 'blown up' in combat, and has stressed that he has scars from his military service while Democratic incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine got rich from the safety of Capitol Hill," USA Today reports.
"Yet the Navy service record for Hung Cao, who won the GOP primary in June, does not show a Purple Heart award, the commendation given to troops who have suffered wounds from 'direct or indirect result of enemy action' that required medical attention. Nor does his record indicate that he received the Navy's Combat Action Ribbon, which requires that a sailor 'must have rendered satisfactory performance under enemy fire while actively participating in ground or surface combat engagement.'"
TEXAS U.S. SENATOR. UT Tyler finds Republican Sen. Ted Cruz posting a small 45-42 lead over Democrat Colin Allred, with Libertarian Ted Brown claiming another 5%. The sample favors Donald Trump 48-43 against President Joe Biden in a two-way match, and by a comparable 47-41 spread when other candidates are included.
While Democrats would love to take down Cruz, we don't have much data to indicate if he's vulnerable. The only other poll that's been released here over the last two months was an early June YouGov poll for UT Texas' flagship campus in Austin, and it showed Cruz defeating Allred 45-34.
PENNSYLVANIA U.S. SENATOR. Politico's Ally Mutnick reports that the conservative Senate Leadership Fund has reserved $24 million for TV, digital, and radio commercials to support Republican Dave McCormick's bid against Democratic incumbent Bob Casey. The month-long ad campaign is set to begin Sept. 3.
WISCONSIN STATE ASSEMBLY. The Wisconsin Elections Commission determined Thursday that an effort to recall Assembly Speaker Robin Vos failed to qualify for the ballot because the campaign didn't collect enough signatures before last month's deadline.
The decision came just two days after enemies of Vos, a Republican who refused to help Donald Trump decertify Joe Biden's victory, appeared to have gotten some welcome news following the failure of their first attempt in April. Those organizers were heartened when the commission released a report concluding that the recall committee had turned in a sufficient number of signatures, albeit just 16 more than the minimum.
A majority of WEC members, however, determined that too many signatures were collected in the two days after May 26, which was the end of a 60-day window proscribed by state law.
Organizers argued that they were entitled to those extra days because the deadline fell in the middle of Memorial Day weekend. Two Democratic commissioners agreed, but a third Democrat sided with the board's three Republicans in concluding this latest recall attempt had failed.
Vos' detractors responded by tweeting, "Now, more than ever, we must vote out Robin Vos and demand the dismantling of the Wisconsin Elections Commission!" However, they lost perhaps their best chance to vote him out when his one primary opponent, conservative writer Andrew Cegielski, dropped out in June. (Cegielski remains on the ballot.)
In the general election, the speaker will still face independent Kelly Clark, who aided this recall campaign, as well as Democrat Al Kupsik, who is a former mayor of Lake Geneva. But because Trump scored a 63-35 in 2020 in the constituency that Vos is seeking, the 33rd District, the incumbent will be the heavy favorite.
Vos' 12 years as speaker could, however, come to an end following November's election—just not in the way that the far right wants. The state approved new legislative maps to replace Republican gerrymanders that the state Supreme Court struck down late last year, and the revamped boundaries give Democrats their best chance to flip the chamber since the GOP seized power in the 2010 red wave.
Democrats aren't letting the opportunity pass them by. They're fielding candidates in 97 of the 99 seats in the Assembly, while Republicans are contesting 84 races.
MICHIGAN REDISTRICTING. Michigan's independent redistricting commission approved a new state Senate map on Wednesday to replace several Detroit-area districts that a federal court struck down in December over how mapmakers relied on race to an impermissible degree. If the court-appointed expert and the court itself sign off on the new map by the court's July 26 deadline, it will take effect after the 2024 elections since the Senate is only up in midterm years.
The new Senate map significantly increased the Black population in a few Detroit districts while making several suburban districts much whiter, but its partisan impact was just a modest boost to Republicans. According to VEST data from Dave's Redistricting App, Joe Biden won a 21-17 majority of districts, just as with the previous map where Democrats won a 20-18 majority in 2022.
One solidly blue seat did see a considerable shift, though. Biden's margin dropped from 57-42 to just 51-48 in Democratic state Sen. Rosemary Bayer's 13th District in Detroit's northwestern suburbs. However, Democratic state Sen. Veronica Klinefelt's 11th District northeast of Detroit moved left from 51-48 Biden to 53-45 Biden.
These changes are similar to those recently made to Michigan's state House map, which commissioners revised earlier this year. Because members of the lower chamber serve two-year terms, the new House boundaries will be used this fall.
MISSOURI ATTORNEY GENERAL. Appointed Attorney General Andrew Bailey's backers at Liberty and Justice PAC have publicized an internal from Public Opinion Strategies that shows him fending off Trump attorney Will Scharf 52-19 in the expensive and ugly Aug. 6 GOP primary.
This release came shortly after Scharf's backers at the hardline Club for Growth showcased their own survey giving Bailey a 37-17 advantage that pollster WPA Intelligence argued could be overcome by launching certain attacks on the incumbent. That pitch seems to have worked because the Missouri Independent's Jason Hancock reports that the Concord Fund, which is part of Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo's powerful conservative network, has contributed another $2 million to the Club's Missouri affiliate to help Scharf.
