Polling Updates
Two new Texas polls show Cruz is still leading. One showed Cruz +5 and the other was Cruz +10. Both were outside the margin of error. These polls were from 6/8 to 6/17 for the 5 point lead and 6/19 to 6/22 for the 10 point lead. Given the child separation controversy occurred around this time, that might have affected these numbers. O’Rouke still needs to improve his numbers.
A new Nevada poll shows the Rosen, the Democratic challenger, with a 4 point lead that is technically outside of the 3.9% margin of error. This is promising but it could just be a temporary bump from the backlash over child separations.
A new Pennsylvania poll shows that Casey has a safe lead. Based on this and the other polls Pennsylvania has been moved to the safe blue column until further notice.
Similarly to Pennsylvania, another Ohio poll shows the incumbent Brown with a solid double-digit lead. Therefore I am no longer considering Ohio a competitive race.
Two new contradictory Florida polls continue to a close race between the incumbent Nelson and the presumed Republican challenger Scott. Scott has no competitors with a reasonable chance so he will probably be nominated.
North Dakota
2016 Presidential Election result: Trump: 63%, Clinton 27.2%, Margin: Trump +35.8%
2012 Senate Election result: Heitkamp (D) 50.2%, Berg (R) 49.3%, margin +0.9 D
Democratic Candidate: Heidi Heitkamp
Heitkamp was elected to the Senate in 2012 and was the Attorney General and Tax Commissioner of North Dakota before she was elected to the Senate. She looks like a pretty moderate Democrat that has a pretty high Trump score for a Democrat in a state Trump won by a landside.
Republican Candidate: Kevin Cramer
Cramer has been a US representative since 2012, and held other various political positions before then. Cramer appears to be a populist Republican with Trump-like positions on his website.
My Thoughts on the Race:
The polls show a race that is close with one poll showing Heitkamp with a 3 point lead that was taken in February, and a more recent June poll shows Cramer with a 4 point lead which I am more inclined to view as accurate since pre-primary polls usually have undecided voters that will likely change their mind to their typical party once the primary is over. Cramer just announced before the poll, so voters probably didn’t have enough information to decide. Hopefully, there will be more polling before election day, but this seat looks like it might flip to the Republican party. Heitkamp barely won in 2012, and Trump did well in North Dakota.
And as always, for full disclosure, I am a moderate Republican, and while I try to keep my politics out of my analysis, they may affect how I view things.
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