The most frustrating thing about this cycle has been the lack of House race polling.  There are about 30 House races that I'd probably give a limb to get some type of hard information about.  Fortunately, there is one fewer such race now, diminishing the prospect of an intemperate voluntary amputation on my part.

The latest SurveyUSA poll, commissioned by the conservative Civitas Institute, shows Renee Ellmers leading Bob Etheridge 46 percent to 41 percent.  The poll is of all registered voters, which usually favors the Democrat, and that is certainly the case here.  When looking at people who describe themselves as "10s" when it comes to certainty of voting, Ellmers leads 66 percent to 50 percent; Etheridge does worse among those who describe themselves as less likely to vote -- and those voters do, in fact, usually vote in lower numbers.  Among those who have already voted, Ellmers leads 50 percent to 43 percent.

Needless to say, this is not where an incumbent wants to be five days before the election.

In his attempt to pull off an upset victory over Republican former Rep. Pat Toomey in the Pennsylvania Senate race, Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak is packing his schedule with appearances across the state and will be joined again by President Clinton and President Obama.

On Thursday, Sestak plans several retail events in Philadelphia, where he'll be joined later by President Clinton for three rallies. The Clinton events are all designed to turn out young voters on college campuses. Sestak and Clinton will appear together at Bryn Mawr College, Cheyney University and Temple University.

This weekend, President Obama will also head to Temple University, where he's appeared several times in the last two months.

A statement from the Democratic National Committee today noted, "The canvass kickoff...will be the first event of the GOTV weekend the president will hold before Election Day on Nov. 2nd."

Sestak is not simply limiting his event schedule to turnout activities, however. He's also continuing to focus on events oriented toward small business.

Sestak stopped in Reading, Allentown and Doylestown earlier today for visits to small businesses. He also met with workers from the Visteon auto parts plant, which closed recently.

This evening, Sestak is holding a pair of rallies in Philadelphia.

Toomey plans to visit 17 counties this week as he travels the state for what he's calling his "More Jobs, Less Government" tour.

Sestak pulled even with Toomey in some public polling this month, but Toomey has begun to turn the surveys around again. He leads Sestak by 3.2 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average.

Boxer by 5! Fiorina by 3!  Boxer by 1! Boxer by 9! Twice!!!

If you follow California Senate polling closely, you have to be feeling a little bit nauseated from the roller coaster ride you've been on.  Some polls are showing Senator Barabara Boxer with a comfortable 9-point lead and above 50 percent, while others are showing a much closer race.  One Republican pollster even shows Fiorina ahead.

What is going on here?  The answer is something I've discussed before:  Pollsters are having a devil of a time agreeing on what the electorate is going to look like.  Let's take a look at the partisan breakdown of the polls, sorted by the edge for Senator Boxer.

As you can see, the ration of Democrats to Republican in the sample goes hand-in-glove with the size of Boxer's edge.  More Democrats equals more Boxer votes.  In fact, the adjusted r-square is pretty nice -- about .74!  These internals don't disagree that much -- most of them have both candidates losing about 10 percent of their respective bases, while Fiorina has a double-digit edge among independents.

So who is right?  Well, that's the frustrating thing -- we can't definitively say!  But we can get some sense of history here.  The following table shows the exit poll results for 2008, 2006 and 2004, as well as the present early voting numbers:

As you can see, the pollsters showing a comfortable Boxer lead are showing electorates that are similar to 2008.  On the other hand, the pollsters who are showing a tight race see an electorate more like 2004 or 2006.

As I've mentioned, there are many potential reasons for this.  If a pollster uses a common question -- did you vote in 2006 or 2008? -- to screen out voters, then that pollster will let all the Obama surge voters from 2008 proceed to later screening questions (if any) while keeping any tea partiers or newly-enthusiastic Republicans out of the mix. If you let through too many mildly enthusiastic voters in a year like this you are probably letting through a large group of Democrats who won't ultimately vote.  As you might expect, we saw an opposite effect at the state level in 2008.  One point worth noting here:  Among those who claim they have actually voted, both Suffolk and PPP look an awful lot like SurveyUSA and Reuters.

In the end, we can't know who has the electorate right until Election Day.  For now, if you think California Dems have gotten their mojo back to 2008 levels, Boxer is a pretty safe bet.  If, however, you think that things have settled down to 2006 levels and Republicans are surging, then this race is a coin toss.

South Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley was one of the first major "Mama Grizzlies" that Sarah Palin plucked from obscurity and helped propel to victory in the GOP primary. In a way, this foreshadowed the much larger Palin-influenced upsets in Alaska and, of course, Delaware.

