Courts Get Involved Again, This Time in Minnesota

Another day, another case of a federal court getting involved in the administration of elections, which is supposed to be a state-level matter. In Thursday's decision, three judges from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled 2-1 that the extended deadline for mail-in ballots in Minnesota—one week—is not acceptable, and that ballots must be received by Election Day.

According to those who know about these things, the decision relied on some fairly torturous logic, finding that the deadline extension—arranged by Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon (D) under authority granted to him by the state legislature, and then approved by a state court—was an infringement on the powers of that legislature to set election policy. The ruling also disregards the Purcell Principle, which says that courts should not change election rules close to Election Day. That's particularly a problem here, since Minnesota voters who dropped their ballots in the mail on Tuesday or Wednesday just went from having enough time for their ballots to arrive to probably not having enough time for their ballots to arrive (more below). Presumably you don't need us to tell you which two judges among Bobby Shepherd (Bush 43 appointee), Jane Kelly (Obama appointee), and L. Steven Grasz (Trump appointee) were in the majority, and which one wrote the sharply-worded dissent.

With Thursday's decision, here is where things stand on the vote-by-mail front in the dozen swingiest states (per our tipping-point chart):

State	Current Absentee Ballot Situation
Michigan	Must be received by the time polls close on Election Day.
Wisconsin	Must be received by 8:00 p.m. on Election Day.
Nevada	Must be postmarked by Nov. 3, received by Nov. 10.
Minnesota	Must be received by Election Day.
Pennsylvania	Must be postmarked by Nov. 3 (or have no postmark), received by Nov. 6.
Arizona	Must be received by 7:00 p.m. on Election Day.
North Carolina	Must be postmarked by Nov. 3 (or have no postmark), received by Nov. 12 at 5:00 p.m.
Iowa	Must be postmarked by Nov. 2, received by Nov. 9 at noon.
Georgia	Must be received by 7:00 p.m. on Election Day.
Florida	Must be received by 7:00 p.m. on Election Day.
Ohio	Must be postmarked by Nov. 2, received by Nov. 13.
Texas	Must be postmarked by Nov. 3 at 7:00 p.m., received by Nov. 4 at 5:00 p.m.

Note that we did our best to be accurate here, but sometimes the latest information is hard to find, particularly when the states' own websites have conflicting information (as is the case, for example, in Iowa). Note also that the deadlines for military personnel (and sometimes for Americans living abroad) are more liberal than those for civilians living in the United States.

Ultimately, the lesson here is pretty clear. If you live in North Carolina, and you simply must vote by mail, then you're still in ok shape since there is time left and since a missing/smudged postmark won't be held against you. In second and third place on the list, in some order, are Ohio and Nevada, because of their fairly liberal deadlines. Pennsylvania will be separating out ballots that arrive after Nov. 3, just in case of subsequent court rulings, so you're taking your chances if you vote by mail there at this point. And if you live in any of the other 8 states on this list (or in most of the 39 states and territories not on the list), you should definitely resign yourself at this point to hand-delivering your ballot to election officials or to voting in person. (Z)

Things for the Democrats to Worry About

As the horse race enters the final stretch, there are lots and lots of stories about things for Democrats to be concerned about. Here's a rundown of some of the Thursday entries:

• The Tightening Race, National: National polling of the presidential race has tightened in the last week or two. From October 10-20, Joe Biden was consistently up by double digits. Now, he's up by a shade less than 9 points.
  
  
• The Tightening Race, Swing States: For weeks, Democrats dominated early voting in the swing states, casting far more ballots than did registered Republicans. Now, that lead is shrinking in many places. In Florida, for example, the blue team had a 9-point edge one week ago. Now it's a 4-point edge. The same has happened in North Carolina (12 to 8 points), Iowa (17 to 13 points), and Nevada (12 to 7 points).
  
  
• The Tightening Race, Local: Speaking of Florida, Democratic hopes there depend on big wins in the big cities, so as to offset the guaranteed losses in the panhandle and the Sunshine State's more rural areas. Thus far, Democratic turnout in Miami has been disappointing, particularly among young voters of color and infrequent voters. Michael Bloomberg's people are working on the problem, and Kamala Harris will be in the state this weekend as well.
  
