The polling this year we have seen continues to just be flat out odd. This week we have seen two of the most liberal news organizations in the country, CBS News and The New York Times, release a poll showing Mitt Romney leading Barack Obama by 3% and two polls in the last two days claiming the presidential race in Wisconsin is within a single percentage point. With that as a back drop, Fox News, a news organization that is clearly more to the right of other news organizations, comes along and releases a poll showing Barack Obama ahead of Mitt Romney by 7%.

PRESIDNET – NATIONAL (Fox News)
Barack Obama (D-inc) 46%
Mitt Romney (R) 39%

This poll also brings back the “gender gap”, claiming Obama leads Romney by 22% among women. Remember, CBS News and The New York Times claim Romney actually leads among women. How can two polling organizations claiming to be polling the same country accurately come up with two polls showing such a ridiculous disparity in their results. This poll was done May 13-15 among 913 registered voters.

Meanwhile in New Hampshire, it looks like Republicans may have a chance of picking up the gubernatorial seat in new Hampshire f they nominate Ovide Lamontagne, which according to the poll of the primary, seems likely.

GOVERNOR – NEW HAMPSHIRE (PPP)

Ovide Lamontagne (R) 38% Jackie Cilley (D) 38% Ovide Lamontagne (R) 40% Maggie Hassan (D) 39%

Jackie Cilley (D) 37% Kevin Smith (R) 32% Maggie Hassan (D) 37% Kevin Smith (R) 31%

GOVERNOR – NEW HAMPSHIRE – GOP PRIMARY (PPP)
Ovide Lamontagne 53%
Kevin Smith 13%

GOVERNOR – NEW HAMPSHIRE – DEM PRIMARY (PPP)
Maggie Hassan 23%
Jackie Cilley 20%

This poll was done May 10-13 among 1163 registered voters.

The Marquette Law School Twitter feed is reporting the following poll numbers for their new poll of the gubernatorial race in Wisconsin.

GOVERNOR – WISCONSIN (Marquette)
Scott Walker (R-inc) 50%
Tom Barrett (D) 44%

Right now it seems as if they are only reporting these numbers at their Twitter feed, but the eventually full poll with dates and number of voters should be posted here.

It is becoming expected almost every week now – Scott Rasmussen and Public Policy Polling release polls for the same race taken at about the same time and manage to come up with entirely different results. Today’s contradictory polls come from the state of North Carolina where Rasmussen puts Romney up by 8% while PPP continues to show Barack Obama leading.

PRESIDENT – NORTH CAROLINA (Rasmussen)
Mitt Romney (R) 51%
Barack Obama (D-inc) 43%

PRESIDENT – NORTH CAROLINA (PPP)
Barack Obama (D-inc) 48%
Mitt Romney (R) 47%

The Rasmussen poll was done May 14th among 500 likely voters. The PPP poll was done May 10-13 among 666 registered voters. This contradiction has even led PPP to take a swipe at Rasmussen on their Twitter feed. Yes, we now even have trash talking between polling organizations….

Meanwhile, Marquette Law School is supposed to be releasing new polling today for the gubernatorial race in Wisconsin beginning at 1:15 today.

I have a feeling today is going to be one of those days…I turned on the bathroom sink to let the water heat up, walked away, and next thing I know water is overflowing the sink bowl onto the floor…probably the way Jon Bruning feels this morning after being upset by Deb Fischer in the Republican primary for the US Senate from Nebraska….

Quinnipiac University put out a new poll for the state of New Jersey showing Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney by 10%.

PRESIDENT – NEW JERSEY (Quinnipiac)
Barack Obama (D-inc) 49%
Mitt Romney (R) 39%

Obama/Biden (D-inc) 50%
Romney/Christie (R) 42%

US SENATE – NEW JERSEY (Quinnipiac)
Bob Menendez (D-inc) 45%
Joe Kyrillos (R) 35%

This poll was done May 9-14 among 1592 registered voters.

Even as little as a month ago, who would have the biggest race we would be watching tonight would be the US Senate primary on the Republican side? I think most of us thought we would still be following the presidential race even if it was only to see how much closer Mitt Romney could get to a majority of delegates. Instead, we now have a primary race that has basically boiled down to an establishment figure in Jon Bruning versus a Sarah Palin-backed Deb Fischer.

The Nebraska Secretary of State will have results here. As usual, C-Span will be hosting the Associated Press results here.

Polls close at 9pm.

