Projected New Senate: 48 Democrats 51 Republicans 1 tie

	Strong Dem (46)
	Weak Dem (1)
	Barely Dem (1)
	Exactly tied (1)
	Barely GOP (3)
	Weak GOP (2)
	Strong GOP (46)
	No Senate race
	Map algorithm explained

Oct. 29	New polls:	FL MD NJ
	Pickups:	Montana Ohio Pennsylvania Rhode Island

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News from the Votemaster

Poll of the Day

This question is about your "normal" political identification, rather than who you will vote for Nov. 7. I know there are many Republicans who will vote Democratic this time because they feel the administration has abandoned so many core Republican principles like balanced budgets and keeping government out of people's private lives. Such people should still vote "Republican" in today's poll. Needless to say, while this poll is very precise (large sample, margin of error less than 1%), it is not at all accurate, since it only samples readers of this site, which is hardly a random sample of the population. If nothing else, these daily polls hammer home the difference between precision and accuracy. The former has to do with error introduced by the small sample; the latter has to do with whether the poll actually measures the underlying attitude the poll is trying to get at in the entire target population.

Senate Polls

The NRSC is spending $5 million on the New Jersey Senate race and it is beginning to have an effect. A new Rasmussen poll shows state senator Tom Kean, Jr. (R) leading incumbent Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) 43% to 41%. If Kean can pull this off, he may well be the only Republican to unseat a sitting Democratic member of Congress. But this race is far from over. It is probably going to be very close. What is surprising, though, is how badly Menendez is doing in such a blue state as New Jersey. The map shows New Jersey as a tie because that is the average of all (five) polls in the past week.

Despite some recent noise about the Maryland Senate race being close, a new Washington Post poll puts Rep. Ben Cardin (D) solidly ahead of Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (R), 54% to 43%.

State	Democrat	Republican	Date	Len	Dem	GOP	Ind	Pollster
Florida	Bill Nelson*	Katherine Harris	Oct 25	4	56%	30%		St Petersburg Times
Maryland	Ben Cardin	Michael Steele	Oct 26	5	54%	43%		Washington Post
New Jersey	Bob Menendez*	Tom Kean, Jr.	Oct 26	1	41%	43%		Rasmussen

House Polls

No new House polls today.

Politics

The Washington Post has a fascinating story on two of most powerful men in politics--John Lapp (35) and Carl Forti (34). They are the guys who get to spend the massive DCCC and NRCC ad budgets. The factors they consider are not always obvious to outsiders. For example, Lapp is spending heavily to attack Rep. Cathy McMorris (R-WA) in WA-05, a safe Republican district, but not spending to attack Jean Schmidt (R-OH) in OH-02 , who is in a very close race. Why? Because a week of TV time is cheap in Spokane but expensive in Cincinnati.

As usual on Sundays, there is a new cartoon on the political humor page.

Projected New House*: 226 Democrats 207 Republicans 2 Ties

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

Dem pickups: AZ-08 FL-13 FL-16 IA-02 IN-02 IN-08 IN-09 KY-03 NC-08 NC-11 NH-02 NM-01 NY-19 NY-24 NY-25 NY-29 OH-15 OH-18 PA-06 PA-07 PA-10 TX-22 WI-08

GOP pickups:

See the details of the Senate and House races with photos, maps, links, polls, etc.

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-- The Votemaster