  
• DeJoy Strikes Back, Part I: Postmaster General and Trump donor Louis DeJoy has insisted that he does not have his thumb on the (postal) scale for the President, and that any decisions he makes are undertaken only with the good of the USPS in mind. Anyone who believes that, please get in touch with us, because we have $50 million in a bank in Nigeria we'd be happy to split with you, if you can just pony up a paltry $5,000 to pay the costs of retrieving it. Anyhow, there are a number of states that require an absentee ballot to be signed by a witness, in addition to the voter. In past years, postal workers were able to provide this service, particularly since many people don't have a relative/friend/neighbor available nearby to do it. That's doubly true in the middle of a pandemic. This year, however, DeJoy has forbidden it, despite the repeated urging of the postal union.
  
  
• DeJoy Strikes Back, Part II?: When a half a dozen (alleged) military ballots are found in a trash can, it becomes a national scandal allegedly speaking to anti-Trump chicanery. When tens of thousands of absentee ballots disappear in between "elections office" and "citizens who requested them," it barely gets any attention. In any event, that is what happened in Butler County, PA, where an enormous number of absentee ballots seem to have vanished into the ether. It is doubtful that Louis DeJoy ordered them to be disappeared, but it's entirely plausible that the cuts in service he implemented played a role in the screw-up. In any event, state officials are advising those voters who did not receive their ballots to play it safe and go vote in person.

Ultimately, if Democratic voters want something to be nervous about, then there's plenty to choose from here. That said, it's just one point in the national polls, just some swing states where the Democratic lead has shrunk, just one city in one state that the Democrats don't actually need, just one USPS policy, and just one county in Pennsylvania. We are reminded of the old story about the town where everyone is allowed to trade their bundles of problems, and each of the citizens eventually decides they would like their original bundle back. If a political party had to choose, surely they would prefer the Democrats' current bundle of problems to the Republicans' current bundle. (Z)

More on "Shy Trump" Voters

As long as we're covering things that make Democrats skittish, let's talk a bit more about the alleged "shy Trump voters." Yesterday, Politico Magazine published an interview with Arie Kapteyn of the USC/Dornsife Poll, and Robert Cahaly of the Trafalgar Group about that very subject. That duo was chosen because USC/Dornsife and Trafalgar were the most bullish on Donald Trump's chances in 2016 than any other pollsters, and so were the only ones to get the election "right."

If you would like a thoughtful assessment of the possibility of "shy" Trump voters, you should read through Kapteyn's answers to the questions. He acknowledges that USC/Dornsife didn't actually do all that well in 2016, since they gave the popular vote to Trump by about 3 points, and he lost it by about 2 points, which means a rather sizable five-point error. Kapteyn also acknowledges that the shy Trump effect, if it exists, is very difficult to measure, and that it may or may not have existed in 2016. To the extent that there is evidence of the effect in 2020, he points to the data that he and the folks at USC/Dornsife have collected in response to the "social-circle" question they ask. In short, when people are asked "Who are you voting for?" then Joe Biden comes out ahead by about 10 points. However, when people are asked "Who are your friends and family voting for?" then Biden's lead drops to about 6 points. The assumption here is that people are more honest when talking about the behavior of others than they are when talking about their own behavior.

As to Cahaly, he's a partisan hack who is interested in selling his services to Republican politicians. There is nothing he says in the interview that would do anything to cast doubt on that reputation.

For our part, we remain very skeptical that there is any meaningful shy Trump effect. Here are three major reasons:

1. The existence of any "shy" effect (whether shy Trump effect, or shy Tory effect, or Bradley effect) is hotly debated, since the effect—if it exists or has ever existed—is invariably subtle enough to potentially also be explained by movement within the margin of error.
   
   
2. In 2016, the final national polling average for Hillary Clinton was 46.8% and for Trump was 43.6%, a gap of 3.2%. When the votes were tallied, the final percentages were 48.2% for Clinton and 46.1% for Trump, a gap of 2.1%. Again, that is a very subtle difference, and could easily be explained by movement within the margins of error and/or a late Comey-inspired break toward Trump that was not captured by polls.
   
