Democrats and Independents

There's good news and bad news for Democrats when it comes to independents and this fall's election. The party's candidates are still losing them in almost every important contest- but it's not by nearly the margins that led to losses in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia in the key races so far this cycle.

Our final polls in those contests found Scott Brown leading Martha Coakley by 32 with independents, Bob McDonnell up 30 on Creigh Deeds with them, and Chris Christie holding a 23 point edge over Jon Corzine.

The Democratic candidate is losing independents in 7 of the 9 key Senate races we've polled over the last three months. But it's not by more than 15 points in any of those instances and the average deficit is only 7 points, a far cry from the mean of 28 points in those contests that have already occurred.

Michael Bennet and Joe Sestak actually led by small margins with independents on our most recent polls in Colorado and Pennsylvania. Alexi Giannoulias and Elaine Marshall trailed by amounts within the margin of error.

Democrats still have a lot of ground to pick up with independents but things are looking much better than they were six months ago. Here's the full data:

State	Democrat Margin W/Independents
Colorado	+2
Pennsylvania	+1
North Carolina	-2
Illinois	-3
California	-10
Missouri	-12
Ohio	-12
Kentucky	-15
New Hampshire	-15