@realjohnboy,
I won't comment for fear of jinxing someone else's chance.
Sorry for the digression
Quote:By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
It would not be accurate to say that Democrats are worried about losing control of the House in November. It would be accurate to say that Democrats are in a screaming panic about losing control of the House in November.
The panic threshold was crossed Sunday morning on "Meet the Press," when White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, "There's no doubt there are enough seats in play that could cause Republicans to gain control."
Gibbs spent part of the next two days claiming that he was merely pointing out the obvious. But when the president's chief spokesman points out the "obvious" fact that his party is in big trouble, it becomes self-fulfilling. On Monday, House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) gleefully agreed that "we're going to retake the House, as Mr. Gibbs suggested."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/13/AR2010071305395.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
YEP, what a difference two years makes...they done fucked up, they forgot that what the people want does matter eventually. The Corporate class can't save them, and actually has no interest in trying.
@realjohnboy,
realjohnboy wrote:I find it hard to believe that Boxer will lose it CA.
I agree. Rasmussen finally updated that race and has Boxer up by 7.
CALIFORNIA SENATE 7/14
Rasmussen's new poll has the incumbent Barbara Boxer at 49% in her quest for a 4th term. Carly Fiorina (R), the former CEO of Hewlett Packard, polls 42%.
4% indicate a preference for Other and 5% are unsure. The poll was of 500 Likely Voters and has a Margin of Error of 4.5 points at a Confidence Level of 95%.
Boxer's 49% is at the higher end of the range she has been in since I started following this in mid-February. Fiorina's 42% is also at the higher end of her range. But earlier polls were taken prior to the Republican primary in early June. I would have expected her to get more of a bounce perhaps once she became the nominee.
Rasmussen also reports that the Obama administration's action to challenge Arizona's new immigration law gets roughly equal support vs opposition in CA. Nationally the challenge is opposed by 2/3rds of people polled.
Real Clear Politics (a poll of polls) has Boxer ahead by an average of 3 points based on 4 different polls taken between 6/22 and 7/14. RCP lists this contest as being a toss-up. I have it as Leaning Democrat but I suspect it will be Likely Democrat as election day gets closer.
One of the other polls, Survey USA, has Fiorina leading 47% to 45%. That poll was taken just a few days ahead of Rasmussen's and also breaks down - in tabular form - each candidate's support by different demographics.
Here are a couple I find noteworthy:
Age 18-34: Boxer 56% - Fiorina 37%
Race-
White: Boxer 42% - Fiorina 51%
Black: Boxer 60% - Fiorina 33%
Hispanic: Boxer 52% - Fiorina 39%
Asian/Other: Boxer 45% - Fiorina 39%
@Irishk,
I knew I shouldn't have commented.
I have been away for a few days. I loved the penguin video clip.
The big political news out this week, I guess, occurred last weekend when White House press secretary Robert Gibbs suggested that the Democrats could indeed lose their majority in the House of Representatives come November. It is not at all clear why he would volunteer that bit of speculation, even if it might be true. Suffice it to say that the Democratic leadership is rather unhappy with him.
Meanwhile the NAACP condemned the Tea Party movement for being racist and the Tea Party folks fought back. Sarah Palin challenged the President and his wife to "refudiate" the NAACP's criticism. So it goes.
WASHINGTON STATE SENATE (7/15):
Incumbent Patty Murray (D), seeking her 4th 6-year term is in trouble. She trails 2 of the 3 Republicans seeking the Republican nomination to challenge her.
She stands at 45% vs former football player and Tea Party activist Clint Didier who has 48%,
Murray and Dino Rossi, a two time candidate for Governor, have the same 45-48% split.
She fares better against businessman Paul Akers, leading 46% to 41%.
All numbers are according to Rasmussen.
The Republican primary is on August 17th. Rossi will probably win, I think.
The race in WA will begin in earnest then.
Tom Schaller of 538.com has some good analysis up on
When 256 Doesn't Equal 256.