   
3. The best evidence of a shy Trump effect in 2016 was that he did about 1 point better in Internet polls than he did in telephone polls. The theory here is that people are more likely to lie to a human being than they are to a computer. But even if that theory is correct, there is no equivalent gap in this year's polls—Internet and telephone polls are producing nearly identical Trump results in 2020.

With all of this said, we wanted to try to find a different way to approach this problem. And it occurred to us that there are 34 states that are holding two different statewide federal elections this year, one for president and one for the U.S. Senate. Presumably, if some meaningful number of people were embarrassed to admit their support for Trump, he should be running behind some/many/all of the Republican Senate candidates. And yet, that is clearly not the case. Here are the polling averages for the GOP Senate candidates and Trump (one asterisk indicates a candidate defending a seat currently held by a Republicans, two asterisks indicates a candidate defending a seat they currently hold; for the Georgia special election we combined the totals of the two leading Republicans):

State	Republican Candidate	Senator Support	Trump Support	Difference
Alabama	Tommy Tuberville	53.7%	57.7%	Trump +4
Alaska	Dan Sullivan**	42%	46.5%	Trump +4.5
Arizona	Martha McSally**	45.5%	47%	Trump +1.5
Arkansas	Tom Cotton**	69%	61.5%	Cotton +7.5
Colorado	Cory Gardner**	39.5%	40%	Trump +0.5
Delaware	Lauren Witzke	27%	35%	Trump +8
Georgia	David Perdue**	46.5%	47.3%	Trump +0.8
Georgia Special	Kelly Loeffler**/Doug Collins*	45.2%	47.3%	Trump +2.1
Idaho	Jim Risch**	53%	57.2%	Trump +4.2
Illinois	Mark Curran	25%	39.9%	Trump +14.9
Iowa	Joni Ernst**	45.7%	46.4%	Trump +0.7
Kansas	Roger Marshall*	46%	50%	Trump +4
Kentucky	Mitch McConnell**	51%	57%	Trump +6
Louisiana	Bill Cassidy**	52%	56.5%	Trump +4.5
Maine	Susan Collins**	42%	39.7%	Collins +2.3
Massachusetts	Kevin O'Connor	26%	28.3%	Trump +2.3
Michigan	John James	42.6%	43.5%	Trump +0.9
Minnesota	Jason Lewis	40.5%	43.3%	Trump +2.8
Mississippi	Cindy Hyde-Smith**	53%	56%	Trump +3
Montana	Steve Daines**	49.3%	52.3%	Trump +3
Nebraska	Ben Sasse**	47%	51%	Trump +4
New Hampshire	Corky Messner	40%	42.4%	Trump +2.4
New Jersey	Rik Mehta	30.3%	37.3%	Trump +7
New Mexico	Mark Ronchetti	40.5%	39%	Ronchetti +1.5
North Carolina	Thom Tillis**	45%	47.6%	Trump +2.6
Oklahoma	Jim Inhofe**	56.5%	59.5%	Trump +3
Oregon	Jo Rae Perkins	35%	39%	Trump +4
Rhode Island	Allen Waters	N/A	31.7%	N/A
South Carolina	Lindsey Graham**	47.2%	50%	Trump +2.8
South Dakota	Mike Rounds**	N/A	51%	N/A
Tennessee	Bill Hagerty*	56%	54.5%	Hagerty +1.5
Texas	John Cornyn**	47.5%	48%	Trump +0.5
Virginia	Daniel Gade	38.3%	40.3%	Trump +2
West Virginia	Shelley Moore Capito**	53%	58%	Trump +5
Wyoming	Cynthia Lummis*	N/A	66.3%	N/A

As you can see, Trump is running ahead of the Republican Senate candidate in 30 of 36 races. There are three where there has been no Senate poll to serve as a basis for comparison, and just three where Trump is lagging the Republican Senate candidate. Quite clearly, voters who plan to vote a Republican ticket (and some who plan to vote a split ticket) have no concerns about admitting to their support for the President.

