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

Maybe what they are oversampling is each other's polls.

It's an inexact science at best I just don't answer the phone.

New PPP poll out today:

Obama Up by 8 in Pennsylvania

There were primaries yesterday in Arkansas and Kentucky, neither of which is considered to be in play in November. AR went for McCain in 2008 by a margin of 59-39 while McCain won in KY 58-41.
Romney won in KY yesterday with 118K votes from Repubs. That was 67% of the total. Santorum and Paul largely split the remainder.
On the Dem side, Obama got 119K votes (58%) vs the rest going for "Not committed."
Turn out for both primaries was very low.

PPP Poll - Arizona

Romney 50%
Obama 43%

That's pretty close, but that state is full of batshit crazy lunatics, so I doubt Obama has much of a chance there in the end. If he wins there, he'll have already won in other places that are a lot more important.

More interesting to me today was the Marist poll showing Obama up in VA, OH, and FL.

Cycloptichorn

I think a lot of Californians have moved there...

::::flees

That's why Colorado is turning into a blue state now.

Cycloptichorn

Here's the Marist poll...

Obama edges Romney in three key battleground states

FL Obama 48%, Romney 44%
VA Obama 48%, Romney 44%
OH Obama 48%, Romney 42%

MoE +/- 3%

Romney has spent the last couple of days talking about education. He suggested that class size may not be much of a factor (citing comparisons to class sizes elsewhere). He said that our school systems need better teachers and better administrators.
He appeared today at an inner city school in Philadelphia and is quoted:
"For a single mom living in a shelter with a couple of kids, those kids are at an enormous disadvantage. There is no question about that...
"Having two parents in a home makes an enormous difference. So if we are thinking about the kids of tomorrow, trying to help move people to understand getting married...has a big impact."

I have been reading about the race for the open Senate seat in Texas. It is likely that it will remain held by a Republican.
The Republican primary is Tuesday. There are 3 major candidates and if none of them gets to 50% there will be a run-off July 31st.
The favorite is Lt Gov David Dewhurst, who may collect just shy of 50%. He has reportedly spent $10M of his own money so far in the race. He evidently has run ads against his closest opponent - Ted Cruz - accusing him of supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants.
Cruz, reportedly supported by the tea party, has denied that and (I am not making this us) accused Dewhurst of "bigotry" for "urging voters to not vote for anyone with a Z in their name."
The 3rd candidate - and the spoiler here - is former Dallas mayor Tom Leppert, sneeringly dismissed as a "liberal."

Dewhurst and Cruz both run ads claiming to be the true conservative. 99% of the political ads locally vow to stand up to Obama. I believe it is Tom Leppert holding a picture of the president and saying, "We all know what happened last time we sent an empty suit to Washington."

Great political ad! He shoots a rubber chicken at 3:09 in, refers to 'those idiots in Washington' (haha)...and he's ridden an ostrich!

I kept waiting for him to get tired, or trip.

Five Loonng Months To Go Before Election Day.
I looked at the Electoral Vote maps from various "experts."
RCP has it as 227-170 Obama with 11 states listed as toss-ups. Arizona (11), Colorado (9), Florida (29), Iowa (6), Michigan (16), New Hampshire (4), North Carolina (15), Ohio (18), Virginia (13), Wisconsin (10) and Missouri (10).
The NYT's shows it as 217-206-115. CO, FL, IA, Nevada (6), NH, OH, Pennsylvania (20), VA and WI.
Cook comes up with 227-195-116. CO, FL, IA, NV, NC, OH, PA and VA.
Finally, Sabato sees it as 247-206-85. CO, FL, IA, NV, OH. NH and VA.
RCP allows players to customize a map and save it for future reference. I came up with Obama at 324 and Romney at 234.
I gave AZ, FL, IA, NH, NC and MO to Romney. I have CO, MI, OH. PA, NV, VA and WI going for Obama.
I could be a bit biased. But I guess you knew that.
I notice that will likely go over 4ooo views of this thread today.

Thanks for keeping up with the thread so well.

