Oh, No! Election Day is Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010...

You are, of course, correct. NY is dark blue.

There will be a special election in MA on Jan 19th to fill the unexpired term of the expired Ted Kennedy.
The candidates are the state's Attorney General, Martha Coakley (D) vs state Senator Scott Brown (R).
Rasmussen's poll (1/5) has Coakley at 50% and Brown at 41% with 7% undecided. Kennedy won reelection in 2006 with 69% in a decidedly blue state.
As is the case in all special elections, turnout is expected to be low. That could favor Brown if he can mobilize his Republican base and attract some of the self-described "unaffiliated" voters who indicate that they favor him 65-21%.

Brown's website indicates he's raised more than $1,000,000 ......... in one day!

Good evening to yall. This thread is intended as being reportorial as opposed to adversarial regarding the mid-term elections in November and, perhaps, beyond.
A bit of a yawner so far. There are many other political threads that cater to one-line zingers.
So Scott Brown wins in MA. It was quite an upset in that normally very blue state. The Dems have gotten into a circular firing squad, shooting at Coakley in the middle.
The Dems obviously got whipped badly, as the moderate and conservative Repubs set aside deeply held philosophical differences to elect Brown with the help of the huge number of folks who describe themselves as Independents.
Brown will face reelection, along with President Obama, in Nov 2012.
I wonder if the moderate and conservative Repubs can stay in step:
Brown*--
>opposes any tax on big banks or prescribing bank compensation
>favors military tribunals vs civilian trials
>is in favor of "enhanced interrogation" and "waterboarding"
>supports the death penalty
>says that sames sex marriage in MA is a settled issue and that he opposes any constitutional amendment banning it
>claims Roe v Wade on abortion is law and he would not use abortion as a litmus test for a Supreme Court nomination
>has taken no strong stand on immigration.

*I culled this and abbreviated it from Wiki. Please let me know if you think I misstated something. I tried to be balanced.

On immigration, I think he's pretty much the opposite of Ted Kennedy. He opposes driver's licenses and in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. He proposed or worked on immigration legislation as a state senator and he's against 'amnesty' as a form of immigration reform. HTH.

A long quote from Wiki re Brown on illegal immigration-
"He opposes drivers licenses and in-state tuition to illegal immigrants. He also supports strengthening border enforcement and creating an employment verification system with penalties for companies that hire illegal immigrants."

"creating an employment verification system with penalties for companies that hire illegal immigrants."

Right. That may be the legislation he proposed as a state senator. Sounds like a fairly strong stance to me.

A strong stance that I think, Irishk, every member in our Congress supports in principle. Sounds good on the campaign trail, doesn't it?
This idea has been around for years.
The devil, though, is in the details. "Creating an employment verification system..."
Who is going to set that up, how will it be run and who will pay for it? Will the states be responsible for doing it, or the Federal government? Will everyone in the U.S. have to get some sort of Federal I.D. Card?
"Penalties for companies..." Again, it sounds fine, but I wonder how private businesses can gain access to a data base that doesn't exist.
It seems to me that illegal immigration is lurking slightly below the radar in the minds of many Americans.
I may be wrong and I welcome any reports on that from your parts of the country.

I think it's the same everywhere - economy is #1 concern.

I don't think the Brown victory is indicative of the Races that will come in November.

The overall Democratic strategy is becoming clear... it is something you didn't hear from Coakley, but I think it will be effective in the congressional races (combined with the messaging from the White House).

The Democrats in November will be all about economic populism-- protecting the little guy from the Corporate Giants.

You have already seen Obama adding taxes to the financial corporations that received bailout from the tax payers. He says "we want our money back". This puts the Republicans who opposed giving this money to the banks in a difficult position when they oppose taking the money back.

You will also see a push to counteract corporate money in elections following the recent SCOTUS decision banning limits on political ad spending.

I predict we will see economic populism in pretty much every Democratic campaign. We will see how this works for the Democrats. It seems to me that running against the "fat cats" of Wall Street right now is a lot easier then defending them.

there is the little matter of everything that Obama and the Dems did and said for the 163? days before the Brown victory. The Dems can not erase history, come fall every american will still remember that the Dems got it wrong, because the GOP will pound away on this subject. The American people are looking for someone who is on their side, that is who they want to support. The fickle-gutless-lying-corrupt Dems MIGHT be able to convince America that they are the least bad choice, but come Nov there is no chance that the Dems will be who America wants.

obviously 163? should read 363?

Good afternoon. I decided to spend some time looking at the races that are still, admittedly, 8+ months away.
I started by looking at contests for the U.S. Senate.
I am using polling data from Rasmussen. Why Rasmussen? I am considered to be quite liberal and Rasmussen is thought by some to have a Republican bias. I thought his poll would give me some credibility as wanting to be even-handed.
I will give yall some information in small doses. Today, I look at 3 races where Democrat incumbents are seeking their 4th 6-year term in the Senate.

Rasmussen argues that an incumbent with a poll number of less then 50% is potentially in trouble. Realize that this early the "undecided" folks are in double digits.
This cycle, at least now, there seems to be "incumbent-itis." Vote the scoundrels out. But incumbents do enjoy, perhaps, a bit of an advantage with regards to name recognition.

WISCONSIN (Rasmussen poll 2/18)
*Russ Feingold (D) - 43%
Tommy Thompson (R) - 48% - former Gov & HHS Secretary

*Russ Feingold (D) - 47%
Terrence Wall (R) - 39% - real estate entrepreneur

*Russ Feingold (D) - 47%
Dave Westlake (R) - 37% - businessman

So far Thompson has said he isn't interested in running.