This is in direct response to Gibbs' remarks that there are certainly enough seats 'in play' for the Republicans to be competitive.
Before the Republicans get all giddy, they might want to read his entire analysis at the link, but here are the charts, which are also revealing:
@realjohnboy,
realjohnboy wrote:All numbers are according to Rasmussen.
The Republican primary is on August 17th. Rossi will probably win, I think.
The race in WA will begin in earnest then.
The last non-Rasmussen poll I could find on this race was done by SurveyUSA back in April. They had Rossi up 10 points over Murray (52% to 42%). I did find info that Rossi has raised a lot of money in the past month or so ($1.4M, I believe) and then there was this rather negative article on Murray's fundraising and war chest:
Quote:Among the top six Democrats in the Senate leadership, only Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has collected more money than Murray from lobbyists and their firms since 2005, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that tracks money and politics. Yet even Reid receives a smaller share of his overall donations from lobbyists than Murray does.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012287293_murray06m.html
I/We have been talking about this election cycle for a few months. There are still about 3 months to go, and the campaigning is only now starting to get into a higher gear. It will get intense and, undoubtedly, ugly.
For the record, right now, I see the Dems holding onto the Senate by a skinny margin. Perhaps something like 53-47.
The House? The Dems could lose control, for sure. I have them, at this point, hanging on by a couple of seats. I have no polls to support that claim, though. I am going by the theory that voters hate incumbents but not our incumbent.
The problem for President Obama is that he will be facing a Congress (House and Senate) which will be unable or disinclined to do anything for the next 2 years. Obama's aggressive legislative agenda (health care, financial reform etc) is over. All eyes now are on the economy. A slowly - if at all - recovering economy.
The Republicans, of course, must be wary of becoming the party of "No." The looming battle will be over the cost of the extension of unemployment benefits vs the ballooning deficit.
Good evening to yall.
There has been quite a bit of crowing on the part of the Right wing regarding the Generic Congressional ballot - but I would caution anyone who thinks that this will be a good predictor of the outcome this Fall -
As a Dem, I don't really trust this - but it is nice to see that in the week that the BP spill got capped and FinReg got passed, the Dems are polling at their highest levels of the year. I wonder if Republicans refusing to pass unemployment extensions has anything to do with it?
Cycloptichorn
WEST VIRGINIA SENATE
Robert Byrd died with 26 months left in his term. The Governor, Joe Manchin (D), appointed 36 year old Carte Goodwin to fill the seat until the next election, probably with the understanding that he would not run. Manchin wants the job but it would be seen by some as unseemly to appoint himself to the vacant seat.
WV has some ambiguous laws about filling a vacant seat. That was resolved over the weekend when the WV house and senate nearly unanimously voted to hold the election on November 2nd of this year. An alternative would have been to hold a special election next November (2011) or in 2012 when Byrd's term would have expired.
Manchin is very popular in a state that has not suffered as much economic damage as other states. He has been very visible after the coal mine disaster earlier in the year. He won election as Governor in 2008 with 70% of the vote, carrying all 55 districts.
The likely Republican candidate is Shelley Moore Capito, who is a member of the U.S. House. The same legislation setting the election date also allows her to simultaneously run for the Senate and for the House.
That's pretty cool.
I must admit that I am not a big fan of the Generic Congressional Polls, Cyclo, for several reasons.
Here are the 7 most recent polls that, averaged together by Real Clear Politics, has the Republicans at 44.4% vs the Democrats at 41.9% (+2.5 Repub):
Gallup (7/12 - 7/18) - Adults*: 43% Rep - 49% Dem (+6 Dem)
Rasmussen (7/12 - 7/18) - Likely Voters: 45% Rep - 36% Dem (+9 Rep)
Fox (7/13 - 7/14) - Registered Voters: 41% Rep - 37% Dem (Rep +4)
Time (7/12 - 7/13) - Adults: 42% Rep - 43% Dem (Dem +1)
Bloomberg (7/9 - 7/12) - Likely Voters: 48% Rep - 40% Dem (Rep +8)
PPP (7/9 - 7/12) - Registered Voters: 43% Rep - 43% Dem (tie)
ABC/Wash Post (7/7 - 7/11) - Likely Voters: 49% Rep - 45% Dem (Rep +4)
RCP shows the Gallup poll as being of Adults. Cyclo's post suggests that it was of Registered Voters.
