Posted: June 21, 2011 at 12:03 pm

Rumors of Poll Flying

About a week ago Public Policy Polling put out a call for folks to vote on the next two states that they’d like to see polled.  The choices were Florida, Montana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Montana was one of the winners.

I can see why folks wanted to see polling from Montana, we have what is already being talked about as the most competitive governor’s race in the nation in 2012, and the Tester  v. Rehberg contest is one of the top three races for U.S. Senate.  We also have a race for an open Congressional seat that could get interesting.

It will be interesting to see what races will be polled.  Montanans haven’t had any information yet on Rick Hill vs. Ken Miller in the GOP primary, or for that matter Neil Livingstone or on Bullock vs. Bohlinger on the Dem side.  D.C. folks have been chattering about a 2014 primary between Baucus and Schweitzer, and a couple of candidates have jumped into the House race with Rep. Franke Wilmer including Dave Strohmaier, of Missoula, and Senator Kim Gillan, of Billings.

Stay tuned to Public Policy Polling, as the poll may come out any day now.  Anybody hear anything? If you get a call, email me on the tip line or leave a comment about which races are being polled.

12 comments

  2. Progressive Cow

    So we know they are doing the U.S. Senate race, which I guess is no surprise. I wish they would do some Tier B races like AG, but none of the new candidates probably have the name recognition to make poll results worthwhile.

  3. Paul S.

    My two cents: They aren’t going to poll all 800 candidates for governor on the Republican side. They are going to pick two or three that are the most likely to win. Probably one on the TEA Party side and one on the establishment side. I’d say Miller and Hill are about right. Also, I don’t think the House race gets polled, but we’ll see, it just seems like the candidates are too new. My guess is they’ll do some generic dem vs. generic repubs.

    If they asked me, Id tell them they should poll legislative races. It would be interesting to see if the low opinion people had of the legislature during the session is continuing to bother voters.

  4. Bozemanite

    I know someone who got a phone call from a Public Policy group. Probably the same group. Based on what she told me, here are the races they tested, and here are my predictions.

    Dem Primary
    schweitzer 12 pt lead
    baucus

    Gov general
    bullock 4 pt lead
    hill

    GOP Primary
    bohlinger 15
    hill 25
    stapleton 8
    miller 8
    livingstone 8

    Denny 4 pt lead
    Tester

  5. Darwin

    Flint doesn’t understand how to read a poll. He can read, but he doesn’t understand what the significance of the data is. Note that you don’t see Rehberg’s campaign touting these numbers. Here’s why.

    Independent Voters

    Rehberg Approve 35
    Rehberg Disapprove 54

    Independent Voters

    Tester Approve 53
    Tester Disapprove 36

    That my friends, is shocking.

    Flint reads the numbers that say Tester trails by 4, but not that Republicans outnumbered dems by 9.