Charlie Baker is making it a race in Massachusetts as he is within 5% of Deval Patrick int eh race for Governor.

GOVERNOR – MASSACHUSETTS (Rasmussen)
Deval Patrick (D-inc) 39%
Charlie Baker (R) 34%
Tim Cahill (I) 18%

This poll was done September 1st among 500 likely voters. In Nevada, Rasmussen’s latest poll has the race at a 45%-45% dead heat tie.

US SENATE – NEVADA (Rasmussen)
Sharron Angle (R) 45%
Harry Reid (D-inc) 45%

This poll was done September 1st among 750 likely voters. And we finally get that long-awaited poll for the Idaho gubernatorial race.

GOVERNOR – IDAHO (Rasmussen)
Butch Otter (R-inc) 52%
Keith Allred (D) 36%

This poll was done August 31st among 500 likely voters. Rasmussen’s email today claims we will get a poll for the US Senate race in New York later today. Moving over to Magellan Strategies, a new poll for the primary races in New Hampshire shows Kelly Ayotte leading the Republican field.

US SENATE – NEW HAMPSHIRE – GOP PRIMARY (Magellan)
Kelly Ayotte 34%
Ovide Lamontagne 21%
Bill Binnie 17%
Jim Bender 13%

This poll was done September 1st among 887 likely voters. Like the rest of the Northeast, this primary will be held on September 14th.

The absurdity that is early voting starts today in Maryland as dozens and dozens of people who are “too busy” to set aside at most two hours every two years to show up at a polling place on a day that has been scheduled for years and years in advance or, if they actually happen to be way too busy on that one particular day, are too lazy to pick up a phone and ask for an absentee ballot that you don’t even need an actual excuse for will be permitted to start voting 11 days before the actual Primary Election day at various places around the state. And we, the taxpayers, get to foot the bill….

We got a new poll from Survey USA for the state of California showing continued good news for Republicans.

GOVERNOR – CALIFORNIA (Survey USA)
Meg Whitman (R) 47%
Jerry Brown (D) 40%

US SENATE – CALIFORNIA (Survey USA)
Carly Fiorina (R) 48%
Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 46%

This poll was done August 31-September 1 among 569 likely voters. We also got a poll last night from The Chicago Tribune showing a dead-heat tie between Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Alexi Giannoulias.

US SENATE – ILLINOIS (Chicago Tribune)
Mark Kirk (R) 34%
Alexi Giannoulias (D) 34%
LeAlan Jones (G) 6%
Mike Labno (L) 3%

This poll was done August 28-September 1 among 600 likely voters. In Kentucky, Braun Research, who so far has been the only polling organization to ever show Democrat Jack Conway leading Rand Paul in the US Senate race, has reverted back to showing Rand Paul now ahead.

US SENATE – KENTUCKY (Braun)
Rand Paul (R) 42%
Jack Conway (D) 37%

This poll was done August 30-September 1 among 802 likely voters.

We never did get that promised poll from Rasmussen for the state of Idaho. Seriously, Rasmussen’s emails indicating what polls he will release are becoming borderline useless at this point.

Finally, I had a request from a regular commenter who will be in the DC area at the American Political Science Association Conference.

Any HHR’s who are in DC for the American Political Science Assn. conference, or who are in the MD/DC/VA suburbs & want to get together, Jim B. from PA and Kristen from AZ are at the conference & would be glad to connect with anyone else whose interested.

How about something like drinks or lite dinner Saturday evening at the Marriott Metro Center hotel–easy to get to from any Metro line.

Jim B.

They had also listed a phone number, but I am somewhat reluctant to post that directly on the front page. If either Jim or Kristen is reading, feel free to post your phone number in the comments or if anyone is interested, email me and I will send your contact information directly to them.

On that note, enjoy your Friday. I will be heading to a “Hispanics for Ehrlich” Happy Hour later tonight in beautiful downtown Ellicott City later tonight to start off the three-day weekend. But I will probably be back later today before I even leave for that….

