RandySF
RandySF's JournalCA: Final Field Poll shows Democratic sweep of statewide offices.
In the closing days of an unusually lackluster election campaign, Democrat Jerry Brown appears headed for a resounding re-election victory, to what would become his fourth term as California’s Governor.
The final pre-election Field Poll completed earlier this week finds Brown enjoying a 21-point preference advantage, 54% to 33%, over his Republican opponent Neel Kashkari. Since the June open primary in which Kashkari finished second and earned the right to challenge Brown in the November general election, Brown has maintained large double-digit leads over Kashkari ranging narrowly from 16 to 21 points.
The latest poll also finds that in the six other partisan statewide election contests to be decided next week – Lt. Governor, Attorney General, State Controller, State Treasurer, Secretary of State and Insurance Commissioner – the Democratic candidate holds the lead over the Republican by margins ranging from seven to thirteen points.
The closest statewide candidate race, and the one which voters appear to be having the hardest time coming to judgment, is the non-partisan election for Superintendent of Public Instruction. The latest Field Poll finds incumbent Tom Torlakson running even with challenger Marshall Tuck. According to the poll 28% of likely voters are supporting Torlakson and 28% are backing Tuck. However, greater than four in ten likely voters (44%) were undecided.
http://www.field.com/fieldpollonline/subscribers/Rls2489.pdf
SurveyUSA poll: Marijuana, John Kitzhaber show clear leads; GMO labeling close
A new SurveyUSA poll taken for KATU finds that the marijuana legalization measure has an 11-point lead while Gov. John Kitzhaber leads by 10 points in his race against Republican Dennis Richardson....
http://www.oregonlive.com/mapes/index.ssf/2014/10/surveyusa_poll_marijuana_john.html
Jerry Brown rallies Colusa County crowd in final event
Free of the strictures of a competitive campaign – and any need to visit bigger media markets the weekend before Election Day – Gov. Jerry Brown addressed a small crowd Saturday near where his ancestors settled, ate part of a hot dog and steeped himself in what amounted to an early victory celebration.
“We haven’t had that many rallies,” Brown said, wearing hiking boots and addressing a few hundred supporters in a park. “But I don’t think we’ve needed them.”
In a meandering, nearly 25-minute-long address, the third-term governor read from a letter his paternal great-grandfather, August Schuckman, wrote in 1852 about difficulties crossing the Great Plains to California.
“The spirit of August Schuckman is still here,” Brown said. “It’s still in Williams, it’s still affecting California by all his descendants, which now number in hundreds. And I think it is well to keep in mind as we look to the future, to understand what we owe to those who’ve got us this far, and what we owe to those who are going to come after us.”
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article3514846.html#storylink=cpy
GA: Black early voting matches 2012 levels. White share down from 2010.
Updated at 6 p.m.: All but final calculations have African-American voters in Georgia providing a larger share – more than 13 percent — of early ballots in this year’s general election than they did in 2010.
At 33.1 percent of early votes cast, black balloters nearly match their turnout of 2012, when President Barack Obama was up for re-election. Black voters then cast 29.2 percent of early ballots.
White voters, on the other hand, make up a smaller share of early 2014 votes – a 7.4 percent drop – than in 2010. Ballots cast by whites make up 62 percent of the total. They were 67 percent of the early voting electorate in 2010, and comprised 60.5 percent in 2012.
The figures were provided to us by Mark Rountree and Michael Seigle of Landmark Communications, which has done the polling for Channel 2 Action News this season. The firm obtained voter data from Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s office, which identified voters by address, and matched them against previous voter lists that included racial identifications.
http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2014/11/01/african-american-share-of-early-ballots-up-10-percent-over-2010/
Growing consensus between Dems and Reps on Senate outlook.
Republicans were growing increasingly confident on Saturday that they would win the Iowa Senate race, picking up a Democratic-held seat that could ensure that they gain the majority.
Democrats were less certain Iowa was slipping from their grasp, pointing to their success in persuading voters who do not typically cast ballots in midterm years to vote early.
In conversations Saturday with officials in both parties, though, the disagreement over the outlook in Iowa was the exception, as consensus emerged about the rest of the Senate landscape.
