There are no polls that specifically address which party is ahead in all races in the 50 state legislatures. But it seems reasonable to assume that Democratic candidates for state legislature will benefit if there is a big blue wave in congressional elections. The balance of power in the state legs may be closer now than it has ever been, as Kirk Johnson explains in “Democrats Are Seen to Gain in Statehouse Races” in today’s New York Times:

Republicans control both chambers in 20 states, Democrats in 19. One state, Nebraska, has a nonpartisan legislature, while the parties split control in the remaining 10 states…What makes the races even more suspenseful is that the parties have not been so even in decades, if ever. Of the 7,382 statehouse legislative seats across the country, Democrats hold 21 more than the Republicans, a margin of less than half a percent.
In 17 of the 46 states that will elect some or all of their state senators, a shift of only three seats would alter party control in the senate, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In 12 state houses, a shift of five or fewer seats would tip the balance.

Prospects for Democratic candidates are very good, with one caveat. The Republicans are outspending them in state legislative races 2-1. Those who want to see more women in government have a singular opportunity to make a difference by making a contribution to Democratic campaigns, since Democratic women in the state legislatures outnumber Republican women nearly 2-1. If the blue wave rolls over the state houses, more women will advance to leadership positions — and later to congress.

A new Associated Press/America Online poll indicates that 43 percent of likely voters “check the Internet for political updates about campaigns and candidates.” According to Will Lester’s AP report on the poll:

The most popular destinations are the news sites, such as those run by newspapers, networks and newsmagazines, with nine of 10 in the online political audience saying they go there. Just over one-third go to candidate’s sites and almost half check out political sites.

According to Lester, the poll also found that the political web-surfers tended to be more male (40 percent of males vs. 30 percent of females); younger (40 percent of those under age 50, vs. less than 20 percent of those over 65); and more educated (over half of those with college degrees, vs. one-third of those with some college and one out of six with a h.s. education.)
Despite the growing influence of the internet as a source for political information, TV still gets the overwhelming share of political ad dollars, and likely has more influence with working class voters. A USA Today/Gallup poll conducted April 7-9 found that 45 percent of respondents watched TV news every day, and another 19 percent said they watched news program several times a week.

Few considerations generate more concern in the final days of political campaigns than decisions made about buying TV ads. And if you thought ad-buys were largely determined by poll-margins in particular races, you would be wrong.
For example, the cost of ads is a major factor in ad-buys. In their WaPo article “As Elections Near, Dueling With Dollars,” reporters Jim VandeHei and Chris Cillizza, explain the calculations DCCC ad-buyer John Lapp has to make in allocating his $60 million budget:

In Washington’s 5th District, Lapp is running ads hitting freshman Rep. Cathy McMorris despite the strong Republican tilt of the district. That’s because ad time in the Spokane media market, which covers almost the entire district, is relatively inexpensive, allowing the DCCC to fund a week of ads for just over $300,000. It is a cheap bet, even for a long shot.
But Lapp is not running ads against Rep. Jean Schmidt (Ohio) who, despite woeful reelection numbers, benefits from the high price of television time in the Cincinnati market. This decision could save Schmidt’s job, strategists in both parties say.

That’s a shame. other considerations include the intensity of local issues and the opportunity to run an especially powerful message. Then there is the obligation the DCCC has to fund ads for candidates they encouraged to run, regardless of their poll numbers. Democratic ad-buy decisions are made even more difficult in a growing playing field. Says Lapp “Republicans are playing a game of whack-a-mole while we are expanding the number of races in play by the day.”
In such an environment, some bad ad-buy decisions are inevitable. Fortunately, rank-and-file Democrats can help keep them to a minimum by making contributions to the following links, so we don’t have to leave potential winners out on a limb:

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

If there was ever a time for true blue Democrats to take action to make Congress more responsive, that would be today.

A new poll by the Center for Rural Strategies, conducted 10/22-24, reports big gains for Democrats among rural voters. According to the CRS press release:

The poll of rural voters in 41 contested congressional districts found that likely voters preferred Democratic candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives by a margin of 13 points, 52 percent to 39 percent. In mid-September, the same population of voters was evenly split between the two parties at 45 percent each.
In contested Senate races in states with significant rural populations, rural voters preferred Democrats by 4 points, 47 to 43 percent, reversing the 4-point lead Republican Senate candidates held among rural voters in mid-September. But those results fall within the poll’s margin of error.

Bill Greener, a Republican strategist and consultant on the poll, had this to say about the poll:

The numbers in this poll have to be disturbing to any Republican involved in the upcoming election…Republican success has relied on strong support from rural voters, and this survey indicates we don’t have that support today.

Another consultant to the poll, Democrat Anna Greenberg, cited a “perfect storm” of issues benefitting Democrats, including the Iraq war, economic problems in rural communities and a “muddling of moral values” resulting from the Foley scandal/cover-up.

Harold Ford has already won. Even if he loses the TN Senate race by a small margin, he has accomplished something important in demonstrating that African American Democrats can be highly competitive in state-wide races in the south. The critical lesson for Dems is that there is a lot to be gained from putting more resources into developing Black candidates in the south.
There are a lot of good articles about the Ford phenomenon out there, and one of the best is Salon‘s “How Would Jesus Vote?” by Michael Scherer, illuminating Ford’s brilliance in mining the vote of religious conservatives in the state that has “the most white evangelicals in the nation.” Also read the Wall St. Journal‘s “Republicans’ Hold On the South Gets Test in Tennessee” by Corey Dade and Nikhil Deogun, which explains Ford’s success in terms of the Volunteer State’s demographic transformation. Here’s just one interesting graph from the WSJ piece:

By one demographic factor, Mr. Ford should be far behind in the polls. Tennessee has one of the lowest African-American populations in the South — about 16%. Logically, that should put African-American candidates at a disadvantage for statewide office because they can’t count on a massive bloc of votes to give them a head start in a statewide election. But political scientists say the reverse may be true: In states with smaller black populations, whites don’t feel as threatened and the state isn’t as polarized. For instance, African-Americans make up a very high percentage of Mississippi and Alabama — 36.5% and 26%, respectively — and black voters tend to vote Democrat while white voters go for Republicans. The “blacker” the state, the larger President Bush’s margin of victory in 2004.

For more on the purple south emergence, check out Chris Kromm’s “Future of Congress to Be Decided in the South?” in Facing South. On a related issue, Ian Urbina reports on concerns about Black turnout in today’s New York Times — an important but much overlooked topic in midterm coverage thus far.