It’s been a lighter cou­ple of weeks in Sen­ate polling. Nonethe­less, we did have one state move out of Tossup.

Here is the cur­rent map:

Now for the details.

As always, “Con­tin­u­ing” refers to the seats in Sen­ate Classes 2 and 3, which are not up for elec­tion this cycle.

Here the high­lights of the past two weeks, walk­ing from the Pacific to the Atlantic:

  • Ari­zona: Noth­ing to report here, but I just want to remind you that, by our next install­ment, the Grand Canyon State will have its pri­mary elec­tion, which will deter­mine whether the Repub­li­can can­di­date will be Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jeff Flake (R-​​Mesa) or real estate exec­u­tive Wil Car­don. The lack of polling in Ari­zona leaves this race espe­cially opaque.
  • New Mex­ico: A new poll, from a rel­a­tively unknown firm. Democrat-​​funded FM3 Research shows Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mar­tin Hein­rich (D-​​Albuquerque) ahead of his pre­de­ces­sor, for­mer Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Heather Wil­son (R-​​Albuquerque) by nine points. The lack of his­tory makes this par­tic­u­lar poll a lit­tle sus­pect, but so are all the oth­ers in this race. It’s still a “Leans Demo­c­ra­tic” state, but it’s hard to tell by how much.
  • Mis­souri: It’s been another inter­est­ing past cou­ple of weeks in the “Show Me” State. It looked like Demo­c­ra­tic incum­bent Claire McCaskill was going to face for­mer state trea­surer Sarah Steel­man or busi­ness­man John Brun­ner in Novem­ber, but Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Todd Akin (R-​​Wildwood) came out of nowhere to cap­ture the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion. Akin has polled rea­son­ably well against McCaskill for some time, stay­ing mostly in the mid-​​single-​​digits ahead of the incum­bent. The lone post-​​primary poll from Sur­veyUSA indi­cates an 11-​​point lead, which is far enough from the his­tor­i­cal aver­age to sug­gest that it’s an out­lier. It could be a post-​​primary bump, akin to the bump can­di­dates get after the national con­ven­tions. Or it could be a trend. Until we see which of these it is, Mis­souri still “Leans Republican”.
  • Wis­con­sin: With the pri­mary elec­tion over, we now know that for­mer Gov­er­nor Tommy Thomp­son will be the Repub­li­can run­ning against Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tammy Bald­win (D-​​Madison) in Novem­ber. Thomp­son was the early favorite in matchup polls, but lately the gap had closed to the point where it’s very close between the two can­di­dates. In the last two polls to release before the pri­mary, CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac saw an unad­justed tie (which adjusts to a one-​​point lead for Bald­win), albeit with a polling range over an entire week; Mar­quette Uni­ver­sity ran a one-​​day poll that gave Thomp­son the lead by five. The one post-​​primary poll, con­ducted by Ras­mussen, gives Thomp­son the edge by 11 unad­justed points. As in Mis­souri, we may be look­ing at evi­dence of a post-​​primary bump that will fade, or we may be look­ing at an out­lier from Ras­mussen. We’ll need another round to see what, if any­thing, these lat­est polls are telling us. In the absence of this, I’m leav­ing Wis­con­sin in the “Leans Repub­li­can” col­umn. We’ll know bet­ter in two weeks.
  • Ohio: Two new polls this time, one from Ras­mussen and one from Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling. Ras­mussen saw an unad­justed tie between the two can­di­dates, which adjusts to a one-​​point lead for incum­bent Sen­a­tor Sher­rod Brown, over state Trea­surer Josh Man­del. PPP, on the other hand, found a ten-​​point lead for the incum­bent, which adjusts to about a six-​​point lead. I’m pretty well con­vinced that Ras­mussen is deliv­er­ing noise this week, since it’s the only poll to be out­side the five– to 15-​​point range over the past sev­eral months. I’m still leav­ing Ohio in the “Leans Demo­c­rat” col­umn, though I think our next install­ment will show a move to “Likely Democrat”.
  • Florida: Only one poll this time, from Ras­mussen, who saw a seven-​​point unad­justed lead for incum­bent Sen­a­tor Bill Nel­son over his chal­lenger, Con­nie Mack, IV (R-​​Fort Mey­ers). It adjusts to an eight-​​point lead. Florida’s polling has been rel­a­tively noisy, and Rasmussen’s par­tic­u­larly so, so this lat­est poll isn’t as con­vinc­ing on its own as it might oth­er­wise be. Nonethe­less, the his­tory is now sug­gest­ing that the out­lier of the past month was SurveyUSA’s six-​​point Mack lead from a month ago, rather than those show­ing a mod­est lead for Nel­son. I’m con­vinced enough to move Florida into the “Leans Demo­c­ra­tic” col­umn for the first time in a long time.
  • Vir­ginia: Ras­mussen and CBS/​New York Times/​Quinnipiac both polled here recently. While Ras­mussen saw an unad­justed tie (which adjusts to a one-​​point lead for for­mer Gov­er­nor Tim Kaine over for­mer Gov­er­nor George Allen), Quin­nip­iac saw an unad­justed two-​​point Kaine lead, which adjusts to three points for the Demo­c­rat. The polling has stayed pretty close to a tie, and the error bars strad­dle the mid­dle, so there is still not enough of a sig­nal to toss Vir­ginia out of the “Tossup” column.
  • Con­necti­cut: No new polls, but we now know who the Repub­li­can can­di­date will be. For­mer WWE exec­u­tive Linda McMa­hon will be fac­ing off in the ring against Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Chris Mur­phy (D-​​Cheshire). With no new poll data, Con­necti­cut stays a “Leans Demo­c­rat” state.

It’s been a quiet cou­ple of weeks in Sen­ate polling, and among the polls we’ve had, only Florida has had enough to move the nee­dle. Our map hasn’t changed oth­er­wise in a month.

And so, our for­mer five tossups become four: Indi­ana, Mass­a­chu­setts, Mon­tana, and Vir­ginia. It seems cred­i­ble for Repub­li­cans to win at least two of the five, but win­ning two would not hand them the major­ity. The Intrade mar­kets moved a lit­tle: they now give Repub­li­cans about a 50 per­cent chance of tak­ing the Sen­ate (down two points from two weeks ago), with a 31 per­cent chance of Democ­rats hold­ing at least 51 seats (up two points from last time), and still a 20 per­cent chance of exactly 50 seats. The indi­vid­ual Sen­ate race mar­kets are too lightly traded to pro­duce any mean­ing­ful data.

How cred­i­ble do you think those mar­ket num­bers are? Do you agree or dis­agree with my state analy­ses above?

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