Presidential Tracking Polls

Gallup's tracking poll shows President Obama at 48% approve/44% disapprove. His approval stays the same as yesterday, while his disapproval numbers fell by two points. This means that Obama's drop over the weekend likely wasn't just the result of a bad sample on Friday, and that there has been a measurable fading of his bounce.

In the Rasmussen tracking poll, the President's approval numbers stayed stable, with 47% approving of his performance and 30% strongly approving. The number strongly disapproving ticked down a notch, to 43%, while his total disapproval number picked up a point, to 53%. It's interesting that the Rasmussen and Gallup approval numbers have converged, even though Rasmussen is polling likely voters and Gallup is not.

In the USA Today/Gallup poll taken over the weekend, the President maintains a 47% approval rating, with 50% disapproving. Two-thirds of voters think the health care bill costs too much and expands the role of health care too far, 50% think passage is a bad thing, and 53% thought the Democrats' tactics constituted an abuse of power. This is representative of most polling I've seen this cycle, where the President enjoys tepid approval ratings on the topline, but the secondary “issue” numbers are horrendous. Whether this means that the President's approval numbers are artificially inflated remains to be seen.

Senate

Missouri Senate: Public Policy Polling (D) is the latest pollster to find that the race to replace retiring Senator Kit Bond is very close. Congressman Roy Blunt leads Secretary of State Robin Carnahan by a 45%-41% margin. My suspicion is that as the race wears on, unless the President's numbers turn around significantly, Blunt will open up a lead over Carnahan; the President (and as PPP points out, the health care bill as well) is simply too unpopular in the state for her to be favored to win right now. Interestingly, the Secretary of State with the famous family name is at 42% against State Senator Chuck Purgason, who is challenging Blunt in the primary (and who receives 38% of the vote against Carnahan).

Ohio Senate Primary: Quinnipiac surveyed the Democratic primary in the Senate race to replace retiring Senator George Voinovich, and found that Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher leads Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner 33%-26%. Undecided is the big winner with 40%. Moreover, nearly a third of each candidate's supporters said that they might change their minds between today and the May 4 Democratic primary. Both candidates have extremely low unfavorables among the electorate, indicating that the race will probably come down to which candidate can best get his or her message out between now and the primary.

Kansas Senate Primary: It appears to be primary polling day. SurveyUSA polled the Kansas Senate race and found that First District Representative Jerry Moran leads Fourth District Representative Todd Tiahrt 42%-32%. Moran leads by a huge margin in western Kansas – the area he represents in Congress – while Tiahrt leads in Southeastern Kansas, which is the hub of his Wichita –based district. Both men are solid conservatives, though Tiahrt probably is more directly affiliated with the religious right, which may explain Moran's somewhat-better showing among moderates and liberals.

The winner will face either Attorney Stanley Wiles or Democratic activist Charles Schollenberger. The state has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since the 1932 elections.

Governor

South Dakota: The nation's longest gubernatorial winning streak looks like it will continue. Democrats have not won the South Dakota Governor's seat since 1974, and if Scott Rasmussen is to be believed, they aren't going to win it in 2010 either. Lieutenant Governor Dennis Daugaard holds a 17-point lead (49%-32%) over Democratic State Senator and Minority Leader Scott Heidepriem. Heidepriem does hold small leads over State Senate Majority Leader Dave Knudson (37%-32%) and State Senator Gordon Howie (39%-34%), so if either were to win the nomination, we would have to re-evaluate the race.

Alabama Primary: The good folk at Public Policy Polling also decided to poll the Alabama gubernatorial primary races . They found that Congressman and ObamaCare “no” voter Artur Davis leads Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks with 38% of the vote to Sparks' 28%; inventor Sam Franklin Thomas receives 9%.

On the GOP side, PPP polled five of the eight Republicans in the race: Former Community College System Chancellor Bradley Byrne, famous “Ten Commandments” former Chief Justice Roy Moore, State Treasurer Kay Ivey, State Rep. Robert Bentley and Real Estate Developer Tim James. It's a pretty wide open affair. Byrne receives 27% of the vote from respondents; Moore 23%; Ivey 10%; Bentley 10%; James 9%. Not polled were sales representative Charles Taylor, financial analyst James Potts, and former Birmingham City Councilman Bill Johnson.

It's pretty amazing to see an eight-way GOP primary in Alabama; the state didn't have a single contested Republican primary for Governor until 1978.

House

Gallup's weekly polling of the generic ballot does show a bounce . . . for the Republicans. They now lead 47%-44% in the poll of registered voters. Mind you, the GOP traditionally performs a few points better than the Gallup poll's final results suggest, and that poll will use a likely voter model.

Speaking of which, there is a reason that the GOP performs so much better in likely voter models these days. The Gallup page I linked also shows that 50% of Republicans are enthusiastic about voting, as opposed to 35% of Democrats and 38% of Independents.  Since certainty about voting in November's elections is often a criterion for screening out unlikely voters, we should expect to see more and more Republicans finding their way into poll responses.  This represents an improvement for Democrats over last week's results -- they did get the "Base Bounce" they expected -- but it is also an improvement for Republicans and Independents. Congress sports a Jeffrey Dahmer-like sixteen percent approval among adults.

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