That doesn't necessarily preclude the existence of a population of shy Trump voters, but for those folks to exist, the following would have to be true:

1. The voter is planning to vote Democratic/third party for U.S. Senate
2. The voter is honest about their senatorial choice
3. The voter is also planning to split their ticket and vote for Trump
4. Despite four years of him in the White House, the voter still sees Trump as "embarrassing"
5. So, the voter is dishonest about their presidential choice

Again, anything is possible. But from where we sit, it takes an awful lot of bending and twisting to try to make the data conform with the existence of all these alleged shy Trump voters. (Z)

Right-wing Media Try to Salvage Hunter Biden Story

Now that we've talked about some things for Democrats to worry about, let's talk about some good signs for the blue team. First up, the Hunter Biden e-mail/corruption story, which simply hasn't taken hold outside of the far-right-wing media bubble. There are a number of reasons why: (1) the story is so full of holes it could pass for Swiss cheese; (2) the whole thing reeks of desperation; (3) the key figures in bringing "the truth" to light are Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon, who aren't exactly the most credible folks in the world; (4) every time there are new "revelations," they are published by outlets like The Daily Mail, The New York Post, and Gateway Pundit, which aren't exactly the most credible media outlets in the world; and (5) even many right-wing outlets, like Fox and The Wall Street Journal, have conceded that even if the claims about Hunter Biden are true, there is nothing to implicate his father.

In view of this, and with Election Day just four days away, TrumpWorld (politicians and media) have shifted their approach. Now, instead of focusing on corruption in the Biden family, they are trying to spin this into a story about corruption in the media. "Why is the fake news trying to bury this story?" is the general idea. Of course, that spin implicitly acknowledges that there is little smoke and no fire here, and so provides its own answer to the question that is being raised.

Anyhow, as we said at the start, this is good news for the Democrats in general, and the Biden/Harris ticket in particular. First, because there clearly isn't going to be a real October surprise, and the fake October surprise that Giuliani & Co. tried to cook up is so clumsy that even much of the right-wing media won't run with it. Second, because Trump and his supporters are clearly getting desperate, which is not an emotion you generally see among folks who are confident of victory. (Z)

On Your Marks, Get Set, Go!

On the other hand, in another good sign for the blue team, here is an example of exactly the sort of behavior you see from people who are very confident of victory: A number of high-profile Democrats, having read the tea leaves (possibly with the assistance of polling not available to the general public) are thinking a few steps beyond Nov. 3, and are jockeying for position in Joe Biden's cabinet.

To start, there is the crown jewel, namely the State Department. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) has, by sheer coincidence, recently published a sizable number of foreign-policy-oriented op-eds, and has also appeared on a number of high-profile discussion panels. The overall theme of his written and spoken remarks: Everything about Donald Trump's foreign policy is wrong, wrong, wrong. He's a progressive, and tapping him would please that wing of the Party. Meanwhile, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) is probably Biden's best friend in the Senate, comes from the same state, serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as Biden did, and is known for his preference for bipartisanship. If he says he really wants the job, Biden will be sorely tempted to give it to him. And the governor of Delaware, John Carney, is a Democrat, so he would appoint a Democrat to Coons' seat. He would probably pick Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), keeping the number of Black women in the Senate at 1 after the departure of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA). There are also some prominent candidates outside the Senate, most obviously Susan Rice, who was a finalist for the VP slot, and who clearly has the résumé the job calls for. She would also, of course, bring diversity to the Cabinet.

Nearly as high profile is Treasury, where Steven Mnuchin's four-year tenure has been disastrous from a Democratic perspective (and not all that great in the eyes of many Republicans). Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has made clear that she would very much like the job. Again, this would please the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. It would also upset some moderates, and would probably scare the bejeezus out of Wall Street. That said, Biden wants to develop a reputation as a unifier, and so might be quite interested in putting together a "team of rivals" cabinet featuring many of his primary season adversaries, just as Barack Obama did (and, famously, as Abraham Lincoln did). However, if he decides that Warren is a bridge too far, there are a number of non-household-name candidates that would be acceptable choices, including Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard, former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Sarah Bloom Raskin, and former Fed vice-chair and current TIAA CEO Roger Ferguson.

