North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven (R) leads Sen. Byron Dorgan (D) by double-digits in a hypothetical 2010 Senate race, according to a Zogby International poll of likely voters conducted Nov. 17 through 18.

Though both men are popular in the state, Hoeven tops Dorgan 55 percent to 36 percent, with 9 percent undecided. The margin of error is 4.5 percent.

Hoeven's margin grows if North Dakota voters are informed that Dorgan supports the Democrat's health care overhaul legislation -- 57 percent to 32 percent for Dorgan.

Finally, something people can agree on: The economy's bad.

Really.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll taken Nov. 13-15 found that 82 percent of American adults contacted for the survey said the economy was poor.

And while Americans are looking for someone to blame, they appear to be shifting some of that burden from the Republicans to the Democrats.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) remains at under 50 percent, but continues to lead her two prospective Republican foes in the California Senate race, a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted Nov. 17 found.

Boxer tops former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina (R) among likely California voters, 46 to 37 percent, and state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R) 46 to 36 percent. In both match-ups, 5 percent of voters say they would back some other candidate and 12 to 13 percent were unsure. The margin of error was 4.5 percent.

Fiorina formally launched her campaign Nov. 4 but does not appear to have gotten much of a bounce out of the roll-out. Boxer's lead over both Republicans is narrower than in a Field Poll released in early October, but holds steady with a Ramussen poll conducted earlier this fall.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) are virtually tied in a Republican primary match-up for next year's Senate race, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll of likely GOP voters conducted Nov. 18.

McCain leads Hayworth 45 percent to 43 percent, with anti-illegal immigration activist Chris Simcox taking 4 percent. The margin of error was 4 percent.

McCain was expected to coast to a 5th term next year, and he still could, if Hayworth doesn't run. He doesn't have a serious general election challenger and Simcox, the other declared Republican, has not shown the capacity to gain much traction among voters.

Voters are evenly divided at 46 percent on whether they approve or disapprove of the way President Obama is doing his job as president, according to a Fox News poll taken Nov. 17-18.

Fox said 46 percent marked a low point in Obama's approval since taking office, which has averaged 56 percent. The high point for his approval in a Fox News poll came a week after his inauguration when it was 65 percent.

Low point or not, the president is better at his job than Congress, which has an approval rating of 26 percent and disapproval of 63 percent, according to the Fox poll.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) has a double-digit lead on Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) among registered New York voters in a hypothetical 2010 Senate match-up, according to a Marist poll conducted Nov. 12, 16 and 17.

Giuliani was all over the headlines in New York on Thursday after associates leaked word he would not run for governor, as many had expected. Giuliani is reportedly more interested in the Senate race, and with good reason, according to the Marist results. He trumps Gillibrand, the freshman senator appointed in January, with a majority of voters, 54 to 40 percent. The margin of error was 3.5 percent.

Giuliani leads both among Republicans -- 84 to 12 percent -- and independents -- 55 to 41 percent. He even takes a third of Democratic voters, trailing Gillibrand 59 to 33 percent.

Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman (R) has pulled into a tie with state Attorney General Jerry Brown (D) in a hypothetical general election match-up for California governor, according to a new poll by Rasmussen Reports conducted Nov. 17.

Whitman and Brown each pull 41 percent of support among likely voters in the Democratic leaning state, the poll found. Three percent would support some other candidate and 14 percent are unsure. The margin of error was 4.5 percent.

Whitman trailed Brown 35 percent to 44 percent in the last Rasmussen poll.

American voters like President Obama considerably more as someone to share a beer than they like what he is trying to do when he's at work, according to a Quinnipiac University poll taken Nov. 9-16.

While 74 percent of the respondents to the survey say they like Obama as a person, 47 percent say they like his policies, the Quinnipiac poll found.

"Most Americans like President Barack Obama and might like to have a beer with him," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "But millions of voters who sided with him last November because they thought he would bring change to Washington aren't crazy about the kind of change he is trying to bring."

American voters are still trending hawkish on the war in Afghanistan and a plurality would support President Obama sending in 40,000 more U.S. troops, but patience with the war there is not open-ended, according to a Quinnipiac University poll taken Nov. 9-16.

Forty-seven percent said the president should send in the additional troops that his commanders in Afghanistan have requested, but 55 percent said the American commitment should be for two years or less.

