Talk Elections

Article. (http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2014/09/close-alaska-races-for-senate-governor.html)

Sullivan (R)- 43%
Begich (D)- 41%
Others- 5%

Without third parties:

Sullivan- 45%
Begich- 42%

We'll see, but Sullivan maybe running away with this. His favorables are going up rapidly, while Begich's approval is looking more and more like Obama.

Again, I don't trust Alaska polling much, but it seems like this race is really moving in Sullivan's direction now, and PPP did catch that, so this is worth something.

Also, I found it interesting that PPP polled Murkowski's approval too, even though she's not up for reelection until 2016. They seemed to note that her best path would be to run as an Independent again because her approval is positive overall but underwater with Republicans:

I like that PPP is including Internet polling, which more firms should try, but this is why I'm a bit skeptical of it: Begich leads 42/18 in the internet sample with 40% (!) not sure.

8-9 seats.

Begich isn't gonna lose obviously.

Well sh[Inks] :(

Tilt R

Cue people starting to deem PPP garbage.

By the way, clever titling there.

^
Your a broken record.

Anyway, sounds about right. Begich is a great senator but Alaska is still Ruby Red.

Alaska is "Leans Republican", no question.

How's it clever?

I appreciate the compliment, but I actually wasn't being that creative. If you click the link, PPP actually has the almost same title for their report!

I agree with the later statement

Only clever by saying "close race" instead of "Sullivan maintaining traction" or something. I'm not even mad, it's just a psychological thing I notice a lot of people do.

Er, I wasn't going for anything like that...

It really isn't that serious. When you start think things are psychological, you are really going overboard.

Shut up.

It's within 2 points dude. It is a close race.

As long as we win KS and NC and win AK or CO we should be able to hold senate as long as Orman plays ball.

But I am skeptical about this poll.

PPP is the gold standard here. You're a delusional hack. Stop posting.

Why, because the Democrat is down?

PPP (despite being hired by Democrats) has actually admitted that their polls are more Republican than the real results.

Sullivan seems to have maintained his post-primary lead.

lol k. That's not actually true though, but then again, you don't really care.

"Close race" = "Ok, so we've lost the lead in Alaska, too."

2% does indicate a close race, especially in a state like Alaska, where it isn't exactly easy to poll. The quibbling about the thread title is silly.

Given how polls in Alaska tend to overstate Democrat's chances, its safer to categorize this as a Republican pickup at this point. Begich needs to have a consistent lead of at least 6 for Dems to be in a good position and I don't really see that happening.

Begich.... could be in trouble here.

Assuming this is true, the real question is...why?

Both PPP and Ras have Sullivan up 2. Don't really see how that translates to a "lean R" race, especially considering the quality (or lack thereof) of Alaska polling.

Exactly.  If a Democrat is up, we use "Lead."  If a Republican is up, it's "Close Race." :P

Nate Silver wrote (http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/senate-update-alaska-a-frontier-for-bad-polling/) that Republicans are historically underestimated in Alaska polls by an average of 7.2%, so if that plays out this year, we could have a Lean Republican race on our hands. Nevertheless, with Alaska's polling quality so low as you mentioned, we probably won't be able to say how this race will go with any degree of confidence anyhow.

Too bad they didn't include the 2010 Senate race where the Republican was consistently overestimated.

'

Perhaps because there were 3 people, and a Rep won anyway?

And people called me crazy

There were two Republicans.

I look forward to this election cycle settling once and for all whether or not Alaska polls have a pro-incumbent or pro-Republican bias.

Yes, a three-way election seems like it wouldn't be too comparable to a two-way election. Even in that race, while Republican Miller was overestimated, Democratic nominee Scott McAdams was overestimated in some polls, namely PPP and Rasmussen (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/senate/ak/alaska_senate_miller_vs_mcadams_vs_murkowski-1700.html).

My money's on anti-incumbent bias, and that Begich and Parnell are both ahead.

Eh, Sullivan likely has the momentum now.

The only positive here for Begich is that he leads 42-36 among indies, which is most of the undecided group.

Damn.  While I like Begich, and want him to win (and still believe he has a chance) I'm thinking he probably isn't going to make it out of this one.

Same.