An assortment of new polls have come out the last two days, with mixed implications.
The shocker was today’s Boston Globe poll showing Democrat Martha Coakley actually trailing Republican Charlie Baker by two points (40/38) among LVs in the MA governor’s race. The Globe had shocked Democrats by showing Coakley only up 3 points earlier this month. The numbers could reflect an overly tight LV screen: the poll also shows Obama’s approval rating under-water, which would be a bit scary in MA. Other polls are all over the place. But given Coakley’s performance in the fateful 2010 Senate special election, MA Dems are rightly nervous.
There’s another poll in MA-06, where Democratic Rep. John Tierney lost a primary, showing the guy who beat him, Seth Moulton, leading Republican John Tisei (see the previous post on gay GOPers being attacked by Christian Right) by 8 points. The same poll, BTW, has Baker beating Coakley by ten points in this district, another bad sign for the latter).
There was another straw in the wind in AR, with Rasmussen showing Mark Pryor down 47/40 to Tom Cotton; Raz had Pryor leading by one at this point last month. Earlier this week USAToday/Suffolk had Pryor up by two, but PPP had numbers very close to Rasmusson’s.
Two polls came out yesterday on the PA governor’s race, generally regarded as a runaway Democratic win. That’s what the well-regarded Franklin & Marshall survey showed, with Tom Wolf leading incumbent Tom Corbett 52/32 among LVs. But a poll by the Republican Magellan firm showed a much closer race, with Wolf up 9; that’s not, however, much different from Magellan’s take all along (they had Wolf up only 12 in July, when most polls had him up by well over 20).
Finally, there was new data out on some underpolled races. Rasmussen showed NM Republican Gov. Susana Martinez with a solid 12 point lead over Democrat Gary King. SurveyUSA polled Oregon, and found both statewide Democratic candidates in good shape, with Gov. John Kitzhaber leading Republican Dennis Richardson 50/38, and Sen. Jeff Merkley leading GOPer Monica Wehby 52/32.
