The last few days have had some encouraging Senate polls for Republicans, while House polls are still mixed. Zogby has Talent up 3% in Missouri, Allen up 3% in Virginia,and Corker up 7% in Tennessee. He also has Kean up 2% in New Jersey where the New Republic exposes the smell of scandal emanating from Bob Menendez. 

Zogby  has Dewine down 4% in Ohio and Bouchard in Michigan only 4% behind Debbie Stabenow (I would not bet on accuracy of this last one). Rasmussen, generally more reliable, has a new poll with Burns down only 3% in Montana (was 6%). New poll today has Chafee down 4% in Rhdde Island (also closer than before).

Survey USA has Steele even with Cardin in Maryland. This is the wild card this year. Democrats are very nervous about black voters straying to vote for Steele. Cardin also has a personality deficit. McGavick is down 7 or 8 in Washington, not totally dead yet. The most optimistic way to read this is that Santorum's race may be the  only one beyond hope at the moment (closest polls have him 5 to 8 down, others more).  Burns, Dewine, and Chafee still behind, but 5 points or less (Dewine behind by more in other surveys).

On the House side, some odd results— GOP ahead in a Democratic held district in Indiana 7 (Julia Carson), and ahead in Ct. 2 (Simmons by
2%— district went 56% for Kerry).  Lieberman  race a huge asset to 
all 3 GOP congressmen in CT. Thank you Ned Lamont and Daily Kos.  
Susan Collins, Maine GOP senator will campaign for Lieberman this weekend. 

Democrats with big leads in GOP held seats all over New York according to RT Strategies (new group this year with automated surveys, large samples of 1,000 per race). Siena poll has Sweeney up 13% in New York 20.  RT Strategies has him down 14%. Who is right? 
A third poll shows Sweeney down 2% (Democratic pollster). RT has Dems ahead in 230 races nationally (pickup of 28). But many are 1—3 point leads, and some of results are not credible (Kirk only up 2% in IL.  10).  Reynolds is  up 3% in latest poll in NY 26, was down 13—15% right after Foley scandal broke. 

Heavy GOP ad buys in district may be helping. I still have about 20 races with Dem leads or tipping  that way. Not hopeless, but not good  either. Foley stink bomb  probably impacted almost half of them. I do not see the 40—50 seat Democratic pickup that James Carville is blathering about, unless late October surprise shows instant messages between Foley and Kim Jong Il's younger son.

Richard Baehr   10 20 06