Daily Kos Elections Senate Forecast: A bevy of new polls shores up Bill Nelson's odds
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Florida was already the most heavily polled Senate race of the cycle even before this week (its main competition is Texas, which makes sense, since those are the two most-populous states with competitive races this year). But Sunday and Monday were a veritabDaily Kos Elections Senate Forecast: A bevy of new polls shores up Bill Nelson's odds
Florida was already the most heavily polled Senate race of the cycle even before this week (its main competition is Texas, which makes sense, since those are the two most-populous states with competitive races this year). But Sunday and Monday were a veritable bonanza of new Sunshine State polls, and the news was (mostly) good for Democratic incumbent Ben Nelson. Things started off with a poll released on Sunday by SRSS for CNN, which had Nelson leading Republican Rick Scott 50-45. (If that name seems unfamiliar, they’re CNN’s new pollster starting this year. CNN’s pollster for many years was ORC, whom CNN apparently let go because of their years of consistent pro-Sauron bias.) “Wait a minute, that can’t be right,” said the pundits; this was a race that’s always been close and was, in their minds, always going to be close, so a 5-point lead for Nelson wouldn’t do. (Never mind the general tendency that undecided voters usually break against the party in power in the closing weeks of a midterm election.) But then on Monday morning, Quinnipiac came out with a poll giving Nelson a 52-46 lead, seeming to confirm CNN’s result. By mid-day Monday, Scott seemed to realize he had a potential perception problem, that the media narrative might suddenly switch over to the possibility that the race was slipping away from him. He had an ace up his sleeve: he rolled out an internal poll taken for his campaign, by Republican pollster OnMessage, that had him leading Nelson 51-46. (With no mention of the fact that field dates … October 14th through 18th … mostly predated the Quinnipiac poll, putting it somewhat closer to the period immediately after the Kavanaugh confirmation when, in retrospect, Republican poll response rates seemed to spike.) In a glorious moment of karmic retribution, though, at the end of the day on Monday, SurveyUSA on behalf of a local TV channel, then whipped out one final poll. This one gave Nelson his biggest lead of any poll of the race taken since June, putting him ahead of Scott 49-41. Read more