Talk Elections

OR-05 SurveyUSA

Bruun(R): 51%
Schrader(D-Inc): 41%

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=822410a8-9257-4e74-b365-f6d24b6f3eb4

DAYYYYUUUMMMMNNNNNN!!!!

That's quite a lead.

Bruun's last released internal had this at..

Moore Information (R) for Scott Bruun (10/13-14, likely voters, no trendlines):
Kurt Schrader (D-inc): 40
Scott Bruun: 44
(MoE: ±5.7%)

Which makes this a pretty shocking poll from SUSA. Could be an outlier.

I have a hard time believing this without confirmation from another independent poll.

Someone raised an issue with SUSA WA polls that their LV screen asks questions about polling places that don't apply in states with universal mail-in voting and can result in wonky numbers. Anyone know if that's true?

Just fwiw, in 2008, SUSA leaned Democratic in both OR-Pres (3 points), OR-Sen (4 points) and OR-05, but within MOE (actually OR-05 was slightly out of MOE - 6 points).  In 2004, SUSA leaned slightly Republican (1 point) in OR-Pres.

Meant to add - both committees have been spending heavily here, especially Dems.

I wonder why this CD in particular is swinging so hard. Did the government workers in Salem think that they did not get enough money out of the stimulus bill or something?  :)

Remember that SurveyUSA showed also Murray trailing badly when everybody else showed the opposite.

It's a swing district with a freshman incumbent (ie the kind of district that would flip). I don't know about that margin, but I could definitely see it flipping.

OSU (enrollment: about 20,000) is in this district, although weirdly, Corvallis is split.

Even if it be an outlier, that's a big enough lead (and from a good enough pollster) for this to = deep trouble.

Also, for once there is a third party candidate from the left, the Pacific Greens, who is winning 2% of the vote, and his support rises the further leftward you go on the political scale, according to the crosstabs (of course based on a tiny sample of voters).

44% Republican/37% Democratic/18% Independent ?

It seems to be a little too Republican to me. Not to mention it shows voters in this district having a favorable opinion of the Tea Party and having more Conservatives than Moderates, with only 19% being Liberal, which seems strange for a district including Corvallis and Salem. Nonetheless this poll is bad news.

Well, Bush did win the district twice.

Schrader leads 47-46 amongst those who have already voted (10%).

*Obligatory crosstabs disclaimer*

The registration edge for Democrats in this district is D+5...

Interesting, because even Republican internals have Schrader only down within the margin of error. 

If Kitzhaber wins with the Dem-controlled legislature, I would imagine there will be an effort to make this seat safe for Schrader or alternatively to give it back to him.  Is there such potential with the Oregon map?

Yes, but it basically involves the 3-way split of Portland.  In other words, ugly maps.

It's not actually a heavily Democratic district or anything. Also, Salem is just an older centre within the Portland exurbs.

Yeah. Up till 2006 it was always flagged up as a longshot possibility for the Republicans.

As a D+5 state with 5 districts, it's difficult to make four safely Democratic seats. Unless OR-2 can be made a fair bit more Republican, you've got 30 points of Democratic lean to distribute amongst four districts. That's an average of D+7.5, but you'd have to have a fair bit of variance in them unless you want to do some serious gerrymandering.

...which Oregon does not do. They've got laws in that part of the United States.

And yet with their laws OR-05 still looks gerrymandered:

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I'd forgotten that it has that coastal strip. Just didn't know where else to put those two counties, I suppose.