A LITTLE NUMBERS PROBLEM – AT 9:12 P.M. ET:  Much of the political buzz over the last few days has involved the apparent "surge" of support for Democratic candidates for the Senate and governorship in California.  But the Weekly Standard has examined some California polling, and finds the methodology disturbing.  We might be doing much better than we think:

Yesterday evening, the CNN/Time poll of the California Senate race found Barbara Boxer up nine points among likely voters over Carly Fiorina.

That’s by about the same amount that John Kerry beat George W. Bush in 2004. Yet Kerry defeated Bush among independent voters by a wide margin, 59-36. In the CNN/Time poll, it’s Fiorina who has a lead over Boxer among independents, and a sizeable one at that, 53-39. The poll also finds the two parties very well sorted, Democrats going for Boxer 93-5 and Republicans going for Fiorina 92-4.

So, the only way to find a nine-point lead for Boxer is if the poll has a huge sample of Democrats.

And the same pattern appears in polling for governor, where the race is between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman:

...Whitman has a big lead among independents. The only way to get a nine-point Democratic lead is to sample a more Democratic electorate than even 2008.

I appreciate the need for leeway in partisan sampling, but it seems quite unlikely that the 2010 midterm electorate will look like this.

We'll be eager to see California polling by Rasmussen and others.  It would be a sweet thing to see Barbara Boxer sent into retirement.  It's uphill for the GOP in the once-golden state, but I have to believe victory is possible.  Watch the California polls over the next two weeks.

September 30, 2010