Poll Tracker

A CNN poll taken Oct. 30-Nov. 1 shows an eerie similarity between public opinion now on the Obama administration's plans to overhaul the nation's health care system and the way sentiment looked when the Clinton administration tried to make similar changes in the mid 1990s.

Obama gets slightly worse marks for trying to cooperate with Republicans than President Clinton received in September of 1995. People now are evenly divided 49 percent to 49 percent over whether the president has done enough to reach out to Republicans on the health care issue. The same poll in 1995 found that President Clinton was seen as a bit more cooperative with the opposition 51 percent to 38 percent.

Republicans 14 years ago weren't seen as any more cooperative than they are now. In the latest poll, as in the one in 1995, 31 percent of the respondents said the GOP was cooperating. But now there's a slight uptick in how many people see them as uncooperative, 67 percent, versus 57 percent in 1995.

Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman is outpacing the other GOP candidates for the nod to run for California governor, says a new poll conducted Oct. 26-28.

According to the poll by Capitol Weekly/Probolsky Research Whitman leads former Rep. Tom Campbell 34.3 percent to 12.5 percent, with Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner a distant third at 5.5 percent.

About 7 percent of the 750 respondents said they preferred someone else and 35 percent were undecided.

On the Democratic side, the poll tested only Attorney General Jerry Brown and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who has dropped out. Brown was ahead, as he was in other polls, 43 percent to 18 percent.

Texas voters are nearly united in how they feel about the people who write the laws they have to live by: They don't like 'em, according to a statewide poll conducted Oct. 20-27 for The Texas Tribune, a political news site funded by venture capitalists to be non-partisan and non-profit.

Hardly a surprise, but the numbers are telling: 3 percent of Texas voters approve of the way the Congress is doing its job, and 2 percent approve of the way their friends and neighbors in the state Legislature are doing their job.

Forty-one percent approve of the way President Obama is doing his job and 52 percent disapprove. Thirty-six percent approve of the way Gov. Rick Perry is doing his job and 54 percent disapprove. And 39 percent approve of the way Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is doing her job while 27 percent disapprove.

Hutchison is getting ready to challenge Perry in next year's gubernatorial primary.

Forty-two percent of those likely to vote in the Republican gubernatorial primary say they would vote for Perry, and 19 percent of likely Democratic voters say they would support singer and songwriter Kinky Friedman for their party's nomination. That put Friedman well at the top of six potential Democratic candidates for governor.

The poll conducted via the Internet by YouGov/Polimetrix for the University of Texas and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.46 percentage points.

Tuesday's election for Virginia governor is looking like a landslide victory for Republican nominee Bob McDonnell, according to a pair of polls conducted Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.

A Public Policy Polling survey put McDonnell ahead of Democratic nominee Creigh Deeds by 56 percent to 42 percent. A SurveyUSA poll gave McDonnell an even larger advantage, 58 percent to 40 percent.

This pre-primary polling suggests that McDonnell could match the 58 percent vote share of Republican George Allen in 1993 or the 56 percent vote share of Republican Jim Gilmore in 1997. Regardless of McDonnell's margin of victory, he is assured of preventing Democrats from following up on the victories of Democrats Mark Warner in 2001 and Tim Kaine in 2005.

In the PPP survey, more respondents view Deeds unfavorably than favorably, and he trails McDonnell by 63 percent to 33 percent among political independents. In the SurveyUSA poll, McDonnell had a 60 percent to 35 percent lead among independents and is even winning 18 percent of self-described Democrats and 19 percent of African-American voters.

More than three in five people surveyed by PPP said that McDonnell was going to win the election, and two in three said that Deeds hadn't made a strong case for why he should be elected governor.

CQ Politics rates the Virginia governor's race as Likely Republican.

To follow the 2009 and 2010 governors' races, check out CQ Politics' election map.

Independent Chris Daggett continues to poll in double digits in the New Jersey governor's race in a new Quinnipiac University poll conducted Oct. 27 to Nov. 1. And the poll found that a higher proportion of Daggett voters now rate incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine, D, as their second choice over Republican challenger Chris Christie.

Christie has a narrow lead in the Quinnipiac poll over Corzine 42 to 40 percent, within the 2.5 percent margin of error. Both men have essentially the same proportion of support from their party's likely voters, while Christie has the support of independents, 47 percent to 32 percent for Corzine.

Daggett received 12 percent of the vote, down a point from the 13 percent he polled in a survey the firm released Oct. 28. That largely echoes poll results released Thursday by Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Republicans appear to be heading into the 2010 elections in good shape to be competitive in congressional races nationwide, according to a Gallup Poll conducted Oct. 1-4.

In the survey of 906 registered voters, 46 percent said they preferred to send a Democrat to Congress, 44 percent chose a Republican and 10 percent were undecided. It was a "generic ballot" question that did not mention the names of particular candidates.

In July, Democrats pulled 50 percent in Gallup's generic ballot test, Republications that same 44 percent and 7 percent of those polled called themselves undecided.

"Given the usual Democratic advantages in party identification among the general public, it is rare for Republicans to lead on the generic ballot among registered voters. This was the case even when Republicans were the majority congressional party from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s," Gallup said.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's main opponent in his coming race for Senate may be his own sagging popularity among the state's Republican voters, according to a poll conducted Oct. 25-28 and commissioned by three Florida news organizations.

Crist angered some of his fellow Republicans last February when he appeared on stage for an event with President Obama to build support for an economic stimulus package that was widely opposed by the GOP.

About two-thirds of Republican voters responding to the poll disagreed with Crist's decision to appear with the president, and half of them said they strongly opposed it, according to The Miami Herald, one of the news organizations sponsoring the survey. The other two news sponsors were Bay News 9 and the St. Petersburg Times.

One year before Ohio voters decide whether or not to re-elect Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, less than half of them approve of his job performance, according to a survey conducted Oct. 14-20 by the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati.

According to the survey, 48 percent of respondents said they approve of Strickland's performance as governor and 37 percent said they disapprove. Six months ago, Strickland's numbers were 56 percent approve and 34 percent disapprove.

Barely two in five respondents (41 percent) said they approve of Strickland's handling of the economy, compared to 49 percent who said they disapprove.

The latest Fairleigh Dickinson University poll, conducted Oct. 22 through 28, finds the race for New Jersey governor where it's been for most of the month: deadlocked.

In a three-way race, Republican challenger Chris Christie leads Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine 41 percent to 39 among likely voters, including those leaning one way or the other. Independent Chris Daggett takes 14 percent of the vote. The margin of error is 4 percent.

Christie continues to lead among independent voters, at 37 percent, with Daggett at 27 percent and Corzine at 22 percent. Daggett receives the support of 13 percent each of Democrats and Republican likely voters.

A new poll from DailyKos and Research2000 confirms what election watchers have been saying for the past week -- the special House election in upstate New York is coming down to a race between Democrat Bill Owens and third-party candidate Doug Hoffman. The poll was conducted Oct. 26 to 28. The election is Nov. 3.

Among likely voters, Owens, an attorney, leads Hoffman, an accountant running on the state Conservative Party line, 33 to 32 percent, well within the 4 percentage point margin of error. Republican Dede Scozzafava lags behind at 21 percent. Fourteen percent remain undecided in the 23rd District, which takes in the Northeast corner of the state. Nine-term Rep. John M. McHugh resigned the seat in September to become Secretary of the Army.

Owens held relatively steady compared to the DailyKos poll released Oct. 23, which had him at 35 percent of the vote. The big swing is in the standing of Hoffman and Scozzafava, who continue their dramatic movement in opposite directions.