Talent, McCaskill Still Tied in U.S. Senate Race: In an election for United States Senator from Missouri today, 9/14/06, Republican Senator Jim Talent and Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill remain tied, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for KSDK-TV St. Louis and KCTV-TV Kansas City. McCaskill gets 48% of the vote, up 1 point from an identical SurveyUSA poll 1 month ago. Talent gets 47%, also up 1 point. McCaskill's 1-point advantage is within the poll's 4.6 percentage point margin of sampling error, and is not statistically significant. The election is in 54 days, on 11/7/06. Republicans overwhelmingly vote for Talent, unchanged from last month. Democrats overwhelmingly vote for McCaskill, unchanged from last month. But Independents, who last month favored McCaskill by 3, this month favor Talent by 12. The contest will be decided among Missouri's Independents, who make up 22% of the electorate in SurveyUSA's turnout model. Last month's SurveyUSA poll showed a 20-point Gender Gap. Today's SurveyUSA poll shows a 31-point Gender Gap. Women are increasingly moving to McCaskill. Men are increasingly moving to Talent. McCaskill is increasing her support among the youngest and oldest voters. Talent is increasing his support among middle-aged voters. McCaskill leads 6:1 among black voters, trails by 5 among white voters. 80% of those who support Amendment 2, the Stem Cell Initiative, vote for McCaskill. 65% of those who oppose Amendment 2 vote for Talent. Talent leads in the Ozarks and in Central MO. McCaskill leads in the St. Louis area. In greater Kansas City, where last month McCaskill led by 16 points, today she leads by 1. Talent defeated Democrat Jean Carnahan by 1 point in 2002, 2 years after she had been named to fill the U.S. Senate seat of her posthumously elected husband Mel Carnahan. McCaskill, who has been Missouri State Auditor since 1998, ran for Missouri Governor in 2004 and lost to Republican Matt Blunt by 3 points. The U.S. Senate seat is one of the, if not perhaps the most, contested in the nation. A Democrat win may not guarantee the Democrats control of the U.S. Senate, but a Republican win would almost certainly ensure that the Democrats have no chance to capture the Senate in 2006. |