"Overall, the new numbers on Afghanistan show an almost across the board erosion of support for the war and worries about getting too deeply involved there militarily. But when the focus is on fighting terror, American resolve remains strong," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

Sixty-one percent of adults oppose using public funds to pay for abortions for women who may be covered by a government health insurance system, and 51 percent say women covered by private insurance should not have coverage that pays for abortion, according to a CNN poll taken Nov. 13-15.

The same poll found that 56 percent favor creating a federally run health insurance program to compete with private insurance companies, and 66 percent said state governments should not be allowed to decide whether the federal insurance would apply everyone in the state.

The CNN poll found the public evenly split 49 percent-49 percent on whether the government should require everyone in the country to obtain health insurance, and 66 percent were opposed to cutting back federal spending on managed care programs under Medicare.

One year before their likely matchup in a key 2010 Senate race, Democrat Robin Carnahan and Republican Roy Blunt are locked in a dead heat, according to a Public Policy Polling survey conducted Nov. 13-15.

Carnahan, the Missouri Secretary of State, drew 43 percent support in the poll of 763 voters. Blunt, who represents the southwestern 7th District in the U.S. House, had 42 percent.

Carnahan is running even with Blunt even though more respondents think unfavorably (38 percent) than favorably (30 percent) of the Republican. Carnahan is viewed favorably by 40 percent and unfavorably by 36 percent.

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is all over the airwaves these days but two recent polls indicate she's far from being America's sweetheart -- or presidential timber.

A telephone poll of 873 adults conducted Nov. 13-15 by CBS News showed 23 percent have a favorable view of the former Alaska governor. That matches her favorable rating in July, when Palin announced she was resigning from her job as governor.

Thirty-eight percent, meanwhile, have an unfavorable view of her -- also roughly matching her July rating. Another 37 percent say they are undecided or haven't heard enough. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

On the political side, a CNN poll indicated fewer than three in 10 Americans think Palin is qualified to be president.

If Congress were to vote faithfully today with public opinion on proposals to overhaul the nation's health care system, there's a chance that nobody would win, according to a poll for The Washington Post and ABC News taken Nov. 12-15.

While a 56 percent to 42 percent majority approve of the way President Obama is handling his job, 47 percent approve of his handling of the health care issue, and 49 percent disapprove, according to The Post-ABC poll.

This fits a pattern with other polls on the issue showing people evenly divided on the plans to alter the delivery and payment for health care in this country. And in polls for The Post and ABC News, public opinion last spring favored overhauling the health system, but that sentiment flipped in August with more people disapproving than approving. The two sides of this issue have been virtually tied since then.

Republican Michael N. Castle has taken a 15-point slide and now trails Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden in a hypothetical matchup for the 2010 election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Biden's father, Joseph R. Biden Jr., according to a poll conducted Nov. 10-15 by Susquehanna Polling and Research, Inc.,

The poll shows Biden now leading Castle 45 percent to 40 percent, with 8 percent undecided and 6 percent saying they would vote for someone else.

In a Susquehanna poll in April, Castle was leading Biden 55 percent to 34 percent.

Half of Minnesota Republicans would back Republican former Sen. Norm Coleman, should he run for governor in 2010, according to a poll by Rasmussen Reports conducted Nov. 10.

Coleman, who lost a seven-month recount battle to Democrat Al Franken for Minnesota's Senate seat, has not indicated that he intends to run. But if he does, he starts with a huge lead over the rest of the GOP field among likely voters, with 50 percent of the vote. In second, at 11 percent, is state Rep. Marty Seifert, who stepped down from his post as House minority leader to run for governor.

Seifert is followed by state Rep. Laura Brod, who received 5 percent of GOP support despite withdrawing from the race for medical reasons, and state Rep. Tom Emmer who came in at 1 percent. Seven percent of likely Republican voters supported another candidate and 26 percent remain unsure. The margin of error was 5.5 percent.

Americans are reasonably happy with their health care and the insurance that pays for it and are not worried that some event, such as losing a job, will interfere with their access to doctors or hospitals, according to a poll taken Oct. 29-Nov. 9 for The Associated Press.

Overall, though, they are slightly more concerned about the economy than health care, with 91 percent rating the economy as extremely or very important, and 81 percent rating health care as extremely or very important.

Eighty-six percent of those surveyed favor making sure all Americans get the health care they need. But when the questions include a mention that such coverage would likely result in higher health insurance premiums, the numbers change.