Today (and Friday really) was a good polling day for Obama. From RCP -

Tuesday, May 29
Race/Topic - Poll - Results Spread

Colorado: Romney vs. Obama - Project New America/Keating (D) - Obama 48, Romney 44 - Obama +4

California: Romney vs. Obama - LA Times/USC - Obama 56, Romney 37 - Obama +19

Michigan: Romney vs. Obama - PPP (D) - Obama 53, Romney 39 - Obama +14

General Election: Romney vs. Obama - Gallup Tracking - Obama 47, Romney 45 - Obama +2

General Election: Romney vs. Obama - Rasmussen Tracking - Obama 46, Romney 45 - Obama +1

President Obama Job Approval - Gallup - Approve 49, Disapprove 44 - Approve +5

President Obama Job Approval - Rasmussen Reports - Approve 49, Disapprove 50 - Disapprove +1

---

The Michigan numbers were strong enough to push it back into Obama's camp on RCP's average, which puts the race at 243 - 170 - 125:

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

It's the 49-50% approval line that has to be worrying the Romney camp. Those numbers have actually rebounded somewhat from last year, and Obama being at 50% approval is one of the key predictors for re-election.

I think we've entered a stasis period for the election - the next few months are going to see very little motion either way, until either an outside event occurs (Europe collapsing, natural disaster, scandal) or the conventions roll around. That's not bad for Obama - as long as he can maintain his small but significant lead, the narrative that he's going to win will continue to be reinforced, which is important moving into the debates this Fall.

Cycloptichorn

Speaking of polls, there was an exhaustive series of them done by Gallup over the past month about veterans; specifically male veterans:
ALL MALES-
Registered Voters- Romney (50%) vs Obama (42%)
Non-Veterans- Romney (46%) vs Obama (45%)
Veterans- Romney (60%) vs Obama (32%)

I was surprised to learn that 24% of all adult males are veterans.
MALE VETS BY AGE AS A % OF MALES IN THEIR AGE GROUP-
80 & Over: 73%
70-79: 57%
60-69: 45%
50-59: 20%
40-49: 18%
30-39: 14%
20-29: 9%
(The draft stopped in about 1973 (?) so many guys in the 50-59 range didn't face that).
The Gallup poll found that REGARDLESS OF AGE veterans favor Romney by high single or double digits.
Gallup suggests - but can't prove from the data - that the all-volunteer military attracts men who are more politically conservative. I can see that.
But I am in the 60-69 range when the draft was in place. Most of the guys were blacks and Hispanics in for their two years. Why do they - as a group - favor Romney?

The longest primary season in Texas history is over.

Well, it’s not really over. Runoffs are nine — count ‘em, NINE — weeks away.

But there was enough political blood spilled on Tuesday for us to draw some conclusions about the state of Texas state politics today.

Here are six lessons learned from Tuesday’s primary elections:

1. Texas Republicans are united — unless they’re not.

The rank-and-file fell into line behind Mitt Romney, who garnered an impressive 70 percent in the Texas presidential primary. Republicans really, really, really want to beat Barack Obama.

But there are many, many, many deep divisions within the party. The David Dewhurst-Ted Cruz runoff for the U.S. Senate will highlight the yawning gap between establishment conservatives and Tea Party Republicans. (We’re talking style as much as substance here.)

The battle for the soul of the Texas Republican Party continues. And it will continue.

2. You can win big and lose big at the same time.

Just ask Texas House Speaker Joe Straus. The San Antonio Republican easily defeated a foe who targeted him from the right. But Straus’ inner circle was decimated in the primaries by Tea Party and hard-right opponents.

Among the losers: Rep. Rob Eissler, R-the Woodlands, chairman of the House Education Committee, Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Irving, and East Texas Rep. Mike “Tuffy” Hamilton. All the defeated incumbents were targeted by Empower Texans, a conservative group which spent close to $120,000 trying to defeat Straus by portraying him as too moderate to lead the Texas House.

The real election day for Straus will come when the Texas House picks its speaker next January. He earned an official opponent Tuesday when Rep. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, announced his plans to challenge Straus.

3. The Texas Republican congressional delegation is so conservative that it doesn’t need to be replaced by conservatives.

Grassroots Tea Party activists gave it their best shot. They ran aggressive campaigns against incumbent Republican congressmen including Joe Barton of Ennis, Ralph Hall of Rockwall, Kenny Marchant of Coppell and Lamar Smith of San Antonio. And they won … nada.

Zero for 11.

Lesson: There’s not much maneuvering room to the political right of the Texas Republican delegation. It’s the most conservative big-state congressional delegation in the nation. And unless you have a lot — and we mean A LOT — of money, a name and a high-quality organization, don’t even think of a primary challenge in 2014.

