UPDATED: NYTimes Poll Suprise: Southern Senate Dems In The Lead [View all]

[DonViejo]

Last edited Wed Apr 23, 2014, 01:37 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: TPM

DANIEL STRAUSS – APRIL 23, 2014, 9:41 AM EDT

A round of new polls conducted by The New York Times and Kaiser Family Foundation have some good (and surprising) news for a handful of Southern Senate Democrats regarded as the most vulnerable in the 2014 election cycle.

The polls, released Wednesday, found Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) leading Rep. Tom Cotton (R-AR) 46 percent to 36 percent. In Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) just barely leads Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) 44 percent to 43 percent, the poll found.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) is neck-and-neck with House Speaker Thom Tillis (R-NC) in a hypothetical matchup with Hagan getting 42 percent while Tillis gets 40 percent.

Lastly, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has a commanding lead over Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and the rest of the field in the Louisiana Senate race. That finding deserves a caveat: Louisiana's primary system is something called a "jungle primary" where there is no Republican or Democratic primary. Instead all candidates run together and if no candidate gets 50 percent of the vote, the top two candidates face each other in a runoff election. The poll found Landrieu with 42 percent followed by Cassidy with 18 percent. No other candidate managed to get double digits.

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/poll-kay-hagan-mark-pryor-mary-landrieu-alison-lundergan-grimes-democrats-southern

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DANIEL STRAUSS – APRIL 23, 2014, 12:30 PM EDT

The New York Times' Nate Cohn pushed back on criticism of a set of new polls released Wednesday that showed Southern Democrats either leading or neck-and-neck in four Senate races that have long been regarded as easy pickups for Republicans in the 2014 cycle.

Cohn responded to criticism from, in particular, The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol and the Republican National Committee over the poll. Kristol argued that the poll's survey results on a question over who voters supported in 2012 proves the poll is clearly skewed toward Democrats. Cohn brushed off that argument.

"But there’s a well-known bias toward the victor in post-election surveys. Respondents who voted for the loser often say that they don’t remember whom they supported, or say they supported someone else," Cohn wrote. "The signs of that bias are obvious upon closer examination. The poll accurately captures Mr. Obama’s support, but tends to underestimate Mr. Romney’s performance."

The RNC also sent out a response to the poll's findings arguing that the poll's findings were clearly wrong because of the findings of those surveyed on 2012 questions.

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/new-york-times-defense-polls-southern-democrats-senate