Gallup did use registered voters for this poll.
Plus, I agree with Cyclo on the jump being due to the unemployment extensions. It looks like Independents were responsible for most of the bounce, so if it was simply finance reform or the oil spill, I'd think we'd see a spike from more Democrats, as well. JMHO.
VIRGINIA 5th CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT (7/21)
This is my district. Polling is rare, but SurveyUSA did one which came out today.
Tom Perriello (D) - Incumbent: 35%
Robert Hurt (R) - State Senator: 58%
Jeffrey Clark (I) - Businessman with Tea Party backing: 4%
Undecided: 3%
This is a race that is being watched as an indicator of whether or not the House may swing from the Dems to the Repubs. Both sides are likely to be hurling in big money.
The district starts here in Charlottesville (liberal leaning) and runs along the very rural Appalachian Mountains to the economically distressed cities like Danville, built on textiles and tobacco.
Perriello won in 2008 by 750 votes over a 6-term Republican incumbent who was probably complacent in failing to appreciate how long Obama's coattails could be.
Anyway, I was poring through the SurveyUSA poll data (600 Likely Voters - 4.1% MOE).
3% Undecided? In an election that is more than 3 months away? That strikes me as improbable.
Of those polled, 42% describe themselves as Repubs, 27% Dem and 29% Independents. I suspect that there is a tendency for more folks to describe themselves as Independent than is actually the case. 48% of them go for the Repub, 37% for the Dem and 10% for the Independent.
42% of those polled say they have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party movement and, of those, 86% say they will vote for the Repub while only 6% say they will vote for Clark, the Independent who has the support of that movement. I find that hard to believe at this point in the campaign. I could see them as supporting him now but switching later to the Repub later.
Amusingly, the Republican's campaign manager earlier in the month disparaged SurveyUSA as not being reliable.
I have the Dem, Perriello, losing the seat. He can't count on the turnout of young, enthusiastic voters in a mid-term election.
Quote:Of those polled, 42% describe themselves as Repubs, 27% Dem and 29% Independents.
Poll seems a bit skewed to the Republicans, no?
Q-poll has a new one out today showing the Republicans beating the Democrats on the generic Congressional ballot by 5 points (43/38).
That's up 11 points since May and 13 points since last summer. Among Independents, the split is even more pronounced, 44/29.
Intrade still favoring the Republicans to take back the House.
@Irishk,
Irishk wrote:
Quote:Of those polled, 42% describe themselves as Repubs, 27% Dem and 29% Independents.
Poll seems a bit skewed to the Republicans, no?
My understanding of polling is that the sample reflects the makeup of the population. I quibble with the 29% Independent more than with the Repub-Dem split.
FLORIDA SENATE (7/22)
Rasmussen is out with his poll, two weeks after the Quinnipiac poll July 6th.
There is not much difference between them with both showing Marco Rubio (R) and Charlie Crist (I) in a statistical dead heat in the mid-30% range each.
The two Dems vying for their party's nomination trail at around 20%, while Other/Unsure come in at around 12%.
The Dem primary is August 24th. I have Kendrick Meek, a member of Congress winning over billionaire Jeff Greene.
Rasmussen has Crist, who left the Republican party when it became clear he would not win in a primary, getting 23% of the GOP vote. He has not stated publicly whether, if he wins, he will caucus with the Dems. I am confident he will, though, and that may cost him votes from Repubs.
Meanwhile, Obama and the Dem leadership are not indicating that they will give more then token support to Meek or Greene, preferring to endorse Crist.
Dems in FL may then trend towards Crist.
