The U.S. National Elections For President, The Senate And The House Of Representatives.

Snowe was one of those Republicans who talk center and vote right. The Democrats in the senate did everything but polish her shiny metal ass to get her to vote for health insurance reform in 2009, but, in the end, she voted the straight McConnell line all the way through to the end. On major issues, I see not a dime's worth of difference between her and the GOP senate leadership, so I'm certainly not sorry to see her leave the senate.

Almost. She served on the Senate Finance Committee and voted with the Democrats to move the healthcare bill to the floor. The Republicans were unhappy with her, but from what I read, she's well liked by her constituents, who will probably miss her. I hope she's not seriously ill or something.

That was a free vote for her, since the Democrats outnumbered her in the committee and she couldn't resort to a filibuster. Snowe and her colleague Collins are good at voting like moderates when it doesn't really matter. When the important votes come along, however, they fall into line behind the leadership.

Lost in all the hoopla about "super Tuesday" was the fact that Jean Schmidt, one of the most loathsome and reprehensible members of congress, was defeated in the Republican primary in her Ohio congressional district.

North Carolina votes on May 8th (?) on a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriages and civil unions.
Obama today commented that he was against the ban. He has been careful to avoid getting involved in non-federal issues.
It strikes me as interesting that he would do so in the swing state of NC.

Well, at least the man doesn't lack for confidence.

A final postscript on Olympia Snowe, courtesy of Alex Pareene at Salon:

Polling for Romney v. Obama lately hasn't been too good for Mitt. And today, Quinnipiac released a trio of killers for Romney: Obama +7 in FL, +6 in OH, and +3 in PA.

It's really, really difficult to see how Romney can win the election without winning both OH and FL. And even if he does, there are MANY different combinations of states Obama could win and still win, as long as he carries PA.

Cycloptichorn

Rasmussen today also followed up with a poll that puts Obama at +8 in OH. That's getting out of control for Romney.

Cycloptichorn

Rasmussen and Quinnipiac had Obama over Romney 50-42 in polls taken last week in Virginia. VA (13 electoral delegates) is a swing state which Obama carried in 2008. That was the 1st time the Dems won since LBJ did it in 1964.

Romney seems to have the nomination wrapped up (doesn't he?). He is now largely turning his attention to Obama. He needs to do that.
A Gallup poll* out today has him trailing Obama 39-48 after being ahead 49-41 in October amongst self-described independent voters in 12 "swing" states**.
Women independents favored Romney 48-43 in the last quarter of 2011 but now go for Obama 51-37.
This poses a problem for Romney, I think. There are a couple of more primaries (PA and TX) before he gets rid of Santorum and then there is the Repub convention itself. He can not go after the indy's votes too aggressively before the faithful gather in Tampa.
* The Gallup poll of registered voters has a margin of error (MOE) of 6% and included a comment to the effect that "...question wording and practical difficulties may lead to a bias or error."
** States include Colorado. Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Plonking this 2012 Senate race info from Cook Political Report (yes, it's early to make predictions before the primary season has ended).

Senate Overview: Part I – The Republicans


And, while Cook did very well on their predictions for the 2010 race, Election Projection, I believe, did even better.

Their statistics for the 2012 Senate race (at this very early point in time) have the Democrats losing 3, the Republicans gaining 3 and no change for the 2 Independents.

So, effectively, a 50/50 split.

I've been watching the (R) race for Senate in Indiana where long time moderate (and 80 year old) Richard Lugar is being challenged by the Teaparty backed Mourdock. The establishment is worried that a safe Repub seat could slip away, so their Pacs are attacking Mourdock hard ahead of the May primary. Some $700K in anti-Mourdock ads.
Polls have Lugar ahead by single digits.
The Dem candidate will be Donnelly. If Lugar wins the primary, the polls have him winning in November by 50-29. Mourdock vs Donnelly: 35-35.

Get Your Foot Out Of My Mouth
Maybe it's just my imagination but it seems to me that this election cycle has seen more surrogates for the candidates making stupid comments.
Already Obama and Romney have had to distance themselves from intemperate comments by over eager supporters/donors.

Glad to see you posting here, rjb!

Keeping up with the Indiana Senate race (R) - Mourdock pulled ahead of Lugar in a poll yesterday - only by one point, though. They may have to gear up more attack ads.

