Yesterday's Polls Today

Not sure what it refers to, but it looks good

The NY Times/Siena poll showed good news for one of the Blue America candidates. They had Katie Porter with a substantial lead over Trump rubber stamp Mimi Walters, 48% to 43%. Unfortunately, the Times/Siena poll is the least credible polling operation I've seen since Rasumussen and their data is virtually worthless. Still... the good news is that Porter is gaining ground on Walters. In fact, the FiveThirtyEight forecaster shows her with a 69.7% chance to win as opposed to Walters' 30.3% chance. You can support Katie Porter's grassroots efforts here-- as Ryan's toxic SuperPAC continues to smear her with tons of Adelson money.

PPP polled a couple of Texas congressional districts (TX-07, where Trump's net approval is minus 3, and TX-32, where Trump's net approval is down a stupendous minus 10) and found Colin Allred (D) leading Rep. Peter Sessions in the North Dallas area 47-42%, and Lizzie Fletcher (D) leading Rep. John Culberson in the west Houston area 47-45%.

Yesterday's most important and biggest polling dump came from Ipsos via Reuters. Michigan, for example, looks so good at the top of the ticket (governor and Senate) that the Democrats are talking about seriously putting more congressional seats into play. Democratic incumbent Senato Debbie Stabenow is leading Republican challenger John James by 20 points (which is not unexpected), while the open gubernatorial chair was expected to be closer than how its turning out. Gretchen Whitmer (D) is rolling over Trumpist state Attorney General Bill Schuette by 13 points.

Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have similar situations, while Ohio, which is more Republican-oriented, still shows Sherrod Brown way ahead (11 points) of self-funding multimillionaire Jim Renacci and the gubernatorial race a dead heat between Richard Cordray (D) and Mike DeWine (R). Brown has raised $23,165,903 while Renacci has struggled raising anything. He wrote himself a check for $4,000,000 to bring his total to just $6,190,352. The Republican Party has pretty much given up on him and there is no outside IE money coming in on his behalf. McConnell's SuperPAC, for example, spent $14,400 and the NRSC spent zero.

In Pennsylvania, incumbent Governor Tom Wolf (D) has a 17 point lead over Republican Scott Wagner and incumbent Democratic Senator Bob Casey is leading GOP Rep. Lou Barletta (another Trumpist) by a hefty 16 points. Again, the finances are very bad for the GOP. Casey has raised $18,280,829 to Barletta's $4,044,469 and there is no significant outside money in the race, indicating, again, that the GOP has given up on Barletta. The NRSC and McConnell's SuperPAC combined have spent a grand total of ZERO in Pennsylvania. This is going to be very good down-ticket of course and, in fact, another poll released yesterday (just NYTimes/Siena, unfortunately) shows Democrat Susan Wild leading Marty Nothstein (R) 50-42% in the open 7th district.

Wisconsin looks good too. Governor Scott Walker trails Democratic state schools superintendent Tony Evers by 7 points and Senate incumbent Tammy Baldwin (D) leads Republican Leah Vukmir by a healthy 52% to 39%. Baldwin has raised $22,616,357 to Vukmir's $2,002,657. So far Republican PACs have ignored Vukmir's plight and are not spending in the state. The other day Baldwin was down in WI-01 campaigning with Randy Bryce in Paul Ryan's old congressional district, where the Republicans have already poured in $1.8 million-- in a vicious personal smear campaign against Bryce, totally unanswered by the DCCC, which has never liked his independence or the fact that he's a working class guy who doesn't wear suits and had the temerity to show up at the DCCC building in work boots, frightening Dan Sena and Ben Ray Lujan, and has a grassroots following suspicious of the DCCC. (Please consider helping Randy keep up here.)

Among other Ipsos findings, polling in Indiana shows Senator Joe Donnelly (D) slightly ahead of Trumpist Mike Braun, 48% to 43% in a very red state. Donnelly has raised $11,495,629 to Braun's $8,258,437, most of which was used up in a vicious, expensive primary. As of the June 30 FEC reporting deadline, Donnelly had $6,391,931 on hand to Braun's $1,071,454. It's worth noting that Braun wrote himself several checks amounting to $6,241,377, but it is unclear if he will continue spending his own money, on a campaign that has not caught fire, at that rate now. Outside spending is intense. The DSCC has already spent $1,508,227, Schumer's PAC kicked in $9,057,627 and two other Democratic Party PACs have spent $1,937,089 and $1,913,433. McConnell's PAC has thrown in $3,937,662 but the NRSC has only put in $801,863 so far.

Ipsos also polled Arizona, where Blue Dog congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema leads Republican congresswoman Martha McSally 47-44% in a pure lesser-of-two-evils race. As of the August 8th FEC reporting deadline, Sinema had $2,468,252 on hand to McSally's $1,906,974. Outside spending dwarfs candidate spending. The Republicans have already spent $5,090,954 attacking Sinema (calling her a liberal, despite a voting record that shows she's nearly as conservative as McSally) and the DSCC has spent $418,499 while 3 other Democratic PACs have come after McSally with $2,397,413, $1,727,286 and $1,090,947 (Planned Parenthood).

