WA-02: Survey USA: Koster(R) leads Larsen(D-inc) by 4

[Meeker]

Gag @ WA-02

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

We had an actual election in WA-2 and the numbers look much better for Larsen than they do in the SUSA poll. I call bullsh!t.

[Sbane]

I think SUSA may be overstating Republican support due to the enthusiasm gap, but it's still worth watching. They absolutely nailed the special election in CA-10. I wish they would do a CA-11 poll.

[Torie]

It seems that the bulk of house seats on a GOP target list from 50 to 100 that have had polls, have the GOP candidate ahead or very close. In other words, as things stand now, we could be taking about a 75 seat gain or something. I mean with Larsen down 4%, a seat that is about number 70-80 on any target list, putting aside whether SUSA has some GOP bias, at the moment a plate tectonic shift seems to be occurring.

[ajc0918]

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=42ee4e0b-d36d-4eed-9d63-4ef5b18d41ce

Rick Larsen (D-inc): 46
John Koster (R): 50
Undecided: 4
(MoE: ±4%)

[minionofmidas]

Republicans won most seats in Washington in 1994. Larsen came close to losing in 2002, as well.
So, wouldn't be surprising. No idea if this Koster guy is up to the task, of course.

[Vepres]

Republicans won most seats in Washington in 1994. Larsen came close to losing in 2002, as well.
So, wouldn't be surprising. No idea if this Koster guy is up to the task, of course.

It would be so bizarre to have Republicans hold the majority of Washington CDs and one of the Senate seats.

[bgwah]

Republicans won most seats in Washington in 1994. Larsen came close to losing in 2002, as well.
So, wouldn't be surprising. No idea if this Koster guy is up to the task, of course.

Koster is certainly one of the better candidates the Republicans could have run, and isn't a sacrificial lamb like some of Larsen's other recent opponents. Koster has the possibility of a big win in the  suburban/rural Snohomish County portion of the district (where he is a county councilman), which may be the critical factor that just puts him over the top.

Enough time hasn't elapsed to come to any conclusions, but the last few elections seem to suggest that Island has moved fully into swing-county territory, and Skagit actually might be leaning towards the Democrats now. Maybe.

If Larsen wants to win, he'll need to do pretty decently in Everett and Bellingham to make up for the thrashing he will get in the rest of Snohomish and Whatcom counties.

I'm not really sure anybody actually likes Larsen that much... I was at the county convention, and Rick Larsen, a five-term incumbent, didn't even get endorsed. His campaign people were vicious monsters, to say the least, and were definitely driving people away IMO. It's what made me a supporter of McGinness & Kalb, at least.

Larsen did pathetically in my Bellingham precinct, getting something like 51%... To put that in perspective, the district was 87% Obama and 89% Approve on R-71. And it's not that Koster did well here, but that Larsen did horribly. Leftist fringe (the aforementioned McGinness and Kalb) candidates probably got over 30% of the total vote.

My gut is telling me Larsen will narrowly win still (a repeat of 2002 perhaps?), but I think this seat has definitely moved into toss-up territory, and I won't be surprised if Larsen loses.

Normally it wouldn't be a big deal, as it seems like the kind of district that would return to the Democrats fairly quickly after falling in a wave election... Especially with a pretty conservative guy like Koster (he is no Metcalf).

But re-districting will significantly alter the district--this is because it is likely we'll get a 10th seat here in Washington, and the 2nd district (along with the rest, really) will have to shrink quite a bit. I don't know exactly what they'll do, but Everett seems like the most likely portion of the district that may be cut out, and if that happens, the district gets significantly more Republican. I suppose it is also possible they would try to cut out suburban/rural portions of Snohomish County instead, or maybe something wacky like trying to cut out Island County, which may essentially break even or even make the district a little more Democratic, but this is all speculation on my part. Everett has been a key city in the district for a long time (basically its entire existence), so there may be historical reasons to try keeping it there.

Okay, I just wrote way more about WA-2 than anybody probably cared to read. Maybe RealisticIdealist will have something to add or correct, as he's a more permanent resident in the district than I am.

[Sbane]

Is the new district that will be added likely to be Democratic? If so, losing WA-2 might not be such a big deal.

[Sbane]

It seems that the bulk of house seats on a GOP target list from 50 to 100 that have had polls, have the GOP candidate ahead or very close. In other words, as things stand now, we could be taking about a 75 seat gain or something. I mean with Larsen down 4%, a seat that is about number 70-80 on any target list, putting aside whether SUSA has some GOP bias, at the moment a plate tectonic shift seems to be occurring.

Are you sure WA-2 is number 70-80? It's only a D+3 district and Obama only got about 55% of the vote here. Plus Larsen isn't too personally popular, at least according to the forumites living there. I would put this in the same category as CA-47,18 and 20. They are all right around the 60-65th seat to fall. That being said neither WA-2, nor the CA districts I listed are going to fall. Republicans will end up picking up 50-55 and that's it. If SUSA is right, it should be about a 60-70 seat loss. We will see who is right.

Plus I would go check out the approval of Republicans in congress before I got too cocky about any tectonic shifts.

[Fuzzybigfoot]

53% of likely voters are gun owners, they say!


Way to fail again, SUSA.

[Dgov]

A Couple of interesting notes here:

1)  This is the first time i've ever seen the Democrats do better in the white vote than their district average (outside of Miami), mostly due to Koster's 19-point edge with Asian voters.

2)  Koster is also sweeping the Youth vote it seems, winning the under-34 voters by 22 points despite losing the over-50 voters by 4 points.

3) The Racial Crosstabs are almost certainly off.  They polled far too few to be significant, but the polls show Koster winning both Blacks and Hispanics by about 10%.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's generally a mistake to try to calculate national swings from constituency polling.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

It's generally a mistake to try to calculate national swings from constituency polling.

Please don't get in the way of Torie's fantasy life.

[Sbane]

I wouldn't read too much into the crosstabs. SUSA has had pretty wacky crosstabs this year, but that doesn't mean the poll is wrong, nor does it mean that SUSA's crosstab numbers are correct. It's the final number that matters.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You shouldn't read much into crosstabs or poll internals at all. Even when they're from exit polls or poll aggregates. I understand the temptation to do so and it's one that just about everyone seriously into elections does, but...

[Sam Spade]

I'd prefer if each House poll has a separate thread and each internal poll gets dumped in one thread.

[minionofmidas]

3) The Racial Crosstabs are almost certainly off.  They polled far too few to be significant, but the polls show Koster winning both Blacks and Hispanics by about 10%.

That's because there are far too few Blacks and (citizen) Hispanics in the region to be significant.

(Though incidentally, Republicans getting some of their highest shares of the Black vote in the Northwest in crosstabs sounds familiar.)

[bgwah]

Is the new district that will be added likely to be Democratic? If so, losing WA-2 might not be such a big deal.

Yes, it will probably be an Olympia-Coast district, but the new district will also make WA-3 pretty safe for the Republicans by taking out its most liberal part (Olympia) and replacing it with parts of Eastern Washington... So it's a net loss.

WA-8 could potentially become more Democratic as a result, though. But that would require the Democrats to run a non-joke candidate to matter, which they seem incapable of doing. But figuring out what needs to happen for a district like WA-8 is difficult, as Dave's Redistricting Application is somewhat useless for figuring out intra-county borders like that.