Netroots pollster Joel Wright has been busy recently. Not only did he just conduct a third poll for MyDD last week (this one a second follow up on CA-50), he also developed and put into the field a survey for Mike Caudle for State Representative in Oregon district 39, the campaign I am managing this cycle. (As a side note, one of the nice things about running a non-targeted campaign is that you can hire the people you want, not just those the party recommends; as a result, I of course turned to Joel -- a.k.a. Sun Tzu on MyDD -- who is definitely one of the best in the business.)
Oregon HD 39 is a great swing district to check out for polling today. While the area has a rich Democratic Party tradition, it is nevertheless conservative; and while Republicans have a voter registration edge in the district of close to 900 voters (or about 2.5 percent), non-affiliated (independent) and minor party voters make up nearly one-quarter of the electorate. In 2004, the district split its ticket, giving George W. Bush a 54.5 percent to 45.5 percent two-party victory but Democratic U.S. Rep. Darlene Hooley and Democratic County Commission candidate Martha Schrader 51.1 percent and 53.5 percent of it's two-party vote, respectively.
So how will this district swing this fall? First, let's look how it's swinging today. According to the poll of 300 likely voters conducted by Joel Wright from August 7-10, 2006 (MoE of +/- 5.8 percent), just 31 percent of the district thinks Oregon is moving in the right direction while 46 percent believe the state is on the wrong track. These numbers are much worse among independent and minor party voters, 19 percent of whom say the state is on the right track while 57 percent say the state is moving in the wrong direction.
Looking at the current state Representative for the district, House Majority Leader Wayne Scott (R-Canby), 38 percent of likely voters approve of the job he is doing. Interestingly, the group least likely to approve of Scott are not Democrats but independents and minor party voters, just 23 percent of whom voice approval of Scott (compared to 30 percent of Democrats and 53 percent of Republicans).
In today's head-to-head matchup in the district, Scott holds a 46 percent to 25 percent lead over Caudle -- a large, though by no means insurmountable margin. Independent voters are largely undecided in the race, with a large plurality not yet able to voice support either way (46 percent are undecided, 25 percent are for Caudle, and 23 percent are for Scott). However, when positive and negative statements are read about both candidates (and I promise you, Joel was very strict about keeping two statements balanced), Scott's lead evaporates as Democrats come home and indies and minor party voters swing hard to Caudle. On the informed test question, the race is a statistical dead heat, with Scott at 41 percent and Caudle at 39 percent. Independent and minor party voters support Caudle by close to a 2 to 1 margin, 49 percent to 26 percent. The swing among undecided independent voters from pre-test to post-test is stunning, with close to 88 percent of this subset moving to Caudle while about 12 percent move to Scott.
Of course the numbers from this poll cannot and should not be taken as representative of the nation as a whole or of independent voters around the entire country. Nevertheless, the fact that these non-affiliated voters in a swing district from a swing state are so negative in their outlook towards the current political environment and so unwilling to support Republicans (and, correspondingly, open to supporting insurgent Dems) provide further anecdotal evidence that the anti-incumbent and anti-GOP mood in the country is permeating throughout the entire ballot and threatens not only Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress and in governor's mansions around the country but also Republican control of state legislatures, county commissions and city councils across the country..