Swing Voters in Key States are Angry and Tilting Our Way

It's true this survey was taken a month ago, when Bush was maybe 3-4 points lower in the polls. The partisan breakdown is balanced; 36% strong, weak or leaning Democrat and 35% toward Republicans so the numbers should be reliable.
http://www.gqrr.com/index.php?ID=1706

* It is almost impossible to overestimate the anger of swing voters. 73 percent say the country is on the wrong track, 66 percent disapprove of the performance of George Bush and nearly half (49 percent) strongly disapprove. By nearly a 2:1 margin, voters describe the economy in negative terms; nearly one third struggle to make ends meet.

* Politically, the swing vote swings against the Republicans. In named trial heats, these swing voters prefer Democratic candidates for Congress 45 - 28 percent over the Republicans; the Senate race, influenced disproportionately by Republican travails in Ohio and Pennsylvania, looks even worse for the incumbent party (53 - 31 percent)."

Between May 20 and May 25, 2006, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner interviewed 613 swing likely voters. For the purposes of this survey, swing voters are defined as voters who are self-ascribed Independent or lean-Independent or Democrats and Republicans who do not support the Democratic or Republican candidate (respectively) in a named trial heat. The survey geography was limited to swing congressional districts and swing Senate states. The survey carries a margin of error of +/- 4.0 percent.

This survey limits research to swing voters of a geography including eight states with highly competitive Senate elections this fall as well as 66 congressional districts. The states, defined as Lean Takeover, Toss-up, or Narrow Advantage Incumbent Party by The Rothenberg Political Report as of early April, 2006, include Pennsylvania, Montana, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Ohio, Missouri, and Minnesota, as well as Tennessee. Congressional districts must have been considered at least “in play” by either Stuart Rothenberg, Larry Sabato, or Charlie Cook.

If we become complacent like that we will get the opposite result.

As much as I'd like to believe it.

The election dynamics are in our favor. Second term midterm for a Republican president has been devastating for Ike, Nixon and Reagan. In 2002 and 2004 you had 9/11 and national security fear, plus presidential incumbency quietly working in favor of the GOP. Not this time.

Electronic machines instead of punch cards should help us, especially in urban precincts.

I'll stick to that known variable and let the defeatists fret every ballot that isn't hand counted.

In fact, I'm really looking forward to our wins this November since the Diebold crew will be scrambling for explanation. But I'm sure the narrow ones we don't win will be pure theft.

The only practical limit is the media's ability to explain away
increasingly surprising election results.

And then you get into the unreliability of their proprietary vote counting software.

And with the fancy stuff like paper trails, audit capability and verified code.

But I'm not ignoring the reason these machines were put in play in the first place; less spoilage of ballots and therefore benefitting our side. I've voted on punch cards in South Florida and Diebold in Nevada. There is no comparison in ease of use and avoiding mistakes.

A little thing happened after these machines were put into use: 9/11 and its impact on party ID particularly among white women and Hispanics. IMO many of the so-called strange results, especially 2002, were voting preference toward the GOP due to national security fear.

There was undeniably a late wave toward Republicans over the final weekend in 2002. Newspaper headlines blared that on Monday, the day before the election. Just check out the banner headline on that day's USA Today. In 2004 the result matched the pre-election polls just not the exit polls, which were so ridiculous in many states I can't take the block of them seriously. Come on, Kerry with 57% in New Hampshire, 60% in Pennsylvania, only a few points behind in North Carolina. Up 31 points in New York. I've posted the statewide presidential partisanship charts often enough since 2003, and those exit poll numbers are garbage in relation to the logical voting percentages in those states.

It's like someone quoting you the exchange rate of one foreign currency after another and inflating every one of them to absurd extreme. You might gasp at the first one or two, but these are long term known quantities that don't alter dramatically without reason or warning. After a handful you realize something is screwed up with the new quotes, and disregard them.

This year is our advantage. If the climate holds and you still get bizarre unexplainable results, I'll change my opinion.

to recognize what you speak towards here as the reality is the only thing that can cost the Dems big mid term gains.

It's taking people a long time to vote on those machinez.

With ballots, however they are counted, several people can be filling them out at once.
All you need is a bunch of cardboard desks. They're cheap and they don't break down.
If the ballots are optically scanned, a voter only "occupies" the scanner for the time
it takes for the scanner to read the ballot -- a second or two. A failure in the
scanner does not prevent people from voting -- the ballots can be scanned later.

