Whom did they poll? Unregistered virtual Democrats in the City of St. Louis? How many Secy of State in Missouri have transitioned directly to a US Senate seat? I would be curious if the pollsters asked if those polled even knew she was Secy of State, bet it was under 10%!

A couple points about this poll:

– Automated polling (which involves an automated voice and a “punch 1 for Democrat, punch 2 for Republican” approach) has, as a rule, a pretty lousy track record. I’m not referring to this poll in particular, but to experts’ concerns about automated polling in general.

– I’ve seen other polls by this firm. In Missouri, anyway, I had some nits about their demographics.

– Their last presidential poll in Missouri last November had Democrat Barack Obama slightly ahead of Republican John McCain, 49.4 to 48.6. As we all know, McCain eked out a statewide win. (This poll’s results were, however, within its margin of error.)

In fairness, the P-D’s two final polls by Research 2000 also went back and forth by a percentage point or two. And, as with PPP, our final poll showed that 48 percent backed Obama, while 47 percent favored McCain. Three percent preferred one of three minor-party candidates, and 2 percent were undecided.

The one a few weeks earlier had shown McCain up by one percentage point.

Both results were within the polls’ margin of error.

I really can’t believe that one of the people (Scott) who commented on this blog questioned Carnahan’s name/job recognition. I mean, seriously? First of all, the Carnahan name is gold in this state. Even Jean Carnahan just barely lost to Talent in an extremely Republican-favored year. Secondly, this particular Carnahan won re-election with the highest majority this state has ever seen. Robin is popular and beloved. Finally, this commenter also oddly questioned whether a Sec’y of State could transition straight to the Senate. Well, Claire McCaskill was only the state auditor (AND lacks the Carnahan name appeal) and still managed to kick Talent to the curb.

With the right campaign, I have no doubt Robin will wipe the floor with whichever Republican decides to take up the kamikaze mission of going up against her.

Jo, the difference between the poll results you quoted and the final vote tally was statistically insignificant. In fact, they were only off on Obama’s percentage of the vote by .1%!

The final spread was McCain +0.1% over Obama, and the spread on the poll you cite is Obama +0.8% over McCain. That’s about as accurate as it gets in polling.

A lot of this is going to depend on how Obama, Nixon, and the Democratic Congress do over the next two years. If things go well, Carnahan could be unbeatable. If Democrats strike a partisan tone and fail to govern effectively, 2010 could be a rerun of 1994, and in a swing state like Missouri, that would doom Carnahan’s bid.

PS - Since polls the week before an election often fail to predict the outcome, a poll two years out is almost worthless.

Nick, partisanship has nothing to do with it. If the Democrats are bipartisan and fail, they will be blamed for failing, and rightfully so. If they are bipartisan and succeed, they will rightly be praised. But the same will be true if they are partisan and fail, or partisan and succeed.

1. Polls indicating a preference for Robin Carnahan at this point merely indicate that she may be the “front runner” in the Democratic primary. She would do well to remember these two words “Hillary” “Clinton” when it comes to a presumptive “front runner” status.

2. Will the Republicans try to trot out Jim “no” Talent?

Do we really want to be known as the California of the midwest?.

If this polling firm has a record of producing flawed results, then why are we reading about this poll? Not EVERYTHING has to be reported.