Even if he were serious, I doubt he’ll run now. Last week was devastating for the “Trump as a serious presidential candidate” narrative. First, the birth certificate was released and even though he took credit for that, it was clear that Obama came out looking better than Trump on that one. Then Bin Laden was [...]

Charlie Cook runs the numbers and sees the tide turning against the “less government” crowd. From National Journal: Why is this important? Because independent voters are the ones who matter most in American politics. More than 90 percent of Democratic voters can be expected to vote Democratic, just as more than 90 percent of Republicans [...]

A vigilant reader spotted this. First, Fox News puts up a PollDaddy poll immediately after the SOTU. Given the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the speech, these numbers actually seem a little low. Still, it is FoxNews.com. Here’s the thing. It was posted on this page which now is no longer available. The reader writes, “I [...]

Why are Republicans insisting that the tax cuts continue when the election appears to have been a referendum on spending? From CBS: The poll finds that 53 percent of Americans want the Bush-era tax cuts extended only for households earning less than $250,000 per year. That roughly matches the proposal put forth by the White [...]

Nate Silver reveals the ugly truth: The 105 polls released in Senate and gubernatorial races by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, missed the final margin between the candidates by 5.8 points, a considerably higher figure than that achieved by most other pollsters. Some 13 of its polls missed by 10 or more [...]

Well, of course the answer is no and Nate Silver offers five reasons why. I’ll summarize here, but you should really check out this blog post. It’s pretty long, but a great read. Of course it will all be null and void in about four hours. Reason #1 – The Cell Phone Effect: This one [...]

I’ve been following an interesting multi-blog discussion trying to sort out an apparent polling discrepancy between voter attitudes and voter intentions in the midterms. We do not need to invoke “unconscious bias” to understand a straightforward preference for divided government. If you prefer the spending restraint, greater oversight, and better legislation we get as a direct consequence of a divided government state, the most rational vote is the vote most likely to create that state.

Will last night’s debate swing the race? I didn’t see it, but I’m hearing that Angle looked sort of like a Senator and that may be all she needs to defeat the wildly unpopular Senate majority leader. Here’s the trending from Pollster… Will Reid squeak this one out? Will Angle be the Tea Party’s biggest [...]

What better day and time to update our “10 in 10? election prognostications? Last we checked in – Nate Silver (our polling analyst of choice) showed that 9 of the 10 seats most likely to change parties were all held by Democrats and he was forecasting a net 6-7 seat Republican gain in the Senate. One month later, with less than a month to go – 10 of the top 10 seats most likely to change parties are all held by Democrats and Nate is forecasting an 8-9 seat gain by the GOP. So – despite the nomination of a GOP clown candidate in Delaware (virtually guaranteeing a Democratic victory in that state) the odds of a GOP Senate takeover continue to improve.

It’s jumped considerably since the 2008 election. But do people really want the Tea Party to be the third way? Gallup with more… My gut tells me that most folks understand that the Tea Partiers are just really angry conservatives who are lashing out at their own for supporting fiscally irresponsible behavior. And yes, there [...]

What a difference a week makes, at least according to Gallup. The key graph… However, the enthusiasm gap remains the same. Repubs are excited and Dems not at all. You’d think that Independents would be less enthused, but Dems are downright depressed at this point and in midterms it’s all about GOTV. If the preference [...]

Yesterday, mw laid out a few compelling scenarios for this fall and they look plausible to me. After all, we’re talking about numbers from folks like Nate Silver. And today we see that the mood for GOPers is a lot more than the Dems. At least according to Gallup. Here’s the key graph… And, as [...]

Note the big drop in the past week. Obama had been bumping along at around pretty much even approval/disapproval, but then he made a principled, correct stand on what religious freedom means to us a nation…and his approval drops? And, by the way, this isn’t even a mosque. It’s a small prayer center inside of [...]

As this issue becomes less politicized, more folks seem to warm to the legislation. Wait…what??? To me this is encouraging. Of course, we all know there are problems with the legislation that passed, but I think we can also collectively agree that the current system is completely unsustainable. So some type of fix had to [...]

The bogeyman of “gridlock” will not dissuade voters. While often messy, political gridlock in Washington D.C. can yield very positive results. The poster child of dysfunctional gridlock is the Clinton/Gingrich budget impasse that shut down the government in 1995. Ugly – to be sure. Yet out of that same dynamic during the six years of divided and “gridlocked” government, we got a lot of good, smart governance.

With the discouraging employment numbers coming out earlier this week (even though the unemployment rate dropped) and the seeming unpopularity of many of the administration’s positions, this isn’t necessarily surprising news. Here’s the graph… 18 points in one year is a hell of a drop since it represents more than double the drop among Republicans. [...]

In early 2011, just half a year away, we’ll be seeing the GOP presidential hopefuls start to jockey for the top spot in earnest. And they’ll be bolstered by Republican gains in the midterms, as well as the perception that the Tea Party movement can turn out the vote come 2012. What else will bolster [...]

The gap has shrunk a bit, but the economy is turning around so in a year’s time it’s unlikely we’ll have the problems we’re having today. Basically, the question will then be… “Who is responsible for the economic growth in this country?” Gallup has more on that… Obama has stated that he “inherited the most [...]

If you dig into the demographics of approval/disapproval on the health care question, some interesting trends emerge… As expected, those who have health care don’t like reform. Because it won’t mean much for them and Dems haven’t made a compelling case that it will drive down their premiums. Well, not yet anyway. However, those who [...]

And by a very large margin. Hotline On Call breaks down the numbers… Mitt Romney: 81 points Tim Pawlenty: 46 John Thune: 38 Haley Barbour: 28 Mitch Daniels: 25 Sarah Palin: 25 Note how far down Palin is on that list. That’s because, as noted, this is a poll of party insiders and they really [...]