And speaking of former rivals, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is reportedly quite interested in the Labor Department. On one hand, Labor is customarily led by an outspoken lefty, so Sanders' appointment there wouldn't raise too many eyebrows. Further, it would thrill the Senator's base, not to mention the many other pro-labor Democrats who disdain current Secretary Eugene Scalia. On the other hand, if Sanders vacates his seat, Gov. Phil Scott (R-VT), assuming he wins reelection (which he will), would pick a replacement to serve for six months. And that replacement might just run in the special election that would be held, and might just win. Those risks would surely give the Democratic establishment pause. The same problem would hold for Warren, incidentally, excepting that her replacement would serve roughly one month less, and so would have less time to build up name recognition. There's also more potential in Massachusetts for the state legislature to change the rules (yet again) to favor the Democrats. For example, the Democrats have a supermajority in the state legislature and could change the law to say that when a Senate seat is vacant, the party of the departing senator gives the governor a list of three candidates and he must choose one of them. Seven other states already have a law like this.

Anyhow, all the maneuvering for position in a Biden cabinet is not hard evidence that he's going to win when the votes are counted next Tuesday. But it is soft evidence, particularly when the maneuvering involves so many prominent folks who are so openly making their intentions known. (Z)

The Delicate Art of Question Dodging

We are now at the point where the rubber hits the road. And that means that politicians across the country are going to spend the next few days dealing with lots and lots of questions they would prefer not to answer. That is particularly true of sitting U.S. senators who are fighting for their political lives, and need every vote. So, we're seeing particularly clear examples, right now, of the various strategies that veteran politicos use to try to dance around tough questions. To wit:

• The Janus: We're naming this one after the Roman god who was famously two-faced. And our example will be Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who was asked about systemic racism on Wednesday. The good news is that we finally found something that the Senator is not "concerned" about, as she said "I do not believe systemic racism is a problem in the state of Maine." Inasmuch as only 2% of the population of Maine is Black, and most of them are probably not voting for Collins, she might have left it at that. However, she also emphasized her support for law enforcement, and at the same time noted that "in some parts of our country there is systemic racism or problems in police departments." So she's a "yes" and a "no" on systemic racism and also a "yes" and a "no" on police misconduct. Janus, er, Collins tries to thread the needle by drawing a distinction between "Maine" and "the other states that aren't Maine," but we doubt that too many voters will be impressed by her many and varied positions on these issues. We wonder if she lent her spine to former colleague John Kerry and forgot to ask for it back.
  
  
• The Schultz: This one we're naming after Sgt. Hans Schultz from the show "Hogan's Heroes," whose famous catchphrase was "I know nothing! I see nothing!" (or some variant thereof). And our example here is Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), who is trying to persuade Georgia Republicans that she's the Trumpiest candidate of them all, far more so than her GOP rival Rep. Doug Collins. To that end, she said on Wednesday that there are no issues on which she disagrees with the President. That would seem to suggest that she agrees with, among other things, pu**y grabbing. When reporter Doug Richards asked the Senator about the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape, Loeffler said "I'm not familiar with that," and insisted she's never heard about that tape. That means she was either born yesterday, has been living under a rock, or is lying through her teeth. Georgia voters will get to decide which one they think it is.
  
  
• The Houdini: A third way to avoid uncomfortable questions is to emulate the legendary magician Harry Houdini, and to disappear entirely when it happens to be convenient. Our example here is another Georgian, namely Sen. David Perdue (R). Maybe there's something in the water there. In any event, Democrat Jon Ossoff has not been running a great campaign, but he managed to hit the bullseye during a senatorial debate on Wednesday. Discussing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and the Senator's leadership during it, Ossoff declared: "Perhaps Sen. Perdue would have been able to respond properly to the COVID-19 pandemic if you hadn't been fending off multiple federal investigations for insider trading. It's not just that you're a crook, senator. It's that you're attacking the health of the people that you represent." That moment went viral; it's been viewed over 10 million times on Twitter. Perdue would prefer not to be on the receiving end of another of those, so he canceled on the final debate scheduled for this weekend. Abracadabra!

