Here We Go Again

I have to issue an apology to our readers.  When I posted the details underlying the Senate scroeboard on the left sidebar four weeks ago, I had thought that I'd slip the ongoing changes to particular races in regular posts.  Which is another way of admitting that I hadn't thought it THROUGH, as they's no way to predict which races, or if, I'll be posting on from day to day.  Doing something like this random and piecemeal is tantamount to not doing it at all.  So, henceforth, I'll post an update weekly, right up to Election Day eve.

After all, it's only fair.

Which leads to the inevitable irony that, outside of Delaware, there hasn't been much of a change overall.

SAFE REPUBLICAN (GOP +10 or more)

ALABAMA: SHELBY 58%, Barnes 30% (hold)

ALASKA: Miller 42%, MURKOWSKI 27%, McAdams 25% (hold)

ARIZONA: McCAIN 55%, Glassman 34 (hold)

ARKANSAS; Boozman 55%, LINCOLN 37% (pickup)

FLORIDA: Rubio 41%, Crist 29%, Meek 22% (hold)

GEORGIA: ISAKSON 52%, Thurmond 35% (hold)

IDAHO: CRAPO 63%, Sullivan 24% (hold)

INDIANA: Coats 50%, Ellsworth 34% (pickup)

IOWA: GRASSLEY 55%, Conlin 37% (hold)

KANSAS: Moran 66%, Johnston 24% (hold)

LOUISIANA: VITTER 52%, Meloncon 34% (hold)

NORTH DAKOTA: Hoeven 68%, Potter 25% (pickup)

OKLAHOMA: COBURN 67%, Rogers 24% (hold)

SOUTH CAROLINA: DeMINT 63%, Greene 19% (hold)

UTAH: Lee 58%, Granato 28% (hold)

WISCONSIN: Johnson 54%, FEINGOLD 42% (pickup)

LIKELY REPUBLICAN (GOP +5-10)

KENTUCKY: Paul 49%, Conway 43% (hold)

MISSOURI: Blunt 52%, Carnahan 44% (hold)

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Ayotte 51%, Hodes 44% (hold)

NORTH CAROLINA: BURR 49%, Marshall 40% (hold)

OHIO: Portman 51%, Fisher 42% (hold)

PENNSYLVANIA: Toomey 49%, Sestak 41% (pickup)

LEANS REPUBLICAN (GOP +0-5)

ILLINOIS: Kirk 42%, Giannoulias 40% (pickup)

WEST VIRGINIA: Raese 48%, Manchin 46%, (pickup)

LEANS DEMOCRAT (Donks +0-5)

CALIFORNIA: BOXER 46%, Fiorina 43% (hold)

CONNECTICUT: Blumenthal 50%, McMahon 45% (hold)

NEVADA: REID 46%, Angle 45% (hold)

WASHINGTON: MURRAY 49%, Rossi 48%, (hold)

LIKELY DEMOCRAT (Donks +5-9)

NEW YORK: GILLIBRAND 47%, DeGuardi 42% (hold)

SAFE DEMOCRAT (Donks +10 or more)

DELAWARE: Coons 54%, O'Donnell 41% (hold)

HAWAII: INOUYE (hold)

MARYLAND: MIKULSKI 54%, Wargotz 38% (hold)

NEW YORK: SCHUMER 56%, Townsend 35% (hold)

OREGON: WYDEN 54%, Huffman 37% (hold)

Rand Paul, Roy Blunt, Kelly Ayotte, and Richard Burr have tightened a little from "Safe GOP" to "Likely GOP".  But Kirsten "Hot Bod" Gillibrand has slipped similarly on the other side, while "Hanoi Dick" Blumenthal is drowning in his own fibrications, Joe Manchin is succumbing to his own gubernatorial popularity, and Fussy Russy Feingold has fallen off the face of the planet.

The bottom line, though, is unchanged from four weeks ago: an eight seat Republican pickup, and the Senate remaining, narrowly, in Donk hands.

What is noteworthy today, and dismayingly so, is the semi-dramatic collapse of GOP prospects in the House:

Republican candidates now hold a three-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, October 3, 2010. This is the smallest gap between parties in roughly a year.

Forty-five percent (45%) of respondents say they would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate, while 42% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. This is the first time during 2010 that the GOP edge has fallen below five points.

Maybe that should have been "dramatic semi-collapse," as my statistical formula translates that margin to a forty-four seat GOP gain, still enough to win them the House majority in the 112th Congress.  But it's a far cry from the sixty-seven seat maximum (corresponding to a twelve-point generic ballot lead) they've attained on two occasions this year.

The follow-up question is obvious - what could account for a nine-point plunge in the past two weeks, or is this just an outlier (even Rasmussen coughs up a clunker once in a while, right?)?  You might conclude that it's adverse public reaction to the Republican "Pledge to America," except that that has polled pretty well.  One might speculate that it's the old Obama magic coming back, were it not for the utter absence, down to the quantum level, of any evidence for it.

Could it be that.....ObamaCare is becoming (gulp!) popular after all?:

The number of voters who favor repeal of the health care law has fallen to its lowest level since the bill was passed by Congress in late March.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows that 50% still favor repeal of the bill, including 41% who Strongly Favor repeal.

Forty-four percent (44%) now oppose repeal of the law, with 34% who Strongly Oppose repeal.

Awright, maybe I'm overselling the panic angle again.  But the margin in favor of repeal was +22 just two weeks ago, and +16 last week.  And the bigger gulp?  The movement is primarily amongst independents.  Which makes no sense because ObamaCare was a bigger factor in driving independents away from the Democrats than even the crappy Obamaconomy.  Every O-Care effect since its ram-down six months ago has vindicated every objection and fulfilled every prediction raised by its opponents.  Why, with "We told you sos!" rattling the rafters across the blighted plain, would there be a sudden stampede away from repeal now?

The only thing I can think of is that it's beginning to look like repeal & replace might actually happen, and indies, being notorious pussies, are getting cold feet.  And if that's the case, I don't know what the Republicans can do about it - except to cry out, "Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope!"

Obi-Wan: ...

I thought things were finally starting to make sense when I saw the bad news in the Boxer and Rand Paul polls, Boxer going up 8 and Rand Paul’s lead shrinking to 2.

Jim: That made sense to you?

Obi-Wan: I was waiting for the oscillation. Polling trajectories are like the Dow – nothing linear. We go up. We go down. The oscillations have to happen. So some downside, some voter pullback, some temporary buyer remorse makes you feel at home, you think you know what’s happening.

I mean, the Senate numbers aren’t supposed to keep breaking towards the GOP. We’re not even out of September. And Ohio, Pennsylvania and even Wisconsin look like they are gone for the Democrats? And Washington, West Virginia and Connecticut are already toss-ups? In a normal wave year, that could happen, but you wouldn’t see it for a while. Not till mid or late October.

So I was thinking all the trajectories are just advanced this year and so those polls were possible – it would make sense to see some of the general pullback that in an ordinary year would happen closer to the election.

Better for the tightening, in other words, to happen now while there's still time for a counter-oscillation, than right before Election Day, when it could be more effectively spun as an emerging Republican meltdown.

Assuming that this oscillation DOES confirm the existing trend.  Assuming it's an oscillation at all, and not a new trend.  From the numbers I've been tracking since March, the latter has to be considered, at least for now, to be a legitimate, and terrifying, possibility.

UPDATE: OTOH, this, too, has happened before.