But some polls have indicated that Haley may be struggling in her race against Democratic state Senator Vincent Sheheen. Democratic polling firm Hamilton Campaigns shows Haley with a narrow 49 percent to 44 percent lead. Insider Advantage, by contrast, shows Sheheen down 51 percent to 37 percent. Haley leads by 10.7 percent in the RCP Average.

A tight race here is consistent with some of the news that has been circulating about the Haley family. The rumors of affairs continue to swirl around Haley, and questions persist about the family's finances.

Overall, I think you can synthesize these polls as suggesting Haley is in the lead.  If you ignore the two polls from the Democratic firm, Sheheen has never been above 40 percent in the polls, while Haley hasn't been below 46 percent since June.  There may be an unusually large number of undecideds for this late in the game, but in a conservative state like South Carolina, we might expect them to break Republican.

In 2006 and 2008, D.C. was in awe of Rahm Emanuel's ability to recruit members of Congress capable of running competitive races in heavily Republican districts. But the problem with the majority that Rahm built is that it was a very unstable one. These Democrats were only safe so long as they voted more-or-less like Republicans, and so long as the national Democratic Party didn't get too far ahead of their districts.

So needless to say, this election cycle isn't looking pleasant for Democrats who picked up Republican seats. Consider the class of 2006:

A few seats are missing because Republicans picked them up in 2008. But note that of the remaining Democrats who beat Republican incumbents, only two are considered likely to retain their seats, both of whom are in Democratic districts. Only eight are favorites. At the same time, eight of them are favored to lose their seats; five of the five incumbents voted for the health care bill.

It isn't surprising that the Class of 2008 fares even a bit worse:

There are two reasons for this. The obvious one is that these members have less seniority, and are therefore more vulnerable.

But another reason is that so many of these candidates didn't win election in their own right, but rather rode Obama's coattails to victory. This produced a batch of freshmen representing much more conservative districts; the average Class of '08 member represents an R+3 district, while the average Class of '06 member represents an R+1 district.

One of the main reasons that Democrats are set for a bad year is that they have so many members who represent districts that just a few years ago were electing Republicans. It looks like these districts will likely be returning to their roots soon.

Republican Congressman Dave Reichert continues to lead Democratic former Microsoft executive Suzan DelBene in his bid for a fourth term in Washington's 8th District, according to a new poll from SurveyUSA.

The poll of 639 likely voters shows Reichert ahead of DelBene by seven points, 52 percent to 45 percent.

Though this suburban Seattle district has elected exclusively Republicans since its creation in 1982, they have all been moderates, and the district voted for Democrats in the last three presidential elections, notably giving Barack Obama 57 percent of the vote in 2008. Additionally, all three of Reichert's races have been competitive. His largest margin of victory came in 2008, when he defeated Darcy Burner 53-47.

Still, DelBene has ground to make up. In the state's unique "top two" primary on August 17, Reichert received 47 percent of the vote and DelBene received 27 percent. More importantly, Republican candidates combined to top Democratic candidates 58 percent to 40 percent.

Also, DelBene has trailed in all independent polling conducted in the race. Reichert led by seven in the last SurveyUSA poll conducted in late September and by three in a recent Daily Kos/PPP (D) poll. RealClearPolitics rates the race "leans GOP."

DelBene has donated $2.28 million of her personal fortune to her campaign, including $1.35 million in the first two weeks of October. As of September 30, DelBene faced a severe cash-on-hand shortage. Reichert had $1.3 million while DelBene had just over $260,000. After spending money on several ads this month, Reichert now has $606,777 to close out the race while DelBene has just $195,051 available.

The SurveyUSA poll was conducted from Monday to Wednesday and has a margin of error of +/- 4 percent.

Two polls released on Wednesday showed Republican Congressman Mark Kirk with a narrow advantage over Democratic State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias in the race for President Obama's old Senate seat in Illinois.

The Illinois Senate race has remained tight since the summer, and Kirk leads by a slim margin of 1.8 percent in the latest RealClearPolitics polling average.

In a Rasmussen Reports poll, Kirk had the support of 44 percent of likely voters, while 40 percent backed Giannoulias. Four percent of voters supported Green Party candidate LeAlan Jones, 8 percent said they would vote for another candidate, and 5 percent remained undecided.

Kirk led 42 percent to 40 percent in a Public Policy Polling (D) survey released Wednesday. Jones earned the support of 4 percent of voters, while Libertarian candidate Mike Labno had 3 percent.

Rasmussen surveyed 750 likely voters for its poll, which had a margin of error +/- 4 percent. PPP (D) surveyed 557 likely voters, and its poll had a margin of error of +/- 4.2 percent.

The PPP (D) poll was conducted Thursday through Saturday, and the Rasmussen poll was conducted on Monday, a day before Kirk and Giannoulias squared off in their second televised debate in Chicago.