Well I think we now know why Public Policy Polling/Daily Kos took so long to release the new results for Wisconsin – the results were not what they were hoping for. Not only does Scott Walker hold a net-positive job approval rating (49%-47%), he still leads Tom Barrett by 5%.

GOVERNOR – WISCONSIN (PPP/DKos)
Scott Walker (R-inc) 49%
Tom Barrett (D) 45%
Hari Trivedi (I) 2%

LT GOVERNOR – WISCONSIN (PPP/DKos)
Rebecca Kleefisch (R-inc) 46%
Mahlon MItchell (D) 43%

Even the presidential race is a lot closer than I would have imagined and the US Senate race tilts towards the Republicans.

PRESIDENT – WISCONSIN (PPP/DKos)
Barack Obama (D-inc) 47%
Mitt Romney (R) 46%

US SENATE – WISCONSIN (PPP/DKos)
Eric Hovde (R) 45%
Tammy Baldwin (D) 41%

Mark Neumann (R) 46%
Tammy Baldwin (D) 42%

Tommy Thompson (R) 47%
Tammy Baldwin (D) 42%

This poll was done May 11-13 among 851 registered voters.

On the same day Public Policy Polling releases a poll showing the national race at a 2% margin, they find Barack Obama leading in the state of New Hampshire by double digits.

PRESIDENT – NEW HAMPSHIRE (PPP)
Barack Obama (D-inc) 53%
Mitt Romney (R) 41%

Obama-Biden (D-inc) 52%
Romney-Ayotte (R) 42%

Obama-Biden (D-inc) 52%
Romney-Gregg (R) 41%

This poll was done May 10-13 among 1163 registered voters. Meanwhile in North Carolina, Public Policy Polling is now claiming Republican Pat McCrory’s lead is down to 6% over Democrat Walter Dalton.

GOVERNOR – NORTH CAROLINA (PPP)
Pat McCrory (R) 46%
Walter Dalton (d) 40%

This poll was done May 10-13 among 666 registered voters. Still nothing from Wisconsin from PPP.

Public Policy Polling jumps aboard the Deb Fischer bandwagon with their new poll of the US Senate race in Nebraska being decided today.

US SENATE – NEBRASKA – GOP PRIMARY (PPP)
Deb Fischer 37%
Jon Bruning 33%
Don Stenberg 17%
Pat Flynn 2%
Sharyn Elander 1%
Spencer Zimmerman 1%

I sure hope Nebraska Republicans aren’t about to nominate Nebraska’s version of Christine O’Donnell and throw away a perfectly winnable seat in order to “send a message”. I don’t know a lot about Fischer, but if you look at her website, she is touting the endorsement of Sarah Palin and throws around the phrase “standing up to the establishment” and that is always something that scares me with these candidates that come out of nowhere. Could this be the candidate Bob Kerrey is hoping for? This poll was done May 14th among 272 primary voters.

Possibly trying to counter the recent polls showing good news for Mitt Romney, Public Policy Polling is tweeting out a link to a pdf being hosted at Politico showing the results of their latest national poll.

PRESIDENT – NATIONAL (PPP)
Barack Obama (D-inc) 48%
Mitt Romney (R) 46%

This poll was done May 10-13 among 1000 registered voters. Interestingly, as far as I can tell this poll has not yet shown up on Daily Kos so it is perplexing as to why PPP decided to link to the results early.

Mitt Romney’s response to Barack Obama’s negative ad.

I like it and hope Romney continues to do this through the campaign. One benefit of Newt Gingrich’s anti-capitalism campaign against Romney is it gave the Romney campaign some practice….

USA Today and Gallup have out a new poll and the headline touts that Americans are more optimistic about the economy. But buried in the article is this:

Since becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, Romney’s favorable-unfavorable rating has jumped to 50%-41%, his best ever and in the same neighborhood as Obama’s 52%-46% standing. The former Massachusetts governor gets stronger ratings than the president when it comes to handling the economy, the issue likely to drive the campaign.

In the poll, 55% say the economy would get better over the next four years if Romney was elected, compared with 46% who say it would improve if Obama was re-elected. Twenty-seven percent say the economy would get worse in a Romney first term, compared with 37% who say that of an Obama second term.

Also from this new USAT/Gallup poll is the congressional ballot.

US HOUSE – GENERIC BALLOT (USAT/Gallup)
Republicans 50%
Democrats 44%

I did not see any head-to-head numbers for Romney/Obama yet. This poll was done May 10-13.