Telemundo Polls

From the Miami Herald:
Polls done for Telemundo 51 suggest increasingly competitive situations for the Democrats looking to oust Miami's three Republican members of Congress. The poll shows Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart with a narrow lead over Democratic challenger, Joe Garcia, 43 to 41 percent, with 16 percent undecided.

Mario Diaz-Balart leads Garcia among Cubans 59 percent to 30 percent, with 11 percent undecided; but trails him among non Cuban Hispanics, 49 percent to 36 percent and Anglos and blacks, 41 percent to 37 percent.

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The same poll shows Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen with a larger margin against Annette Taddeo, but her numbers, too, are below the 50 percent comfort threshold -- 48 percent to 35 percent, with 17 percent of those surveyed undecided. (The station was to release those numbers tomorrow, but Taddeo's campaign jumped out with a press release, titled "Taddeo Narrows Race - Ros-Lehtinen Now Dangerously Under 50%")

"No incumbent under 50 percent in the polls is safe," said Taddeo campaign manager Anastasia Apa, who notes the poll suggests Taddeo has narrowed the gap since a June poll showed her 27 points down. "Ros-Lehtinen’s dated ad and focus on 90 miles away is catching up to her. The people are ready for real leadership, and Ros-Lehtinen is dropping fast in the polls."
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A new poll done for Telemundo 51 shows a tight race between Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Raul Martinez, with the GOP incumbent failing to break 50 percent.

The poll shows Diaz-Balart leading Martinez 48 percent to 43 percent, with 9 percent undecided. (The poll was 300 voters; margin of error 5 percentage points)

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My thoughts

I think this poll has the Joe Garcia-Mario Diaz-Balart race pinned to where it is. I think that ones a draw and will be until election day where it'll depend on who can use GOTV the best. They're both on the air, both have reasonable ads both positive and negative. (Mario's ad about Enron Joe is a hell of a stretch though.) It's been a good race and should be exciting to see what occurs.

The Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Raul Martinez race is either breaking for Lincoln or this poll is an outlier. Remember, how a poll is conducted has a huge effect on the results. It depends on who was polled for this, but it seems as though Lincoln has more room to breathe here than he previously did (we've seen Herald Polls where Raul's ahead). This race is nasty, and perhaps Lincoln's negative ads highlighting the Mayors less preferable prior activities are taking a toll.

The Anette Taddeo-Ileana Ros Lehtinen race in this poll seems wrong. Ileana has never been polled this low, and Anette herself only went up a couple of points over the last poll I saw. So there's no real movement, just dropped points. It's a weird race, but I think Ileana is in the 55% range right now. Anette needs to get some more visibility going and hit some of the more progressive areas so she cna move on to convincing indies. She's been getting a bit more media which can only be good.