Obviously, these tricks work sometimes, or they wouldn't be used so frequently. That said, all three of these folks appear to be either tied or trailing in their respective Senate races. And our guess is that late-deciding voters will not be pleased by the sort of trickery that screams "politics as usual." In particular, Loeffler simply must attract a sizable chunk of suburban women's votes, and pretending she knows nothing and she sees nothing when it comes to sexual assault is not the way to achieve that. (Z)

Donald Trump, Flight Risk?

Almost every week, we get a question or two (or more) about the possibility of Donald Trump jumping ship before his term is over, and seeking asylum in a foreign country. Brig. Gen. Peter B. Zwack (ret.), who spent much of his career developing contingency plans for various scenarios, including a warlord or other leader trying to flee prosecution, has written a piece for Politico in which he says that a great escape by The Donald is not out of the question.

Zwack points out, first of all, that it is rare for the leader of a democracy to head for the hills, but that when it does happen, it is usually strongmen for whom the home country has grown too hot. We're talking people like former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and former Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos. Meanwhile, the cost-benefit analysis for Trump could very well add up. Beyond avoiding criminal prosecution, the President might also be able to avoid (or at least delay) an ego-destroying spotlight being shined on his finances (and thus his financial failures). Meanwhile, he would be able to claim another "victory," tweeting from abroad about how he outsmarted the system once again.

If it does happen, the obvious course of action would be to board Air Force One while still president, fly to a foreign country that will grant asylum, and then just stay there. Sneaking onto the yacht of a wealthy friend, and escaping to international waters, is also a possibility. If Trump does try to pull it off, he'll need a country that is unlikely to yield to overwhelming pressure from the U.S. government. Past escapees have tended to favor small nations that don't have too much to lose by telling the U.S. to pound sand, like Costa Rica or Nicaragua. However, Zwack thinks a likelier destination is Russia. A presidential trip there in November or December would be less suspicious than one to, say, Costa Rica, and Trump could ostensibly resume his real estate career with the construction of Trump Tower Moscow.

This article isn't especially newsworthy, nor does it tell us much about the election, but since we get questions along these lines so often, we thought we would pass it along. (Z)

Today's Presidential Polls

Wow. Look at all those polls. You will notice the paucity of red in the table, excepting a couple of states that have no business being anything other than red. Meanwhile, Donald Trump goes 0-5 in Florida, 0-2 in Georgia, 0-3-1 in North Carolina, 1-1 in Ohio, 0-4 in Pennsylvania, and 2-1 in Texas. That's very poor, especially the Florida polls. (Z)

State	Biden	Trump	Start	End	Pollster
Alabama	39%	58%	Oct 23	Oct 28	Auburn U. at Montgomery
Arizona	45%	49%	Oct 27	Oct 29	Pulse Opinion Research
Florida	45%	42%	Oct 23	Oct 27	Quinnipiac U.
Florida	50%	45%	Oct 17	Oct 20	Citizen Data
Florida	50%	47%	Oct 26	Oct 29	HarrisX
Florida	51%	45%	Oct 24	Oct 28	Monmouth U.
Florida	51%	47%	Oct 25	Oct 27	Marist Coll.
Georgia	48%	44%	Oct 17	Oct 20	Citizen Data
Georgia	48%	46%	Oct 27	Oct 28	PPP
Iowa	46%	47%	Oct 23	Oct 27	Quinnipiac U.
Kentucky	39%	52%	Oct 16	Oct 28	Bluegrass Comm. and Tech. College
Maine	53%	40%	Oct 23	Oct 27	SurveyUSA
Michigan	50%	41%	Oct 17	Oct 20	Citizen Data
North Carolina	48%	45%	Oct 23	Oct 27	Siena Coll.
North Carolina	48%	48%	Oct 20	Oct 26	U. of Mass.
North Carolina	49%	48%	Oct 26	Oct 29	HarrisX
North Carolina	50%	44%	Oct 17	Oct 20	Citizen Data
New Hampshire	52%	44%	Oct 23	Oct 26	St. Anselm Coll.
New Hampshire	53%	43%	Oct 16	Oct 26	U. of Mass.
New Hampshire	53%	45%	Oct 24	Oct 28	U. of New Hampshire
New Hampshire	58%	39%	Oct 26	Oct 28	ARG
New Jersey	61%	37%	Oct 18	Oct 24	Rutgers-Eagleton
Ohio	43%	44%	Oct 17	Oct 20	Citizen Data
Ohio	48%	43%	Oct 23	Oct 27	Quinnipiac U.
Pennsylvania	44%	39%	Oct 17	Oct 20	Citizen Data
Pennsylvania	50%	44%	Oct 19	Oct 25	Franklin+Marshall Coll.
Pennsylvania	51%	44%	Oct 23	Oct 27	Quinnipiac U.
Pennsylvania	51%	46%	Oct 26	Oct 29	HarrisX
Texas	46%	50%	Oct 27	Oct 28	RMG Research
Texas	47%	48%	Oct 20	Oct 26	U. of Mass.
Texas	49%	45%	Oct 17	Oct 20	Citizen Data
Virginia	51%	39%	Oct 13	Oct 22	Virginia Commonwealth U.