Orrin Hatch
The 74 year old Republican senator today came oh-so-close to winning enough delegates to avoid a primary election. He needed support from 60% of them but got 59.2% - 50 votes shy.
First elected in 1977, he has been somewhat of a moderate who has had a history of working with Democrats, drawing the ire of the tea party.
They back state senator Dan Liljenquiet in the June 26th primary. The winner will face only token opposition from any Democrat in the general election.
This will be an expensive diversion for Hatch and for Romney - who supports him.

Now that Romney has captured the nomination for the Republicans, let's look at the state of the polling:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html

As of today, Obama holds a 4-point lead in the RCP averages over Romney in the general election at-large polling. Basically, the only poll that is consistently going Romney's way is Rasmussen's tracking poll (big surprise there).

Gallup has now rebounded to +7 Obama, from an initial deficit of about +4 Romney. That was pretty fast, actually - the bounce Romney got from Santorum dropping out didn't last long.

Here's the RCP electoral college map:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html

I really don't know why they don't have more states turned light blue on that map, considering the handsome leads Obama enjoys there. I suspect that they have political motivations for doing so, as RCP is generally a right-leaning site.

The so-called 'safe' states for each candidate, per RCP, put Obama at 227 Electoral Votes and Romney at 170. So it's going to be an easier battle for Obama to win the swing states he needs, right off the bat.

Obama needs another 43 EV's to lock the thing up.
Romney needs another 100 EV's to win.

Some interesting states:

NV (6 EV) - Obama + 6.7
CO (9 EV)- Obama +13(!) in the latest poll - the only one to poll CO this cycle, though, is PPP, who is a Dem pollster.
PA (20 EV) - Obama +6
OH (18 EV)- Obama +5.3. Obama has lead 19 out of the last 20 polls in OH.
FL (29 EV) - Obama +4.2. Romney hasn't lead a poll there since January.
VA (13 EV) - Obama +4. Polling has wildly fluctuated in VA though so this is a really soft lead for Obama.
NC (15 EV) - RCP doesn't give an average here, but if they did, it would be Obama +1. Like VA polling has been all over the place here.
NH (4 EV) - Obama +4. This is only an average of two polls, though, and both have less than 500 respondents. I would bet anything that Obama wins here though.
IA (6 EV) - Obama +3, but based on really skimpy polling. True toss-up. I will note that Ron Paul's people have been working IA heavily for months and he will likely actually win the delegates of that state; that probably doesn't bode too well for Romney in the Fall. But who knows.
MO (10 EV) - no average here, once again, but this one is a clear lead for Romney - Obama hasn't done better than tie any poll there this entire cycle.
AZ (11 EV) - Romney +4.5, another clear lead for Romney, with no poll putting Obama on top this cycle.

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You can easily see that Obama has a WIDE variety of options to get the 43 EV's he needs to win. I would say right off the bat that I think it to be extremely likely that Obama will win PA, CO and NV - the polling in those states has just constantly been in Obama's favor, all three voted his way in 2008 and all three states have trended blue nationally for a while now (Bush won CO in 2004 but only by a bit).

That would be 35 of the 43 EV's Obama needs. He could win just one of OH, VA, NC, or FL and win. He could win IA and NH and win.

That's a pretty favorable landscape for Obama. Romney basically needs to win4/5 of the toss-up states in order to win the election; and not the little ones, either. It's really difficult to see a Romney victory without him winning both FL and OH.

How will this change in the upcoming months, when we have debates, massive spending by third-party groups, economic shifts, and possible gov't shutdowns? We'll have to wait and see. But the initial polling data is in Obama's favor and it will take a lot of work for Romney to overcome him.

Cycloptichorn

If we start with Obama having 227 EV's votes...
NV (5 EV's) seems pretty g00d for him. He won there in 2008 (by a margin of 54-45). The economy could be a problem.
CO (9) where he w0n 54-49 looks good for Obama.
NM (5) went for Obama 57-42.
PA (20) has always been a tantalizing target for the Repubs but given the turnout last night in the Senate primaries it seems to be unlikely that anything could be done to reverse the 55-44 result in 2008.
I will defer to Sozobe on OH (18 EV's). Obama won by a 51-47 margin.
NC (15) was won by Obama 50-50 in 2008. It will likely flip back in 2012.
My state of VA (13) was won by Obama 53-46 in 2008. I don't see it going back.

Really? Now that's surprising. It seems like the polling there hasn't always been in his favor - though I know the state GOP hasn't done any favors with their controversial bills.

Cycloptichorn

Very cool chart from Nate Silver showing Springtime polling data for the past 10 presidential campaigns.