Scharf, for his part, also agrees he's behind, though not by as much as these two polls show. An early June Remington Research Group poll placed Bailey ahead 24-18; a more recent RRG survey for a different client, the political tipsheet Missouri Scout, gave the attorney general a comparable 27-23 advantage.
While Liberty and Justice PAC, which is the main pro-Bailey PAC, has considerably less money available than its rivals at the Club, it still has enough to air ads attacking Scharf over his 2007 arrest for serving alcohol to underage college students. The narrator declares that, while Bailey was leading troops in Iraq, Scharf was charged that same day at Princeton University. The ad continues, "Andrew Bailey served his country with honor. Will Scharf threatened to sue the police who charged him."
The St. Louis Post Dispatch's Kurt Erickson, who first reported the story, says that the charges against Scharf were dropped several months later and no lawsuit was filed. The candidate himself argues, "I did absolutely nothing wrong and these municipal tickets were dismissed unconditionally as soon as they made it inside the courtroom."
Bailey this week secured the endorsement of the NRA, which the Missouri Scout characterizes as one of the "big three" groups in state GOP primaries, ahead of his Aug. 6 showdown against Trump attorney Will Scharf. The other two vital organizations are the Missouri Farm Bureau, which also backs Bailey, and Missouri Right to Life, which doesn't appear to have taken sides yet.
OHIO REDISTRICTING and REFERENDUM. Supporters of a ballot initiative to end Republican gerrymandering in Ohio will reportedly turn in more than 750,000 voter signatures on Monday to qualify for November's ballot, which is well over the roughly 413,000 that are required statewide.
This measure would amend the state constitution to create an independent citizens' commission of Democratic, Republican, and independent members to draw fairer maps starting with the 2026 elections. While Ohio's flawed existing process enabled Republican lawmakers to craft new gerrymanders after the 2020 census and also left the state Supreme Court unable to stop them, this amendment would remove elected officials' control over drawing maps.
Several restrictions would limit who could serve on the commission, and members would need some cross-party support to pass new boundaries. The amendment details several criteria for drawing maps, which critically include a partisan fairness formula to ensure that each party wins seats roughly in proportion to its statewide support.
That formula calculates the median two-party vote share that each party won in statewide races over the previous six years. It then determines how many districts favor each party on a proposed map by measuring the median proportion of districts each party won in those same statewide races. The proportion of districts favoring each party must be within 3 percentage points of their statewide support if at all possible.
Had this amendment been in effect in 2022, it's unlikely that Republicans would have won at least two-thirds of seats for both the U.S. House and in each legislative chamber last cycle. Across the 2016 to 2020 statewide elections, Republicans enjoyed just a 52-48 advantage, and the formula would have required a congressional map that favored the GOP by no more than 8-7. By contrast, Republicans won a 10-5 majority in 2022 using a gerrymander designed to let them win up to 13 districts.
For new maps in 2026, the GOP's statewide advantage from 2020 to 2024 would be somewhat larger thanks to its dominance in the 2022 midterms. However, Democrats would still have a stronger chance to win more congressional seats and break the three-fifths legislative supermajorities that Republicans have held since the 2012 elections.
In order for this amendment to make the ballot, election officials must verify both that the campaign collected the minimum number of signatures statewide and also that it gathered signatures equal to 5% of votes cast in the most recent election for governor in half of Ohio's 88 counties. Those officials have until July 23 to review the signatures, and organizers would get another 10 days to obtain signatures if they fall short.
SAN FRANCISCO MAYOR. Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, a moderate organization that has spent millions to beat local progressive candidates, announced Monday that it was endorsing both former Supervisor Mark Farrell and philanthropist Daniel Lurie in the Nov. 5 instant-runoff contest—but not Mayor London Breed. Neighbors, which The San Francisco Standard characterized as "the city's most powerful political group," is funded in part by William Oberndorf, a billionaire who often contributes to Republicans.
Neighbors said it was snubbing the moderate incumbent because Breed has not "demonstrated an ability to govern with the degree of persistence and consistency necessary to solve San Francisco's problems." It also argued that Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who is the only major contender who identifies as a progressive, represented "a very real threat to the future of San Francisco," and was "likely to attract a significant amount of the vote."
Despite that apocalyptic pronouncement, however, Neighbors also released a mid-May internal from FM3 that showed Peskin taking fourth place in November. The poll found Farrell, who served as interim mayor for six months in 2018, edging out Breed 20-19 when it came to first-choice preferences, with Lurie and Peskin respectively at 17% and 12%. Another 4% went to Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, another moderate who has failed to gain traction so far, with 28% undecided.
The poll ultimately found Farrell edging out Breed 55-45 after simulating the ranked-choice process, though the memo noted that "with a sizable number of undecided voters—especially for second and third choices—that simulation is subject to significant variation." Indeed, a previously released FM3 poll conducted two weeks earlier for a different moderate organization, GrowSF, showed Breed beating Farrell 51-49 in the final round of tabulations.
No comments:
Post a Comment