After winning re-election with ease over the past decade, Arkansas Rep. Vic Snyder may be in for the toughest race of his career, according to a Public Policy Polling survey conducted Nov. 11 through 13th.

In hypothetical matchups against three little-known Republican opponents, Democrat Snyder was in a statistical tossup, according to PPP, a Democratic firm based in North Carolina.

He led Little Rock attorney Tim Griffin 44 to 43, and polled slightly better against restaurant owner Scott Wallace, leading 44 to 42.

New York Gov. David A. Paterson trails former Rep. Rick Lazio, the only declared Republican candidate, for the first time in a hypothetical 2010 match-up, according to a Siena College poll of registered voters conducted Nov. 8 through 12.

Paterson trails Lazio 39 percent to 42 percent, within the 3.5 percent margin of error. Nineteen percent were undecided. Lazio, who launched his bid in October, is still relatively unknown -- 50 percent of voters either did not know or had no opinion of him.

The gap in support between Paterson and fellow Democrat Andrew Cuomo, the state's attorney general, also reached a new high in the Siena poll, with Cuomo leading 75 percent to 16 percent in a Democratic primary. A majority of voters now say they would prefer Cuomo run for governor rather than for re-election as attorney general.

His approval rating isn't soaring in the stratosphere anymore, but Iowa Republican Sen. Charles E. Grassley still is well-regarded in his state and has a big lead over his likely 2010 Democratic opponent, according to a Selzer & Co. poll conducted Nov. 8-11 for the Des Moines Register.

Grassley has a job approval rating of 57 percent, matching his showing in Selzer's September survey and exceeding the approval rating of Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin (54 percent), who was re-elected in 2008, and Democratic Gov. Chet Culver (40 percent), who faces a difficult re-election race next year.

Though Grassley's approval rating is down from 75 percent in January, he's still in a strong early position to win a sixth term in the Senate. He takes 57 percent of the vote in a hypothetical matchup with Democratic lawyer Roxanne Conlin, who received 30 percent support in the poll, which was taken right after Conlin announced she would challenge Grassley.

A majority of Massachusetts voters disapprove of Gov. Deval Patrick's job performance and would prefer electing someone else in 2010, according to a Suffolk University poll conducted Nov. 4 through 8.

Fifty-one percent of voters disapprove of the job Patrick is doing in his first term, including majorities of Republicans and independents; 42 percent approve. Just 32 percent of voters think Patrick deserves to be re-elected, wile 55 percent say it is time to elect someone else. The margin of error is 4 percent.

Patrick, however, leads in a three-way race against independent Tim Cahill, the state's current treasurer, and either of two prospective Republican candidates. Against Republican businessman Christy Mihos, Patrick takes 36 percent of the vote while Cahill nabs 26 percent and Mihos comes in at 20 percent. Eighteen percent remain undecided.

For the first time in 10 years, a majority of Americans no longer think it is the federal government's responsibility to ensure all its citizens have health insurance coverage, according to a Gallup poll taken Nov. 5-8.

The poll found that 47 percent of the respondents said health coverage was a federal responsibility and 50 percent said it was not. This represents a drop of 22 percentage points in three years for the government to take on that role, according to Gallup.

"The reason behind this shift is unknown," Gallup said. "Certainly the federal government's role in the nation's healthcare system has been widely and vigorously debated over the last several months, including much focus on the 'public option.' These data suggest that one result of the debate has been a net decrease in Americans' agreement that ensuring all Americans have healthcare coverage is an appropriate role for the federal government."

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley continues to dominate the Democratic primary race for the Senate seat held by Edward M. Kennedy until his death Aug. 25. She leads in nearly every category of voter, according to a Suffolk University/7 News poll of 600 registered voters conducted Nov. 4-8.

Coakley, the only statewide officeholder in the field of four candidates, has a plurality among male and female voters as well as across every region of the state. She also leads in every age group except the youngest (18- to 34-year-olds) and the oldest (75-plus), where she is tied with Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 4 percent.

Overall, the survey shows Coakley taking 44 percent of the primary vote, with Pagliuca second at 17 percent. They are followed by Rep. Michael E. Capuano at 16 percent and Alan Khazei, co-founder of the community service program City Year, at 3 percent.

Less than six months before the primary election, Ohio voters don't know much about the Democratic and Republican candidates who are running for a key open Senate seat, according to a Quinnipiac poll taken Nov. 5-9.

