Projected New Senate: 50 Democrats 49 Republicans 1 tie

	Strong Dem (43)
	Weak Dem (4)
	Barely Dem (3)
	Exactly tied (1)
	Barely GOP (0)
	Weak GOP (2)
	Strong GOP (47)
	No Senate race
	Map algorithm explained

Oct. 11	New polls:	OH RI
	Pickups:	Montana Ohio Pennsylvania Rhode Island Tennessee

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News from the Votemaster

Senate Polls

It's college day today. Rhode Island College has a new poll on the Rhode Island Senate race, a must-win race for both sides. It is a bit old now and has incumbent Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) trailing challenger Sheldon Whitehouse 40% to 37%. A more recent Rasmussen poll has Whitehouse ahead by 9%.

The University of Akron just released a poll showing the two senatorial candidates there, Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH) tied at 42% each. However, their poll was conducted from Aug 20 to Sep 29. This means the data are so old as to be completely useless. Note that while this poll will go in our data base, it goes with the middle date, so it has no effect on the current projection. Readers new to the site should look at the FAQs above and the "Map algorithm explained" link above to see the rules used here. They are very precise to avoid letting bias creep in.

State	Democrat	Republican	Date	Len	Dem	GOP	Ind	Pollster
Ohio	Sherrod Brown	Mike DeWine*	Sep 29	41	42%	42%		U. of Akron
Rhode Island	Sheldon Whitehouse	Lincoln Chafee*	Oct 04	3	40%	37%		Rhode Island Coll.

House Polls

Over in the House, we have an incredible new poll today in CO-05, which surrounds Colorado Springs. This is a district that incumbent Doug Lamborn (R) took with 71% of the vote in 2004. According to Mason-Dixon, Lamborn and Democratic challenger Jay Fawcett are tied at 37% each. If this result is true, it is terrible news for the Republicans. If districts that should be landslide victories are suddenly very competitive, what is going to happen in districts that were expected to be competitive? On Monday we had a list of competitive districts; check that out.

CO-04 and CO-07 are about what was expected, with the Democrat Ed Permutter leading by 6% in CO-07 and the Republican Marilyn Musgrave leading by 10% in CO-04. But both could change in the next few weeks.

Oops. I inadvertently reversed the poll numbers in FL-09 and KS-04. I fixed that now. With polls coming in left and right, I occasionally goof. Please let me know if you find an error. I also goofed when I attributed the remark "In politics, a week is a long time" to Harold MacMillan. Harold Wilson said it,

Cong. Distr.	Democrat	Republican	Date	Len	Dem	GOP	Ind	Pollster
CO-04	Angie Paccione	Marilyn Musgrave*	Oct 07	5	36%	46%		Mason-Dixon
CO-05	Jay Fawcett	Doug Lamborn	Oct 07	5	37%	37%		Mason-Dixon
CO-07	Ed Perlmutter	Rick O'Donnell	Oct 07	5	45%	39%		Mason-Dixon

Miscellaneous

We passed 50,000 visitors for the first time in 2006 yesterday! On to 100,000. Tell your friends about the site.

Oops again. I accidentally reversed the scores for the 2004 election in AR-04, FL-23, and IL-02. Fixed now. These were just typos. The problem is that I got the data from an official site that listed the Republican first and I always list the Democrat first, so mentally I had to reverse the numbers when typing them in and I got a couple wrong. If anyone sees any more errors in the house_polls.html file, please let me know. You can be sure all these errors were honest since all three seats were won by Democrats and I listed the Republicans as winners. My apologies.

Projected New House*: 220 Democrats 213 Republicans 2 Ties

* Where no independent polls exist, the 2004 election results have been used. See complete House polls.

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-- The Votemaster