Friday, Nov. 3, 2006 8:25 a.m. EST
Zogby: Allen, Talent in Danger
Reuters
The battle for control of the Senate hinges on several races where candidates hold razor-thin margins heading into the final week of campaigning, a new Reuters/Zogby package of polls in 10 key senate races shows.
New telephone polls for Reuters, conducted by Zogby International, show the seats of embattled Republican Sens. Jim Talent of Missouri and George Allen of Virginia extremely vulnerable in the final days of the election, while a third "must-win†seat in Tennessee is moving toward safe territory for Republicans.
The Reuters/Zogby polls of 10 key Senate races were conducted Oct. 24 through 31, and have a target sample of 600 likely voters statewide. All polls carry a margin of error of +/- 4.1 percentage points.
In Missouri, Talent, the freshman Senator elected to a partial term in 2002, trails Democrat Claire McCaskill by three points, 46 to 43. McCaskill, the state auditor, had narrowly trailed in a number of polls throughout much of the election cycle, but had shown momentum in several recent polls. Democrats had long identified the Talent seat as a contest they needed to win to secure a majority in the Senate. Libertarian candidate Frank Gilmour, meanwhile, is polling at 6%.
Meanwhile in Virginia, Republicans are battling to save Allen’s seat, viewed as a safely Republican seat by many at the beginning of the election cycle.
Following a series of missteps that have bedeviled the Allen campaign since late summer, Allen has slipped narrowly behind challenger Jim Webb.
The two appear in a dead-heat with Webb at 45 and Allen at 44.
Webb, the Democratic nominee, is a former Reagan Navy Secretary and military fiction author who has been no stranger to controversy and missteps himself, including recent disclosures of graphic depictions in several of his novels.
One bright spot for Republicans comes from Tennessee, where former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker holds a double-digit lead over Memphis Rep. Harold Ford Jr. in the contest to succeed Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Corker is leading Ford 53 to 43.
The battle had closed to a statistical tie in a number of recent polls, but Corker’s 10-point lead follows several gaffes by Ford, including an attempt to confront Corker at a press conference and an attack on the religious values of Republicans.
Republicans can also take heart in a last-minute surge in Montana by Conrad Burns. Burns, the incumbent senator many Republican insiders had written off as a loss following disclosures of strong ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, was trailing Democrat Jon Tester by wide margins for much of the campaign cycle. However, with just one week to go until Election Day, the Reuters/Zogby poll puts Burns behind tester by just one point, 47 to 46, with the electorate still undecided and 2% backing Libertarian Stan Jones.
In Maryland, Democratic Rep. Ben Cardin continues to lead Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, 49% to 44%, in a seat Republicans had long thought a possible pick-up.
Elsewhere, the Reuters/Zogby polls pointed to Democratic advantages, with Democrat Bob Casey Jr. leading Republican Sen. Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania by a 48% to 40% margin; Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown ahead of incumbent Sen. Mike DeWine in Ohio by 49% to 42%; and Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse leading incumbent Republican Lincoln Chafee by 53% to 39% in the Rhode Island Senate race.
In New Jersey, meanwhile, Republican hopes of defeating incumbent appointee Bob Menendez seem to be dimming, as Menendez has opened a double-digit, 49% to 37% lead in his race against Tom Kean Jr., son of the popular former governor. Kean had been leading in some polls and statistically tied in others as recently as last week, when he criticized conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh and called for the firing of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
And in Connecticut, where anti-war liberal Ned Lamont had captured the Democratic nod for the U.S. Senate in a hotly contested primary against incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman, a moderate pro-war Democrat, it is Lieberman who may have the last laugh. The Reuters/Zogby poll shows an independent Lieberman leading Democrat Lamont by a 49% to 37% margin, while Republican nominee Alan Schlesinger is taking just 8%.