Tuesday's debate was marked by the kinds of assaults on each candidate's character that have saturated the Illinois airwaves in attack ads for months.

Kirk, who has been criticized for embellishing his military record as a Naval Reserve intelligence officer, refused to answer when Giannoulias prodded him about whether he had been shot at during combat stints in Kosovo and Iraq, as Kirk has previously stated.

"I have put my life on the line for the United States," Kirk said. "You were back in the rear with the gear."

Giannoulias shook his head and noted that his opponent was refusing to answer the question.

When it was his turn to go on the attack, Kirk hammered Giannoulias for the failure of his family-owned bank and its previous loans to mob figures.

"When you saw the Broadway Bank collapse, you took no responsibility whatsoever," Kirk said.

President Obama spoke at a fundraiser on behalf of Giannoulias earlier this month, and Kirk sought to tie his opponent to the White House's economic policies.

"I am the only candidate in this race who will vote to spend less, borrow less, tax less," Kirk said.

But in this Democratic-leaning state where Obama still maintains a home court advantage, Giannoulias countered by accusing Kirk of supporting failed Bush administration policies and mentioning the attack ads that have been aired on Kirk's behalf by an outside group headed by former Bush administration official Karl Rove.

"We can't afford to let Karl Rove come to town and steal these elections," Giannoulias said.

The Illinois Senate candidates will meet for a third and final debate on Oct. 27.

The latest sign of just how bad things are getting for Democrats?  Bill Kristol at The Weekly Standard writes that Dennis Kucinich might be in trouble:

The poll (based on a small but respectable 319 person sample, with a margin of error of 5.6 percent, weighted to eliminate gender bias) shows Kucinich ahead of his opponent, Peter Corrigan, by only 4 percent. The profile of undecided voters suggests they may break for Corrigan by about 3-2. And Corrigan's 4 percent deficit turns into a 4 percent Corrigan lead when voters are given information on Kucinich's ties to corrupt local Democratic leaders, and on Kucinich's support for illegal immigration. These are signs that undecided voters could be pushed to go Corrigan's way. Furthermore, Corrigan is running even with Kucinich among those who've already requested their absentee ballot, as early voting has already started in Ohio.

First, yes, it is worth being skeptical of results from an unnamed pollster.

But second, I wouldn't be surprised if this poll ended up being roughly confirmed by some other polling company.  Kucinich has indulged in two vanity runs for president and has shifted substantially leftward since he was first (narrowly) elected to Congress in 1996.  His white, working class constituency is not fertile ground for a candidate whose most notable legislative initiative has been an attempt to create a federal Department of Peace.  In the outstanding Democratic year of 2008, Kucinich drew an underwhelming 57 percent of the vote.  Kucinich could really be in trouble here.

In 2008, SurveyUSA provided some interesting data for polls of states that utilized early voting.  Beginning in October, it broke its data down into "already voted" and "likely to vote."  In an October 14 poll of the New Mexico Senate race between Tom Udall and Steve Pearce, SurveyUSA found that voters who had "already voted" broke for the Democratic Senate candidate 65 percent to 32 percent; among likely voters it was 57 percent to 41 percent for the Democrat.

The actual results were about halfway between the two -- Udall won 61 percent.  This sounds like what you'd expect, until you take into account the fact that actual voters made up only 10 percent of the poll sample.  In other words, either a large chunk of the "likely voters" who hadn't voted either changed their mind and voted for the Democrat, or they simply didn't vote.

So it has to be a bit disconcerting for Democrats that SurveyUSA's latest poll shows that early voters claim to have voted 60 percent to 36 percent for Republican gubernatorial candidate Susana Martinez.  Perhaps the remaining voters really will break more heavily for Diane Denish.  But it is probably more likely that they will follow the 2008 model, and mostly stay home.

The good news for Democrats?  While this trend held in other high-profile races (North Carolina), it was not nearly as pronounced in others (Maine).  But as far as New Mexico is concerned, the precedent isn't a good one for Democrats.

Be sure to check out the newest sites in the RealClear network: RealClearReligion and RealClearScience. Both sites will offer readers the best analysis and commentary from a wide array of sources on the most important topics facing the worlds of religion and science.

Also, on RCP this morning, David Paul Kuhn writes that older voters may be poised to vote at historic levels in the midterm elections. On RCP's Election 2010 page, Scott Conroy reports on the Obamas' campaign swing through Ohio, and Erin McPike writes about the state's place at the top of the DNC funding list.

Writing on Forbes.com, RCM Editor John Tamny argues that America needs a Ronald Reagan 2.0. On RCM, Alfred Tella writes that immigrant workers crowd out teen workers in the job market.

And, finally, on RCS, Jeff Neuman writes about Cliff Lee's dominance against the Yankees.