If you look in the Daily Kos Elections oh-so-handy polling database, you may notice about a third of the races polled have a third-party candidate polling at 5 percent or above.
As David Nir noted the other day, this seems like a lot. Is it?
Indeed, it is. Below is the percent of Senate elections with three or more candidates getting more than 4 percent of the vote (roughly equivalent to polling >5%), going back to 1914, the first year with direct election of senators by popular vote.
Image may be NSFW.
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If the polling holds up, we're on track to have the most three-way Senate races since 1920. Incidentally, that means we're on track to have some pretty big polling misses as well, since polling with third-party candidates performing this well is much less accurate.Clik here to view.
More below the fold.
