Today in the Polls: Kelly Ayotte, Susana Martinez Leading Strongly, Chris Dudley, Rick Scott Fighting Close Battles

Our Election Center database is building, check it out HERE.  Be sure to explore the pages for Senate, House, and Gubernatorial races.  With the Election Center active, look for updates on our predictions at the bottom of each Today in the Polls post.

Here’s a look at the latest polls from the nation’s top pollsters:

Florida Governor: Republican Rick Scott has seen his lead dwindle in most recent polls, though today’s latest Rasmussen poll has Scott at the 50% mark, with Democratic opponent Alex Sink at 47%.  The small number of undecideds left (3%) are going to play a huge part in this race, so expect both candidates to be on the attack from now until decision day.  This race as about as “toss-up” as they come.  TCJ Prediction: Scott- 51%, Sink- 49%

Oregon Governor: A Republican win in Oregon would be huge, and polling has indicated that it’s not extremely unlikely.  Polling for this race has been limited to one or two polls a month, and those have painted an increasingly unclear picture.  The latest Rasmussen shows Democrat John Kitzhaber at 48%, 2 points ahead of Republican Chris Dudley’s 46%.  Before the Rasmussen poll, SurveyUSA gave Dudley a 6 point lead, but that was in mid-September and a lot can happen in 3-4 weeks.  Ultimately, we think the Democratic nature of Oregon will overcome the anti-establishment sentament, which is great for Kitzhaber considering he was in the Governor’s mansion from ’94 to ’02.  TCJ Prediction: Kitzhaber- 52%, Dudley- 47%

New Mexico Governor: Last May, Republican Susana Martinez hit her stride, passing Democrat Diane Denish and from there has never looked back.  The latest round of polls shows Martinez enjoying her second largest lead yet, 9 points ahead of Denish and above the 50% mark.  Polling since early/mid September has shown Martinez at or above the 50 mark and gaining, with Denish hovering around 41-43.  A Republican win would be huge in this state, whose large, usually Democratic-voting Hispanic population plays a big part in elections.  Of course, Martinez’s Hispanic roots are certainly not hurting her election bid.  Martinez will win this seat, probably by a larger margin than most are expecting.  TCJ Prediction: Martinez- 55%, Denish- 44%

Updates/CHanges

New Hampshire Senate: Our last prediction gave Ayotte a 12 point advantage on election day.  The latest polls haven’t shown quite as large of a gap, but there are undecideds left who still have not made a choice.  Ayotte has this race in the bag, the question now is by how much?  Rasmussen’s latest gives puts her at 51% with a 7 point lead and 5% undecided remaining.  Undecideds seem to be breaking fairly evenly this cycle, give or take a few instances, which would put Ayotte at 54% and Democrat Paul Hodes at 46%.  With the race tightening, we’ll concede 1 of Ayotte’s points to her opponent, moving our prediction from 56% to 44% to: TCJ Prediction: Ayotte- 55%, Hodes- 45% (Ayotte -1%, Hodes +1%)

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Thanks for reading!

Rick

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