Bill posted something earlier today on the South Dakota congressional race. Here's a Democratic blog take on the same race.
SD-AL: Race tightens
by kos
Mon May 17th, 2004 at 23:25:52 EDT
dailykos.com
The last KELO poll of the SD House special election was apparently leaked to The Hill. So while details aren't available, the numbers are reported as:
Herseth (D) 47
Diedrich (R) 44
The last KELO poll numbers, from Feb 5-7, were 58-29 in favor of Herseth.
The good news is that Herseth appears well funded for the stretch run.
In the first quarter of this year, Herseth raised just over $1 million compared to Diedrich's $888,000. Herseth had close to $914,000 in the bank; Diedrich had nearly $757,000.
Now it's time to see if Herseth can do the unimaginable and win as a pro-choice Democrat in fiercely anti-abortion SD. It'll all up to our ground game. The election is June 1st.
House Republicans have collected over $300,000 for Diedrich, as reported by the subscription-only Roll Call. Organizing that fundraising effort? None other than Ralph Regula, Jeff Seeman's opponent. There's a reason we keep stressing the need to widen the playing field and challenge every single Republican.
In that same article, DCCC Chair Robert Matsui sounds confident:"By the time this is over, we're going to do very, very well. This should be better than what we did for Chandler. This race is critical for us." The Goopers are confident red-state South Dakota will come through for them.
Update: Alright, here's the deal -- the poll will be reported by KELO as
Herseth (D) 49 (58)
Diedrich (R) 40 (29)
So where do the 47-44 numbers come from? Those are numbers for "definitive voters", while the 9-point-spread numbers are those for "likely voters". The previous poll numbers of 58-29 were also of "likely voters".
The GOP is pushing the 47-44 numbers hard in order to scare up some last minute money for Diedrich. And it was likely them who leaked the poll numbers to Roll Call before the poll could be published by the media outlets that paid for it.
49-40 doesn't mean anyone can relax. But the race is in much better shape than the 47-44 seemed to indicate. |