More than half of respondents said they didn't have enough information to render either a favorable or an unfavorable impression of Republicans Rob Portman and Tom Ganley and Democrats Lee Fisher and Jennifer Brunner, who are vying to succeed retiring GOP Sen. George V. Voinovich.

But the poll did show a shift toward the Republicans in that President Obama's disapproval rating in Ohio (50 percent) is now higher than his approval rating (45 percent). And Portman, a former House member from the Cincinnati area and the party-endorsed candidate for the Senate, now has slight leads over Fisher, the lieutenant governor, and Brunner, the Ohio secretary of state.

Connecticut Sen. Christopher J. Dodd is running behind or even with each of five of his possible Republican opponents, including political newcomers who have not held elective office, according to a Quinnipiac poll taken Nov. 3-8.

Dodd is in serious trouble with his constituents, 49 percent of whom rate him unfavorably, while 42 percent rate him favorably. His job approval rating also is under water, with 40 percent approving and 54 percent disapproving of the job he has done as a senator.

Dodd's job approval has lagged behind his disapproval for more than a year, and polls since last spring have shown more people rating him unfavorably than favorably.

The American public is divided on what to do next about the war in Afghanistan -- send in more troops or start finding a way out, according to a Gallup poll taken Nov. 5-8.

The Obama administration is trying to reach a decision on these very issues, and the president has asked the military to give him different options than the proposal offered by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the American commander in Afghanistan who has asked for an additional 40,000 troops to stabilize the country.

Public opinion is split with 42 percent in favor of sending more troops and 44 percent saying troop strength should start coming down, Gallup said.

A majority of voters -- 53 percent -- do not want to see most members of Congress returned to office next year, according to a telephone survey conducted Oct. 28-Nov. 8 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

However, perhaps reinforcing the old political adage that "all politics is local," a similar number (52 percent) support the re-election of the representative from their own district.

Of the 1,644 registered voters surveyed, only about a third (34 percent) believe that most representatives deserve another term. That figure is similar to findings before the 1994 and 2006 midterm elections; in both those instances, the party in power -- Democrats in 1994 and Republicans in 2006 -- suffered significant defeats and lost its majority in the House.

Two months ago, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, enjoyed a 10-point advantage over his likely Republican challenger in 2010, John Kasich. But now, the two split the vote down the middle, according to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted Nov. 5-9.

Ohio voters see Kasich -- a former congressman (1983-2001) and onetime host of a talk show on the Fox News Channel -- as better able to rebuild the state's economy and handle the budget, the poll found.

The 1,123 Ohio voters who participated in the telephone survey are evenly divided on the governor's race, with Strickland and Kasich each garnering 40 percent of the vote. Strickland's approval rating barely outpaces his disapproval rating, 45 percent to 43 percent, marking his lowest job-performance approval numbers since he took office in 2007.

Olympia J. Snowe's position as the only Republican to vote for the Senate Finance Committee's health care overhaul bill (S 1796) may end up costing her support in her home state of Maine, according to a poll by Public Policy Polling conducted Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.

Almost half the Republicans surveyed (46 percent) now disapprove of her job performance, compared with 40 percent who approve of it.

Thanks to backing from Democrats (60 percent) and independents (51 percent), her overall approval rating stands at 51 percent, with 36 percent disapproving and 14 percent not sure. But her numbers among both Republicans and Democrats have declined from three weeks ago; Republicans are upset that she backed a Democratic bill, and Democrats are not pleased by her reluctance to support the government-run insurance alternative known as the "public option."

A plurality of Republican voters in California are up in the air about the 2010 Senate, but those who have an opinion are split evenly between GOP candidates Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore, according to a USC/Los Angeles Times Poll conducted Oct. 27 through Nov. 3 by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research.

Forty percent of registered Republicans said they were undecided about whom they want to take on Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer next November. Twenty-seven percent each said they would back former Hewlett-Packard CEO Fiorina, who officially entered the race last week, and Devore, a state assemblyman from Irvine, Calif. who has been campaigning for several months.

Fiorina has a far higher profile in political circles and the media than DeVore given her past leadership of tech titan H-P and a stint as advisor for 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, but that doesn't appear to have trickled down to the average California voter. The pair had some of the lowest name recognition rates among a long list of California politicians and candidates -- 29 percent could identify Fiorina and just 19 percent could identify DeVore.

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.