Election 2014 Polls, Predictions & Results: Six Races Now Determine Control of Senate
There is a month to go until the midterm election, when election watchers will be studying the outcomes in six states that could swing from Democrat to Republican. If they swing, Republicans would gain control of the Senate, which experts have said would reduce the Obama Administration's success in passing any substantial legislation before the end of his administration.
A new poll asked 2,200 women -- likely 2014 voters -- in the battleground states of Colorado, Georgia, Iowa and North Carolina how well they understood the Democratic candidates' policies on issues like the economy, women's issue and health care. The survey was conducted over four days in September and included 81 percent whites, 8 percent voters under 30, 3 percent Latino and 10 percent African-American and 21 percent unmarried women. The president's approval has been stuck in the majority of polls at 37 percent but has been going up over his handling of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
"This election is still on a knife-edge; the overall vote remains unchanged and many states are within a couple of points. But the underlying dynamics and key metrics have all moved away from the Republicans. ... Democrats are poised to hold on," according to Democracy Corps.
Results from the survey with voters found the following in key races: in Colorado, Mark Udall, D, 45 percent, Cory Gardner, R, 45 percent; in Georgia, David Perdue, R, 46 percent, Michelle Nunn, D, 41 percent; in Iowa, Joni Ernst, R, 45 percent, Bruce Braley, D, 44 percent; and in North Carolina, Kay Hagan, D, 45 percent, Thom Tillis, R, 41 percent.
Georgia has more than 900,000 Latinos and more that 270,000 of them are eligible to vote in 2014, according to Latino Decisions. Analysts have begun to identify Georgia as a battleground where Latino votes could help determine the outcome of the Senate and gubernatorial election. Latino Decisions argued some early polls have been reporting incorrect assumptions about Latino voters based on tiny samples and conducting surveys in English. A most recent example is an NBC-11 survey that claimed Latino voters back GOP candidates in the state. The problem was the survey was conducted in English with a sample survey size of 38 voters.
Latino National Survey interviewed 400 Latinos in Georgia and found 80 percent of the adult Latino population is foreign-born and preferred to be interviewed in Spanish. Seventy-six percent of Latinos support providing in-state tuition rates to undocumented students who graduated from state high schools, and only 4 percent of Latinos support an effort to seal or close off the border to stop undocumented immigration. More than 80 percent support a pathway to citizenship for those who are undocumented.
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