With DREs (Diebold Republican Electing Machinez - AKA Direct-Recording Electronic)
each voter occupies the machine for the whole time they are doing their ballot.
The number of people who can vote at one time is limited to the number of machines.
If the machines break down, the lines get longer. If there is only one machine and
it breaks down, the people cannot vote.

Times sure have changed. We should take nothing for granted. If we have learned nothing else, it should be that.

Here in Ohio they're still nibbling at the edges, talking about lowering health care costs for small business :spank:

According to nearly every measure, including this one, Dems need to be talking about a plan to provide guaranteed access to quality, affordable health care for everyone.

Msongs

listen to our song demos!
www.msongs.com/msongsdemos.htm

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/opinion/14895625.htm
Posted on Sun, Jun. 25, 2006

snip-->
A recent Cook Political Report/RT Strategies poll gave Democrats an 11-point generic ballot
advantage on the question, “Which party would you like to see in control of Congress?”
Not surprisingly, by a margin of 87 percent to 8 percent, self-identified Republicans say
they prefer Republican control.
By similar margins, self-identified Democrats prefer Democratic control.

The 11-point advantage for Democrats is due not to an unmotivated base
but to a dramatic shift among independents against Republican control of Congress.
By a greater than 2-to-1 ratio (46 percent to 21 percent),
independents say they prefer Democratic control of the House. <--snip

:) K & R'd!

Speaker Hastert caught in land deals and taken trip paid for by lobbyist .IN Buyer running from Sanders two races the DCCC did not expect to win.And still are not given money mmmmm DCCC IS NUTS !

www.john06.com

~~~ ~~~

As far as the U.S. Senate goes- I think that in the end we'll wind up with 5, possibly 6 wins.

...Some things we won't hear wingnut pollster Scott Rasmussen say:

New Jersey~
Republicans "could" have done well in this one, but their nominee is PATHETIC!! A 3rd grader could debate better than Tom Kean! He probably lost 3/4 of whatever supporters he had after his dismal attempt at debating Menendez (who was smooth, clear, confident, and beat the crap out of Kean) this past weekend.

Rhode Island~
Poor "Wittle Wincoln" .. small gains in the D column- but hey, we'll take 'em!! (If Chafee doesn't wind up following his heart and switching parties, he may very well lose his seat to a Democrat in November)

Missouri~
If you just watched Hardball, you can see why they love Missouri State Auditor Claire McCaskill so much!!! And while Bush is hosting a fundraiser to try and bring in a million bucks for Jim Talent tonight, even Tweety on Hardball had to wonder what the hell they were thinking bringing Bush into Missouri right now.. He thinks Talent is unpopular enough on his own.. bring in Bush, and.. well..

Tennessee~
A statistical dead heat right now. Watch for the Big Dawg to really ramp it up for Harold Ford, Jr. right at the end. I predict Ford eeks out a win. Close, but still a win. The R-Thug in the lead, Corker is a Dorker.. This race will be CLOSE .. but I think Harold Ford, Jr. will take this one.

Montana~
Conrad Burns is toast. TOAST! Montanans love Montana-born, 3rd generation grain farmer, Jon Tester. He's President of the Montana State Senate and will soon be the Big Sky state's next U.S. Senator.

Pennsylvania~
Santorum is doing about as well as the Pittsburgh Penguins did this season.

(no offense to Penguins fans.. you're going to rock next season! )

This race is a no-brainer though! The doofus is out, Casey is in. http://homepage.mac.com/jholbo/nutwork/images/Santorum,%20Rick.jpg

Ohio~
It would be nuts if DeWine honestly pulled out a win over Brown. I think if we weren't talking about the state who is still daring enough to manipulate elections, that Sherrod Brown would win hands down.

There's proof that Diebold is becoming more and more paranoid about the hole they're digging themselves into (they are buried in lawsuits and investigations).. And they've even gone so far as to side with the Democrats in Alaska with the upcoming lawsuit on the stolen U.S. Senate Election.

But we're talking about Ohio and that means Kenneth "We'll win anyway it takes" Blackwell has a hand in it.

I think Sherrod Brown will legally and morally win, but that DeWine will be handed a good old fashioned fraudulent win.

Aside from the states where we're not doing too shabby in, I predict we wind up with at least one major upset victory in a yet to be determined state.

I know what some DU'ers are thinking ---> "yeah, sure...

Still.. I think we're going to be as rockin' and rollin' on election night 11/06 as we were the night we won the Governorship in Virginia.



You'll see.