A pair of new polls in the Kansas Senate race show incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Roberts erasing Greg Orman’s lead and Democrat hopes of snagging the seat. A CNN/Opinion Research poll found Roberts leading by 49 – 48 percent, just under the 50 percent mark, while a new FOX News poll conducted shortly after found Roberts with a larger 44 – 39 percent lead.
Even though commentary in our recent election analysis has been brutal on the GOP incumbent, both here and here, unlike another prognosticator’s ratings that have gyrated wildly back-and-forth, PPD’s election projection model never wavered from favoring Roberts because we are a model that gives more weight to “big picture” fundamentals.
[tabs id=”KSSen” title=”Kansas Senate Race – Roberts Vs. Orman”] [tab title=”Analysis”]
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., left, answers a question during a debate with independent candidate Greg Orman, right, in Overland Park, Kansas on Oct. 8, 2014. (AP)
“The polling in Kansas must be taken with a grain of salt,” we wrote of the race recently. “Aside from the state’s dominant Republican nature, Roberts is down because he is losing voters from his center to Orman and shrinking the electorate by losing voters on his right.” We remain very skeptical that Orman can win this race and find it hard to believe conservatives who backed Milton Wolfe and others in the primary will allow Harry Reid to keep his position as majority leader.
Republicans, particularly conservatives, will have to decide whether voting for a less-than ideal Republican is as bad as allowing Democrats to keep control of the Upper Chamber. With control of the U.S. Senate on the line, the heavily partisan lean of the state was always likely to take over.
“We know that partisanship tends to assert itself as Election Day nears,” said Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the FOX News poll jointly with Democratic pollster Chris Anderson.“And that may be happening in Kansas.”
We not only believe it is happening, but that it was pretty much inevitable.
Kansas has not elected a Democratic senator since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt first won the presidency. In the 98 years Kansan voters have been able to directly elect their senators, since the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment, a majority or plurality of voters chose a Democrat just three times, the last time in 1932. George McGill won a three-way race with 46 percent of the vote, but lost with 44 percent during his re-election bid just six years later. Republicans outnumber Democrats nearly 2 to 1 and, are more enthusiastic by a margin of 78 – 66 percent when counting those who say they are either “very interested” or “extremely interested” in voting this November.
President Obama’s approval rating in the state actually ticked down a bit on the PPD average of polls with 32.7 now approving, down from 33 percent measured last week.
In the FOX News poll, Roberts has a more solid base of support than Oman, with 82 percent of his supporters saying they are certain to vote for him, juxtaposed to 76 percent for Orman.
As of now, 73 percent of Republicans back Roberts, which is likely to solidify further, while 71 percent of Democrats support Orman. Independents are breaking for Orman 45 – 34 percent. Roberts still leads, however, because there are so many more Republicans than Democrats in the Sunflower State.
Men heavily favor Roberts by a 50 – 37 percent margin, while women back Orman by a lacking 40-38 percent margin, far too little to overcome the Republican’s lead among men.
Roberts has also succeeded in repairing his image, with 50 percent of likely voters giving him favorable marks in the CNN/Opinion Research Poll. Orman isn’t far behind with 48 percent giving him positive marks.
Worth noting, both the CNN poll, which is conducted by Opinion Research and, the FOX Poll, which is conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), use “Gold Standard” polling practices. Between their practices and results, they’ve earned far higher ratings than both SurveyUSA and the NBC/Marist Poll on PPD’s Pollster Scorecard. Marist uses the “Gold Standard,” too, but their results are lacking in comparison.
Nevertheless, even if we were to take them at face value, the trend is crystal clear.
We encourage readers to follow-up with our analysis by looking at compiled data under the “State Data” tab above. Incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Roberts now has a 59 percent chance of defeating Greg Orman, up from the slight 51 percent edge he held last week on PPD’s 2014 Senate Map Predictions model.