4. Republicans should just give up on destroying the career of Lloyd Doggett.

It’s just not worth it.

After the veteran Democrat Austin Democrat crushed two primary rivals and won the Democratic nomination to represent the new, majority Latino 35th Congressional District, one Capitol wag compared the 65-year-old Doggett to Moby Dick and Texas Republican leaders to Captain Ahab, whose obsession with killing the Great White Whale consumed him.

This is the second consecutive redistricting process that saw Texas Republicans destroy Doggett’s old district — last time it was the 10th District, this time the 25th. So Doggett once again confounded them by moving to a new district designed to elect a minority representative … and won the primary himself.

All the Republicans have done is to anger the Great White Whale of Texas politics. They’d do better to leave him alone.

It’s just not worth it.

5. Just because you’re a Big Man on Campus in Austin doesn’t mean that you can breeze into Congress.

Ask Mike Jackson. The Houston-area state senator thought he had a new congressional district tailor-made for him. Trouble is, the voters got in the way. Jackson finished third in Tuesday’s primary in the 36th Congressional District, which stretches from eastern Harris County to the Louisiana state line.

Jackson finished behind a long-ago-ex-congressman (Steve Stockman) and a financial adviser who spent an awful lot of his own money to spread a popular, positive conservative message (Stephen Takach). They won runoff spots the old-fashioned way: They earned them.

Another powerful Austinite left in the dust by Texas voters Tuesday was former Texas Railroad Commission Chairman Michael Williams, who finished fifth in the GOP primary for the district formerly represented by Doggett, the 25th. Williams was a power in Austin a few months ago, then one of Rick Perry’s top presidential surrogates. Now he’s looking for a job.

6. Never, ever forget the folks back home.

Just because you’re a big man on Capitol Hill doesn’t mean that you deserve another term.

That’s the lesson 67-year-old Silvestre Reyes learned Tuesday. The former chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee — a key member of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s DC brain trust — was unseated by an aggressive 39-year-old challenger with strong political bloodlines. Beto O’Rourke, the son of an ex-El Paso county judge and a technology entrepreneur in his own right, won an old-fashioned Wild West shootout in the 16th Congressional District.

After decades in Washington, Reyes wasn’t as nimble at watering the grassroots. And when he saw some political weeds, he tried to eradicate them with the political equivalent of a nuclear bomb. The nasty negative attacks on O’Rourke backfired and elevated the challenger, who narrowly won without a runoff.

This doesn’t have to happen to veteran lawmakers. Houston Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee faced a perilous re-nomination battle two years ago and won with ease. Dallas Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, 76, turned back a spirited challenge from two rivals on Tuesday.

THE 2ND MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF 2012.
Hyperbole aside, the recall election in Wisconsin on Tuesday is being watched closely. Gov Scott Walker (R} and several other state officials are being targeted by the unions for taking away some of the public workers' benefits.
The Dems got involved by having their law makers flee to Illinois - pursued by the state police for a time.
The unions and the Dems gathered enough signatures to force this recall.
The last poll - a week ago - had Walker winning over his opponent Tom Barrett (D), the mayor of Milwaukee, by 6%. Both sides still say it is too close to call. Turnout is predicted to be around 65%.
Obama has largely steered clear of publicly supporting Barrett, perhaps out of fear of backing the loser. In fact, his spinners are suggesting that a win by Barrett would be great but even a narrow loss (<5%) would be okay.
George Will notes today that this is about the "white collar" union members in the public sector and less about the "blue collar" private sector members who contribute more of their pay towards pensions and health care. The union leaders are perhaps more concerned about Walker's wanting to make paying union dues voluntary.
17% of Dems in WI say that recall elections should only be called in the event of some personal misconduct.
A huge amount of money has been spent.
Walker by 4%.

A new Angus-Reid poll out today:

Scott Walker (R) 53%
Tom Barrett (D) 47%

MoE +/- 4.3%

Walker's main sources of support among decided voters in Wisconsin are men (57%) and respondents aged 35-to-54 (57%).

Barrett is backed by a majority of female decided voters (52%).

In addition, Walker stands to get the votes of 88 per cent of Wisconsinites who supported Republican John McCain in the 2008 United States presidential election.

Barrett has a lower retention rate, attracting 78 per cent of respondents who voted for Barack Obama in the last presidential election.