Another day, another set of good polling numbers for Senate Democrats.
Democrats hold leads in the trio of their best chances to pick up Senate seats, according to new surveys released by Axios, the latest sign that they have a real shot at netting the two seats necessary to retake the Senate this fall.
The most eye-popping numbers come from Arizona, where Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) has a 51 percent to 42 percent lead over Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ) in their hypothetical matchup to replace retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ). McSally, the GOP establishment favorite, is squaring off in a primary against former state Rep. Kelli Ward (R) and former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (R). Sinema leads Ward by 51 percent to 43 percent in the survey, and has a gaping 61 percent to 32 percent lead over the well-known and deeply polarizing Arpaio.
Those numbers come in the wake of a surprisingly narrow win for Rep.-elect Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) in a ruby-red House district west of Phoenix earlier this week. She won by less than 5 percentage points in a district Trump carried by 21, results that set off alarm bells in GOP circles.
The polls, from the online company SurveyMonkey, find similarly positive results for Democrats in two other states where they got good polling news earlier this week. In their Nevada survey, Rep. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) leads Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) by 50 percent to 44 percent. In Tennessee, former Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) has a 48 percent to 47 percent lead over Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).
That’s a bit rosier than what Mark Mellman, a top Democratic pollster with a good track record in Nevada, found in a survey released earlier this week: In his poll, Heller led Rosen by 40 percent to 39 percent, a bad spot for an incumbent to be in but not as dire a situation as this other poll suggests. Another poll released earlier this week found Bredesen with a three-point lead over Blackburn.
Online polling still isn’t quite as trustworthy as live-caller polls, according to many experts, and one poll should never be taken as gospel. But these results are the latest to show Democrats in good position in all three states.
The party still has very narrow path to retaking the Senate: They’re defending 10 seats in states President Trump won, including five in states he carried by at least 19 percentage points. They’d need to sweep the table in those races and win two of these three seats, or sweep these seats if they lose even one of those contests. If they lose two incumbents, they’d somehow need to win these seats and pull off a huge upset in a state like Texas, likely their next-best shot on the map.
But with polls like these, Democrats have to be feeling quietly confident that they might really have a shot to pull the inside straight they need to take back the Senate.
Let’s hope the Trump GOP Senate candidates stay tethered to Trump.
Likely Dem pickups this year in the Senate: AZ (two there perhaps), NV, TN. Possible pickup: TX. Likely losses: none!
I know, a huge number of Democrats are running in red states this year but, the fact is, the Trump affect is so toxic that a bowl of fruit will be able to beat most Republicans by November. I also know that overconfidence is a terrible thing in any election, but it’s not as though undecided voters are spending much time reading these comments, so I wouldn’t worry too much about that either.
This news, and the hope for some Friday indictments, makes me smile…
That big 5-0. We’re a ways out, and one poll shouldn’t change your priors that much, but my prior was that Heller was cooked.
“But with polls like these, Democrats have to be feeling quietly confident that they might really have a shot to pull the inside straight they need to take back the Senate.”
Remember how “quietly confident” we were in 2016? Work hard! Give everything you can!