Democratic-held seats in South Dakota, Montana and West Virginia are now expected by strategists in both parties to go to the Republicans.
Each side also believes that Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, will hang on in New Hampshire. Senator Kay Hagan of North Carolina has a slight edge, but the race has now become one of the closest in the country.
Republicans are most optimistic — and Democrats most concerned — about their chances in Colorado and Arkansas, where Democrats Mark Udall and Mark Pryor, respectively, are seeking re-election.
Both sides generally agreed that Senator Mark Begich, Democrat of Alaska, is in some danger, but polling is unpredictable enough in the sprawling state that neither party was supremely confident about the outcome.
Of the Republican-held seats, both parties think the member in most danger is Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, who is locked in a difficult race with Greg Orman, an Independent.
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2014/10/31/
More than twice as many Democrats as Republicans vote early in Maryland
More than twice as many Democrats as Republicans took advantage of early voting in Maryland’s general election, while overall turnout was up 40 percent from four years ago, the last time a governor’s race was on the ballot.
The numbers, released after the last of eight days of early voting on Thursday, provided some glimmers of hope for both the Democratic candidate, Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, and the Republican, Anne Arundel County businessman Larry Hogan.
Overall, 307,646 Marylanders cast their ballots in advance of Tuesday’s election, according to the Maryland State Board of Elections. That’s about 8.3 percent of eligible voters statewide, up from about 6.3 percent in 2010.
Democrats voting early this year outnumbered Republicans, 189,175 to 87,035. The ratio was slightly larger than the advantage that Democrats hold in party registration in the heavily Democratic state. But Republicans were slightly better represented compared to four years ago. This year, 28,328 unaffiliated voters also voted early.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/more-than-twice-as-many-democrats-as-republicans-vote-early-in-maryland/2014/10/31/b65120c2-6100-11e4-8b9e-2ccdac31a031_story.html
New Pan Atlantic poll shows Cutler’s support shifting to Michaud
A new poll in the gubernatorial race by Pan Atlantic SMS, a firm whose polls have shown stronger support for independent Eliot Cutler than most other surveys, shows Cutler about 7 percentage points down from where he was last month and most of that lost support contributing to a boost for Democratic nominee Mike Michaud.
The Cutler campaign dismissed the idea that his support is shifting to Michaud. “That is the Democrats’ narrative because their candidate has failed to get the job done against Paul LePage,” said Cutler Campaign Manager Ted O’Meara in a written statement Tuesday morning.
Including leaners, the survey of 400 Maine residents between Oct. 15 and 21 shows Republican incumbent Paul LePage with 40.3 percent support, Michaud with 39.7 percent and Cutler with 12.7 percent.
A poll conducted by Pan Atlantic in September had LePage at 39.3 percent, Michaud at 33.6 percent and Cutler at 19.5 percent. The number of survey respondents who said they were undecided was about 7.4 percent, which is about the same as the poll found last month.
http://stateandcapitol.bangordailynews.com/2014/10/28/new-pan-atlantic-poll-shows-cutlers-support-shifting-to-michaud/
Malloy Leads for Connecticut Governor
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Connecticut finds Gov. Dan Malloy (D) leads challenger Tom Foley (R) in the race for governor, 44% to 41%, with independent Joe Visconti getting 6%.
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2014/11/01/malloy_leads_for_connecticut_governor.html
GA early voting update.
Michael McDonald
?@ElectProject
GA #earlyvote update: 934K voted, Whites becoming smaller % of early vote, now at 61.8% (of those reg prior 2012) http://www.electproject.org/2014_early_vote
https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/528632606964084736
This is not a Red election. It's a Red-Blue election.
If we lose the Senate, it's because of Democrats defending red states (with the exception of Iowa). But Peters, Shaheen and even Hagan (in a purples state) are likely to win. Also look at the Gov. races. If Malloy, Quinn, Coakley, Parnell and Brownback lose, it'll because of problems unique to themselves. We are poised to win PA and ME.Crist might win in FL. Walker and Snyder are in big trouble. Blue/purple states. If this were a tidal wave, Franken would be in trouble but he's not. MD and OR would be more competitive. We're even shoring up our position in HI. So, to be honest, I don't see any tidal wave at all.
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