[/tab]
[tab title=”Polls”]
| Poll | Date | Sample | MoE | Orman (I) | Roberts (R) | Raw Spread | PPD Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PPD Average | 9/27 – 10/7 | — | — | 45.5 | 43.3 | Orman +2.2 | Roberts +3 |
| FOX News* | 10/4 – 10/7 | 702 LV | 3.5 | 39 | 44 | Roberts +5 | |
| CNN/Opinion Research | 10/2 – 10/6 | 687 LV | 3.5 | 48 | 49 | Roberts +1 | |
| SurveyUSA* | 10/2 – 10/5 | 549 LV | 4.3 | 47 | 42 | Orman +5 | |
| NBC News/Marist* | 9/27 – 10/1 | 636 LV | 3.9 | 48 | 38 | Orman +10 |
(Please note: Our model uses separately calculated averages from weighted polls based on PPD’s Pollster Scorecard. Above is the raw spread and PPD average, which is 46.5 – 43.5.)[/tab]
[tab title=”State Data”]
POLITICS |
Kansas | National Average |
Partisanship |
||
| % Republican/Lean Republican | 47 | 39 |
| % Democratic/Lean Democratic | 34 | 43 |
| Registered Republicans | 765,398 | — |
| Registered Democrats | 422,181 | — |
| Unaffiliated/Undeclared | 535,160 | — |
| Registered Libertarians | 12,656 | — |
Ideology |
||
| % Conservative | 38 | 36 |
| % Moderate | 36 | 36 |
| % Liberal | 20 | 23 |
Presidential Job Approval |
||
| % Approve | 32.7 | 40 |
Partisan Voting Index |
||
| Strongly Republican | R+12 | — |
[/tab] [/tabs]
ReduceGHGs / October 8, 2014
The fewer republicans in Congress the better. They all too often cater to fossil fuel interests or some political agenda denying the reality of climate change. It just doesn’t matter what all the world’s respected scientific institutions have been warning us about. They have their marching orders! The health and safety of out future generations takes a back seat. It’s time more of us worked to elected honest critical thinkers instead!
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james george / October 9, 2014
if you think reid and pelosa and their yes people are honest critical thinkers then you’re beyond help and should never leave home alone or make any important decisions by yourself.
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ReduceGHGs / October 9, 2014
Human-caused climate change is a scientific fact. pat roberts is one of many republicans that reject this reality. Your examples of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are certainly two members of Congress that understand the risks of continue pollution. Thanks for making my point.
And in case you don’t believe that anthropogenic warming is occurring, try finding a study or a respected scientific body that agrees with you. There aren’t any.
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Winslow Wilson / October 8, 2014
Pat Roberts voted for the NDAA articles 1021 & 1022 that now allow US citizens to be arrested without a warrant, transported to a secret prison and held their forever if
need be, without a trial.
The forefathers of our constitution would consider these articles which were written by Sen McCain and Levin to be Treason. They would expect you to remove them
from office and anyone who voted yes on them.
Any Senator up for re-election next month, who voted yes on the NDAA articles 1022 of this Bill, not only showed ineptitude of our Constitution but they also betrayed the underlying fundamental laws that protect us all.
You should also post a message on their Facebook pages to warn your fellow
countrymen.
To be even more thorough you could also go after the Representatives in both parties who are up for re-election.
The ones who voted NO on the Justin Amash Bill to stop the NSA from turning on your cell phone even when you have it turned off and also stop them from turning on
your computer at home and using the camera to pan the room and listen in on the microphone.
I’ll give you a gov link to the roll call site of all the inept Representatives who NO.
A vote of NO meant that the NSA could have as much power as they want.
The names of each Rep. can be found at http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll412.xml
Scroll down to about the center of the page for those who voted NO.
We should also eliminate the ones who didn’t show up for such an important vote.
Go to their facebook page and inform others going there to kick this person out of
office. You can go to as many sites as you wish. Ask others at each site to join you.
You don’t have to be a member of facebook to post a comment at the site.
Spread the word like Paul Revere did that glorious night when he alarmed the country side that the thugs were heading toward Concord.
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james george / October 9, 2014
how many things have the democrats done that is destroying our constitution? paul revere would have enough sense to support Roberts over orman and you should too.
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james george / October 9, 2014
I’m not a big Roberts fan but he stands for several things I stand for. on the other hand the democrat, (though he lies about it and won’t admit what everybody knows) would caucus with a democratic party whose policies are destroying our nation. for Kansas voters who care about their children’s future it’s a no brainer.