More polls! YAY! We start with the rest of the poll from Public Policy Polling for the state of Alaska showing Republican incumbents Sean Parnell and Don Young well ahead of their Democratic challengers.

GOVERNOR – ALASKA (PPP)
Sean Parnell (R-inc) 55%
Ethan Berkowitz (D) 37%

US HOUSE – ALASKA (PPP)
Don Young (R-inc) 55%
Harry Crawford (D) 36%

This poll was done August 27-28 among 1306 likely voters. Interestingly, Scott Rasmussen has the race for Governor much closer.

GOVERNOR – ALASKA (Rasmussen)
Sean Parnell (R-inc) 53%
Ethan Berkowitz (D) 435

This poll was done August 31st among 500 likely voters. From Survey USA, a new poll for the Congressional race in the 5th District of Virginia giving Republican Robert Hurt a huge lead over sitting Democratic Congressman Tom Perriello.

US HOUSE – VIRGINIA – CD5 (Survey USA)
Robert Hurt (R) 6%
Tom Perriello (D-inc) 35%

This poll was done August 31-September 1 among 581 likely voters. There’s more out there, but this should keep things rolling….

We’ll start out the lunch time polling update with Public Policy Polling’s look at the US Senate race in Ohio that gives Republican Rob Portman a 7% lead over Democrat Lee Fisher.

US SENATE – OHIO (PPP)
Rob Portman (R) 45%
Lee Fisher (D) 38%

This poll was done August 27-29 among 475 likely voters. Out from Rasmussen today is a new poll in the Florida gubernatorial race that shows Alex Sink barely ahead of Rick Scott in the wake of Bud Chiles decision to drop out of the race.

GOVERNOR – FLORIDA (Rasmussen)
Rick Scott (R) 45%
Alex Sink (D) 44%

This poll was done August 31st among 750 likely voters. That reminds me, I have to fix the Florida PollWatch page now that Bud Chiles has decided to drop out of the race. Speaking of Florida, there is an internal poll released by the Crist campaign from a polling outfit called FrederickPolls, LLC that shows a tight two-way race between Crist and Rubio.

US SENATE – FLORIDA (FrederickPolls)
Charlie Crist (I) 35%
Marco Rubio (R) 34%
Kendrick meek (D) 17%

This poll was done August 28-31 among 500 likely voters. Finally, we have the first change in The Hedgehog Report US Senate Outlook as Rasmussen’s latest poll shows Republican Dino Rossi ahead of Democrat Patty Murray in the race in Washington State.

US SENATE – WASHINGTON (Rasmussen)
Dino Rossi (R) 48%
Patty Murray (D-inc) 46%

This poll was done August 31st among 750 likely voters. With this poll, Washington State moves over into the Republican camp, giving the Republicans a net gain of eight seats and getting within two seats of gaining control of the US Senate.

Polls for the Alaska gubernatorial race and Idaho gubernatorial race from Rasmussen later today, according to his email.

The early voting in Maryland starts tomorrow, so if we are going to get a “pre-primary” poll for the Maryland gubernatorial race on the Republican side, it has to come today.

Yesterday we got the General Election polls out of New York and today, we get the primary numbers from Quinnipiac University to see which Republican will be slaughtered by the respective Democratic incumbent in November.

GOVERNOR – NEW YORK – GOP PRIMARY (Quinnipiac)
Rick Lazio 47%
Carl Paladino 35%

US SENATE – NEW YORK – GOP PRIMARY (Quinnipiac)
Joe DioGuardi 28%
David Malpass 12%
Bruce Blakeman 105

This poll was done August 23-31 among 359 likely voters. We should get the other half of the Ohio poll from Public Policy Polling today and it appears they will definitely be polling Texas this weekend.

Not to worry, I was not one of those people who was held hostage…just haven’t been around a computer all day. A little catching up from today for me starting with Scott Rasmussen, who released polls in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and Alaska.