WASHINGTON (Rasmussen poll 2/15)
*Patty Murray (D) - 50%
Don Benton (R) - 38% - former state Senator

*Patty Murray (D) - 49%
Clint Didier (R) - 34% - former NFL player and Teaparty supporter

*Patty Murray (D) - 48%
Chris Widener (R) - 33% - businessman

*Patty Murray (D) - 46%
Dina Ross (R) - 48% - 2-time candidate for Governor.

Ross has so far said he is not running.

CALIFORNIA (Rasmussen poll 2/15)

*Barbara Boxer (D) - 47%
Chuck Devore (R) - 42% - state Assemblyman

*Barbara Boxer (D) - 46%
Carly Fiorina (R) - 42% - former CEO, Hewlett Packard

*Barbara Boxer (D) - 45%
Tom Campbell (R) - 41% - former Congressman

Feel free to chime in, particularly if you are following these races.

* = Incumbent

My impression is that Republican wins in Senate contests in Illinois, Delaware, Arkansas and Indiana are very likely - all four are current Democrat seats, (one vacated by the President, another by the Vice President).

Most of the others identified are hard to predict at this point. It doesn't yet appear that Thompson is committed to running in Wisconsin, so at this point I believe a Feingold win is likely there . It seems the rest are still up for grabs - there are about three Republican seats in play and about five additional Democrat. At this point the political momentum is with the Republicans, though there is time enouch remaining for that to change - if that is possible now.

We can all hope that California voters will at last dump Barbara Boxer, a stupid, vicious little harpie who gives short people a bad name.

Thanks for participating, Georgeob1. I intend to cover 2 or 3 Senate races a day over the weekend. But some of Rasmussen's polls are a bit old, so we will see how that works out.
I gather you don't like Ms Boxer from your state of CA?

Thanks for all your hard work looking all that up. I was trying to remember how Rasmussen called it in MA...looked it up and I think he had Brown winning by 2. Zogby didn't do a formal poll, but he called it for Coakley by 8. I think Gallup had it right, as well.

Still plenty of time for comebacks and surprises. Still some important legislation to be voted on before the elections. Will these incumbents listen to their constituents? I remember reading once that during an election year lawmaking stops around July or so. So we may only be looking at only 5 months or so for the pols to get their houses all in a row. Or is that ducks? LOL.

Today's news reports that 86 year old Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey has been hospitalized with lymphoma. This is certainly a regrettable event for him and his family. However it is likely to mean a special election sometime in the next year or so in a state in which Democrats have not been faring well lately.

The oldest member of the Senate is the very frail Robert Byrd of West Virginia. However, I doubt that a Republican could take that seat in any circumstance.

the ghost of joe stack for president, 2012 baby

hell let's make it a write in vote on the 2o10 midterms

Thanks, Georgeob. I had not heard about Lautenberg.
We have done Wisconsin, Washington and California. I am looking at states where there is a potentially competitive race and in which Rasmussen has conducted a poll within the last week or so.
Reiterating a couple of points Scott Rasmussen commented upon:
> An incumbent polling less than 50% puts him/her in a potentially "vulnerable" position. He goes on to say that those who say they "Strongly" approve or disapprove of a candidate is more significant. But, this far out, the sample size there is probably not statistically meaningful.
> Many of the match-ups involve potential challengers who, in some cases have not said they were running or who have said (perhaps trying to be coy) they are not running. If they formally declare that they are in, they might get a bounce, at least initially.

One more state, now:

Oregon (2/17):
*Ron Wyden (D) - 1st elected in 1996; seeking 3rd full 6th year term - 49%
Jim Huffman (R) - law professor - 35%

Huffman has not officially gone beyond "considering running." There are perhaps other folks out there but Rasmussen included only Huffman.
Note that Wyden trips up on Rassmussen's "50% Rule."
91% of those polled had heard of Wyden while less than 60% claimed to have heard of Huffman, and yet Huffman is not far behind for an undeclared candidate.
This in Oregon, typically a pretty Blue state. It seems to suggest that some folks there are willing to lean towards Huffman because (a) he isn't an incumbent and/or (b) he isn't a Democrat.
November is a long time away. I don't think the Dems will lose control of the Senate. But they should be and probably are running scared.

Regarding your fears of credibility on selecting pollsters, I found this study from Fordham on Poll Accuracy in the 2008 Presidential Election and here's what they found:

The following list ranks the 23 organizations by the accuracy of their final, national preelection polls (as reported on pollster.com):

1. Rasmussen (11/1-3)**
1. Pew (10/29-11/1)**
2. YouGov/Polimetrix (10/18-11/1)
3. Harris Interactive (10/20-27)
4. GWU (Lake/Tarrance) (11/2-3)*
5. Diageo/Hotline (10/31-11/2)*
5. ARG (10/25-27)*
6. CNN (10/30-11/1)
6. Ipsos/McClatchy (10/30-11/1)
7. DailyKos.com (D)/Research 2000 (11/1-3)
8. AP/Yahoo/KN (10/17-27)
9. Democracy Corps (D) (10/30-11/2)
10. FOX (11/1-2)
11. Economist/YouGov (10/25-27)
12. IBD/TIPP (11/1-3)
13. NBC/WSJ (11/1-2)
14. ABC/Post (10/30-11/2)
15. Marist College (11/3)
16. CBS (10/31-11/2)
17. Gallup (10/31-11/2)
18. Reuters/ C-SPAN/ Zogby (10/31-11/3)
19. CBS/Times (10/25-29)
20. Newsweek (10/22-23)