The Ipsos polling shows Beto O'Rourke (D) leading Ted Cruz (R) in Texas within the margin of error-- 47% to 45% and Nevada's Republican Senate incumbent Dean Heller holding on against mulltimillionaire conservative Democrat Jack Rosen with 46% to her 43% (also within the margin of error. Rosen has refused to put any of her own substantial fortune into the race and Heller has outraised her $10,677,374 to $9,238,490. He has $5,874,814 left and she still has $3,828,593. Outside spending is gargantuan-- $10,093,116 attacking Heller and $5,423,033 attacking Rosen. The open seat Nevada gubernatorial race is also within the margin of error, Laxalt 43% and Sisolak 40%.

Other polls from yesterday includes one the L.A. Times released by USC that shows Democrats leading Republicans in a generic ballot test, 55% to 41%-- with likely voters disapproving of Trump’s overall performance in office by 57% to 39%. And then there was a late afternoon Quinnipiac poll of Florida, with really good news: as neo-fascist Ron DeSantis continues to fall apart, Andrew Gillum now leads him 54% to 45% among likely voters. How's that for some good tidings from the Sunshine State? Gillum continues to blanket the TV airwaves with ads but the more people see them, the more they dislike him.

And just for the fun of it, let me end today with a brief look at VA-07, the district where Tea Party extremist Dave Brat beat Eric Cantor. It looks like a former spy and current Blue Dog, Abigail Spanberger, could beat him. It's a district with a PVI of R+6, where Obama lost both times and where Trump beat Hillary 50.5% to 44.0%. Monmouth's poll shows Spanberger beating Brat 47-42% among registered voters who have voted at least once since 2010. Deep dive:

Spanberger holds a sizable advantage in the Richmond suburbs of Henrico County (58% to 30% for Brat) and Chesterfield County (50% to 35%)-- areas that supported Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 after voting for Mitt Romney in 2012. Brat holds a 57% to 35% lead over Spanberger in the remaining part of the district. This area, which runs from Culpeper to Nottoway County, actually gave Donald Trump a bigger margin of support in 2016 than it did for Romney four years earlier. Overall, voters in Virginia’s 7th district supported Romney for president by 11 points in 2012 and Trump by just over 6 points in 2016. Brat won re-election to his House seat by 15 points two years ago.

“This is a tale of two districts. The Richmond suburbs that backed Clinton in 2016 support Spanberger while the Trump strongholds are firmly behind Brat. The reason this race is so close right now is because there are more voters in the suburban areas,” said Murray.

Brat holds a very large lead over Spanberger among white voters without a college degree (61% to 31%). This is offset by Spanberger’s advantage among college educated white voters (52% to 42%) and non-white voters regardless of education (68% to 9%). Just over half of all voters (56%) have a lot of interest in the election, which includes 63% of Spanberger supporters and 62% of Brat supporters.

The district is currently divided on which party they want in charge of Congress, with 39% of VA-07 voters saying they prefer to see GOP control and 37% saying they want the Democrats to take over. Another 20% say that party control of Congress does not matter to them. Spanberger does better than Brat in winning over partisan converts.  The poll finds that 83% of self-identified Republicans support Brat, but 13% say they will cross party lines to vote for Spanberger. The Democratic candidate, on the other hand, holds onto 91% of her fellow partisans while losing none to Brat.  Independent voters are divided at 45% for Spanberger and 36% for Brat.

“Some Republican voters who are lukewarm on Brat feel comfortable enough with Spanberger to give her their support, at least for now,” said Murray.

Spanberger, a former CIA officer, gets a positive rating of 43% favorable and 19% unfavorable from VA-07 voters, with 39% having no opinion. Views of Brat are more mixed at 35% favorable and 27% unfavorable, with 37% having no opinion. The incumbent entered Congress after upsetting former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the 2014 Republican primary.

Overall, 47% of VA-07 voters approve of the job Trump is doing as president while a similar 46% disapprove, although those who strongly disapprove (40%) slightly outnumber those who strongly approve (33%). The poll finds that 61% of potential voters say it is very important for them to cast a vote for Congress that shows how they feel about the president-- with Trump opponents (70%) being somewhat more likely than Trump supporters (64%) to feel this way.

Currently, 27% of voters say Brat has been too supportive of the president, while 39% say he has offered the right amount of support and 8% say he has not been supportive enough. Another 26% have no opinion. As a point of comparison, a similar number of voters (25%) worry that Spanberger will be too supportive of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi if she is elected to Congress, while 40% say she will offer the right amount of support and 9% say she will offer too little support. Another 26% have no opinion.

When asked to choose the top issue in their vote for Congress from a list of six policy areas, 30% of VA-07 voters pick health care. This is followed by immigration (17%), gun control (13%), tax policy (13%), job creation (12%), and abortion (7%).  Voters are divided on whether they approve (42%) or disapprove (39%) of the tax reform plan passed by Congress last year.

Spanberger has a slight advantage on handling voters’ top concern of health care, with 37% saying they trust the Democrat more to keep health care affordable compared to 32% who say they trust Brat more on this issue. Another 18% say they trust both candidates equally. On handling the issue of illegal immigration, 36% say they trust Brat more, 34% say they trust Spanberger more, and 18% say they trust both candidates equally.

Going Down by Nancy Ohanian