The Human Rights Campaign has released a batch of polling from Clarity Campaigns on seven different swingy House districts. The surveys are designed to test support for the Equality Act, which would ban job and housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The bill is broadly popular, with support ranging from 46 percent (WI-01) to 56 percent (IL-03)—notably, the home of anti-gay Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski—and opposition peaking at 31 percent (NV-04).
HRC also tested a few actual head-to-head matchups, some between incumbents and actual challengers, and some featuring generic opponents. First, the human-vs.-human contests:
• FL-26: Carlos Curbelo (R-inc): 38, Annette Taddeo (D): 38
• IL-10: Bob Dold (R-inc): 44, Brad Schneider (D): 40
• NJ-05: Scott Garrett (R-inc): 46, Josh Gottheimer (D): 33
The most interesting numbers here are from FL-26, which have Curbelo performing weakly against Taddeo, a candidate who has not had much success in several prior runs for office. The other two races are about where you'd expect, though note that Schneider faces a primary with Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering.
And here are the generic pairings:
• IA-03: David Young (R-inc): 42, Generic Democrat: 41
• IL-03: Dan Lipinski (D-inc): 51, Generic Republican: 20
• NV-04: Cresent Hardy (R-inc): 43, Generic Democrat: 45
• WI-01: Paul Ryan (R-inc): 47, Generic Democrat: 38
Hardy's in trouble and Young's not in strong shape, but neither of those are surprises. Of course, ballot tests against unnamed opponents represent a potential ideal that real candidates often can't live up to. Two years ago, for instance, MoveOn polled over 50 different House races and found all sorts of Republicans faring poorly against good ol' Generic Dem. Needless to say, things didn't work out so well in 2014. Next year ought to be different, but early polls in shapeless races should be viewed with caution.