Click on a state name for a graph of its polling history.

Today's Senate Polls

Much the same story as above. The Republican candidates are safe in deep red states. In Texas, there's a little sweating going on, but not a lot. And everywhere else, it's a tossup or the Democrat has a solid lead. Of particular note, Cal Cunningham continues to hold on, and Jon Ossoff appears to be opening a small but consistent lead. (Z)

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	Start	End	Pollster
Alabama	Doug Jones*	43%	Tommy Tuberville	54%	Oct 23	Oct 28	Auburn U. at Montgomery
Arizona	Mark Kelly	48%	Martha McSally*	43%	Oct 27	Oct 29	Pulse Opinion Research
Georgia	Jon Ossoff	47%	David Perdue*	40%	Oct 17	Oct 20	Citizen Data
Georgia	Jon Ossoff	47%	David Perdue*	44%	Oct 27	Oct 28	PPP
Iowa	Theresa Greenfield	46%	Joni Ernst*	48%	Oct 23	Oct 27	Quinnipiac U.
Kentucky	Amy McGrath	40%	Mitch McConnell*	50%	Oct 16	Oct 28	Bluegrass Comm. and Tech. College
Maine	Sara Gideon	51%	Susan Collins*	49%	Oct 23	Oct 27	SurveyUSA
Michigan	Gary Peters*	46%	John James	42%	Oct 17	Oct 20	Citizen Data
North Carolina	Cal Cunningham	46%	Thom Tillis*	43%	Oct 23	Oct 27	Siena Coll.
North Carolina	Cal Cunningham	48%	Thom Tillis*	42%	Oct 17	Oct 20	Citizen Data
North Carolina	Cal Cunningham	49%	Thom Tillis*	45%	Oct 20	Oct 26	U. of Mass.
New Hampshire	Jeanne Shaheen*	54%	Corky Messner	39%	Oct 23	Oct 26	St. Anselm Coll.
New Hampshire	Jeanne Shaheen*	54%	Corky Messner	43%	Oct 24	Oct 28	U. of New Hampshire
New Hampshire	Jeanne Shaheen*	57%	Corky Messner	38%	Oct 16	Oct 26	U. of Mass.
New Hampshire	Jeanne Shaheen*	57%	Corky Messner	40%	Oct 26	Oct 28	ARG
New Jersey	Cory Booker*	61%	Rik Mehta	31%	Oct 18	Oct 24	Rutgers-Eagleton
Texas	Mary "MJ" Hegar	41%	John Cornyn*	41%	Oct 17	Oct 20	Citizen Data
Texas	Mary "MJ" Hegar	44%	John Cornyn*	49%	Oct 20	Oct 26	U. of Mass.
Virginia	Mark Warner*	55%	Daniel Gade	38%	Oct 13	Oct 22	Virginia Commonwealth U.

* Denotes incumbent

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