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Winslow Wilson / October 12, 2014
It’s not about Democrat verses Republican as the dividers would have you believe.
It was never intended to be about party verses party. The two main parties are supposed to work together to bring the best governing services to the people whom they are supposed to be representing.
There are still a few members from both of the main parties that care about the original intent of their job, service to the people.
We need to toss out the ones who have served us in bad ways. Congress people giving the government more power over your life. For instance to come into your home without a warrant, arrest you without a warrant and transport you to a secret prison and never bring you to trial. This is not serving your best interests. In other words people like Roberts.
Also, the representatives who voted against the Justin Amash Bill which wanted to put a reign on the NSA, in order to keep them from coming into your home, via your computer, turning it on even when you had it turned off, turning on the camera and microphone to watch and listen in on you, are not serving your best interests.
If you can’t see that, then there is no hope for you. There were about 207 representatives from both of the main parties that tried to assist Justin Amash and vote yes on the bill to limit the NSA. These are the ones who served you.
But unfortunately, most people listen to the conservative owned media and listen to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Mike Savage, Mark Levine, Jim Bohannan, Laura Ingles, who divide the voters. They divide the nation by saying their party is on the side of good and the other is on the side of evil.
A lot of numbskulls fall for this and that is exactly why your rights to a warrant and representation by an attorney, and right to a trial got thrown into the trash can and nobody even noticed. It was passed by traitors to the Constitution and they were from both of the main parties. They used the reasoning that they were doing this to protect the citizens of the US from terrorists. The same old way Stalin and Hitler got laws passed to protect their people from unseen enemies.
The suggestion which I had written out above was to do something constructive to eliminate or weed out the Congress people who don’t serve us. But obviously
you seem to be fine with your Bill of Rights being nothing but garbage to them. The same Bill of Rights our forefathers gave their blood for.
Mark Twain once wrote. “It’s easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they’ve been fooled.”
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james george / October 12, 2014
I’m not happy with either party. I think bush jr. was a disaster for our country but Obama is even worse. at least I have some things in common with the republican party, but have almost nothing in common with the democrats. nobody is fooling me. I agree with most of what the conservative commentators are saying, but I certainly don’t subscribe to everything they stand for. republicans are bad in some ways but democrats support pure evil. liberalism is a cancer that has finally succeeded in destroying our nation as we knew it. we are fast becoming a third world country, thanks primarily to the democratic party.
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Richard D. Baris (Author) / October 12, 2014
I think your comment encompasses what a large number of Americans are saying. That’s exactly why Republicans shouldn’t take this election — even if they win — as an affirmation of their message.
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Winslow Wilson / October 12, 2014
I too am not happy with Obama. The main reason I originally voted for him was because he said he would end the war. He lied and expanded it to other areas. It’s the same war, regardless of what Arab nation it’s taking place in.
The war however was started by Bush and Cheney. Iraq never attacked us. Never even threw a stone at us. Yet our nation launched a war against them. The cost of the war to date is over 3 trillion dollars. Google it if you don’t believe me. 2 noble laureates recently calculated the entire costs, with our rebuilding of their infrastructure over there and all the other hidden costs that the Pentagon never mentions.
This war and our large corporations going overseas or off shore to avoid taxes and get cheap labor in countries that allow dumping anything into their rivers and lands because they are desperate for the work is what is destroying our country.
Millions upon millions of jobs that were once performed here are gone. The corporations want to blame our regulations. They don’t want to pay money to dispose of their toxins properly.
I actually believe however that the real reason our country is in bad shape is because we did not heed a deep principle.
“As you do to others, It shall be done to you.” Everything we did over there in the Arab world is now being done to us. Job wise, economically, the millions of foreclosures across our land, the bankers robbing us of our savings and retirement accounts, the lowering of all our property values that took place in the melt down 6 years ago. But no one really sees it that way. They think it’s something else.
It’s not about conservative or liberal values. All of us want the same thing. Good schools, less crime, clean air, a livelyhood to take care of our families. But greed and manipulation rule the day and they have no party boundaries.
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