US SENATE – ALASKA (Rasmussen)
Joe Miller (R) 50%
Scott McAdams (D) 44%

US SENATE – LOUISIANA (Rasmussen)
David Vitter (R-inc) 54%
Charlie Melancon (D) 33%

GOVERNOR – OHIO (Rasmussen)
John Kasich (R) 47%
Ted Strickland (D-inc) 39%

GOVERNOR – PENNSYLVANIA (Rasmussen)
Tom Corbett (R) 50%
Dan Onorato (D) 37%

The OH, PA and LA polls were done August 30th among 750 likely voters in OH and PA and 500 likely voters in LA while the AK poll was done August 31st among 500 likely voters. Meanwhile, Public Policy Polling put out a new poll from Ohio showing John Kasich ahead by double digits.

GOVERNOR – OHIO (PPP)
John Kasich (R) 50%
Ted Strickland (D-inc) 40%

This poll was done August 27-29 among 475 likely voters.

Lisa Murkowski has conceded the Republican US Senate nomination in Alaska. I had already switched the Alaska PollWatch page over to Miller.

One thing that might actually help Ehrlich in Maryland avoid the same fate as other establishment candidates is it appears the “Tea Party Express” is setting their sights on neighboring Delaware and Mike Castle instead of Maryland and Ehrlich ahead of the September 14th primaries in each state.

Not much this morning to chew over other than for some reason, Quinnipiac University is spending more money polling the blowouts in New York.

GOVERNOR – NEW YORK (Quinnipiac)
Andrew Cuomo (D) 57%
Rick Lazio (R) 25%

Andrew Cuomo (D) 60%
Carl Paladino (R) 23%

US SENATE – NEW YORK (Quinnipiac)
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 44%
Bruce Blakeman 26%

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 43%
Joe DioGuardi 28%

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 45%
David Malpass 24%

This poll was done August 23-29 among 1497 registered voters. Public Policy Polling has already indicated they will be releasing new numbers from Ohio today and as always, we will get the usual smattering of polls from Rasmussen I am sure.

Probably be a little slow around here this morning….

While the comments are filled with up-to-the-minute reports on the absentee vote count in Alaska, we did get another poll. Following up on this morning’s poll from Rasmussen, we have another poll for the gubernatorial race in Colorado and this one shows an even larger lead for Democrat John Hicknelooper. The latest poll from Magellan Strategies shows Hickenlooper getting a larger percentage of the electorate than Maes and Tancredo combined.

GOVERNOR – COLORADO (Magellan)
John Hickenlooper (D) 46%
Dan Maes (R) 27%
Tom Tancredo (C) 17%

This poll was done August 25-26 among 954 likely voters. In other electoral news, Bud Chiles in Florida has dropped out of the race as a third-party candidate in a clearly naked attempt to irritate me and force me to go back and revise the Florida poll tables….

Okay, back to Alaska….

We have a second poll out of Pennsylvania showing both Pat Toomey and Tom Corbett with double-digit leads over their Democratic opponents in Pennsylvania.

US SENATE – PENNSYLVANIA (Ipsos/Reuters)
Pat Toomey (R) 47%
Joe Sestak (D) 37%

GOVERNOR – PENNSYLVANIA (Ipsos)
Tom Corbett (R) 49%
Dan Onorato (D) 34%

This poll was done August 27-29 among 407 likely voters. Meanwhile, Public policy Polling teases their new Ohio poll with this statement.

…by a 50-42 margin voters there say they’d rather have George W. Bush in the White House right now than Barack Obama.

Hard to believe the numbers for Ohio will not be favorable to John Kasich and Rob Portman with a statement like that.

We have one more poll from Scott Rasmussen today for the US Senate race in Pennsylvania that shows Republican Pat Toomey with a small single-digit lead over Democrat Joe Sestak.

US SENATE – PENNSYLVANIA (Rasmussen)
Pat Toomey (R) 45%
Joe Sestak (D) 39%

This poll was done August 30th among 750 likely voters.