FR Exclusive: Political Junkie's Guide To The Elections - Week Ending August 4, 2012

Rasmussen Reports ^ | August 4, 2012 | Political Junkie Too

[Political Junkie Too]

Ping.

[beebuster2000]

after all that, how about just calling it? who wins?

[umgud]

Thank you. I will chew on this for a while, as I always do.

[EGPWS]

So does this mean that to date 0bama is the perceived tastier crap sandwich?

[1010RD]

It’s obvious that America is deeply divided. What happens after another generation is indoctrinated in government schools?

[lysie]

Thank you.

[Tennessee Nana]

Primary 2008 TN went for Huckabee Willard lost McCain won TN in Nov

Primary 2012 TN went for Sanctorum Willard lost ??? will TN win in Nov

[CPT Clay]

Wow!! Thanks for the Ping!!!!

[T. P. Pole]

Thanks for this. Regarding Wisconsin, the Walker results would indicate it might be leaning right. I would think that last poll is an outlier.

[randita]

Below is a list of competitive or potentially competitive Senate races. With input from several FR political experts, I have ranked the list from most to least likely GOP win. The rankings will change as the election season progresses.

Note the designations of seats that represent GOP Holds and those that represent opportunities for Gains. Democrats currently control 53 seats in the Senate (including two independents who caucus with the Democrats), Republicans 47. If Republicans hold all the seats they have currently, they will need to gain four more seats to have a majority.

We will likely lose ME, so we'll need five gains for a majority. As of 8/4/12, the best opportunities for those gains are in the states of NE, MO, WI, ND, and MT.

Where primaries have not been held, I have listed a few GOP frontrunners, but these are only hypothetical and there can be a surprise as there was in NE where Tea Party favorite Deb Fischer beat the frontrunner. If you have input on frontrunners for pre-primary states, chime in.

Links to GOP primary winners' websites are included so you can learn more about the candidates and donate, if you feel so inclined.

If you're interested in polling on Senate races, check out Real Clear Politics Senate Polls.

It's widely thought that the GOP will keep the House, so besides the battle for the White House, the next focus has to be the Senate.

 

8/1/12 - Race for the U.S. Senate Ranked Roughly From Most to Least Likely GOP Win
State	Republican Candidate	Democrat/IND Candidate	Hold/Gain
NE*	Debra Fischer	Bob Kerrey	GAIN
IN*	Richard Mourdock	Joe Donnelly	HOLD
AZ*	Primary 8/28/12 (Jeff Flake#)		HOLD
MO	Primary 8/7/12 (Sarah Steelman#)	Claire McCaskill+	GAIN
NV	Dean Heller+	Shelley Berkley	HOLD
WI*	Primary 8/14/12 (Tommy Thompson#)		GAIN
ND*	Rick Berg	Heidi Heitcamp	GAIN
MT	Denny Rehberg	Jon Tester*	GAIN
MA	Scott Brown+	Elizabeth Warren	HOLD
VA*	George Allen	Tim Kaine	GAIN
OH	Josh Mandel	Sherrod Brown+	GAIN
FL	Primary 8/14/12 (Connie Mack#)	Bill Nelson+	GAIN
MI	Primary 8/7/12	Debbie Stabenow+	GAIN
NM*	Heather Wilson	Martin Heinrich	GAIN
NJ	Joe Kyrillos	Bob Menendez+	GAIN
PA	Tom Smith	Bob Casey+	GAIN
WV	John Raese	Joe Manchin+	GAIN
HI*	Primary 8/11/12 (Linda Lingle#)		GAIN
CT*	Primary 8/14/12		GAIN
WA	Primary 8/7/12	Maria Cantwell+	GAIN
ME*	Charles Summers	Angus King (Ind.)	HOLD
*Open Seat      +Incumbent      #GOP Frontrunner

 

[Political Junkie Too]

I think it means that, at this point, Romney's passivity towards Obama is showing.

Romney is probably thinking that Obama will turn off voters by himself, and that Romney can ride it out until the convention, and then attack during the debates. I'm afraid that Romney might fall too far behind because he will underestimate the ruthlessness of Obama's team.

Romney needs to make Obama the story now, not let Obama make Romney the story with innuendos, lies, and mis-reporting the news.

-PJ

[Pollster1]

In summary, according to Rasmussen’s turnout model, Romney has no “leaning” states that he needs to defend. He has to take at least one of the Obama-leaning states plus all of the tossups.

Leaning Obama:
Ohio - 18
Wisconsin - 10

Toss ups:
Colorado - 9
Florida - 29
Iowa - 6
Virginia - 13

The campaign will change a few positions, but the big issue is turnout. Particularly since turnout will decide several competitive Senate races, we need to get every possible conservative voter to the polls. Freepers can make that happen, and we need to do it this year.

[Political Junkie Too]

Let's take a look at the sensitivity of this polling to bias. Note that these next numbers are the absolute win-lose. The main Electoral College breakdown treats the +/- 1% races as Toss-up.

If we take a look at the impact of bias in the polling, a -1% shift in Obama's poll results and a +1% shift in Romney's changes the race from Obama 288, Romney 241, and 9 Toss-up, to Romney 263, Obama 257, and 18 Toss-up. This makes the expected value 270.29 Electoral Votes, and the probability of Romney winning higher, at 50.62%.

If we make the bias an uncertainty with a minimum of no bias, a maximum of 2.5%, and a likely of 1%, then the expected Electoral vote becomes 273.77, and probability of Romney winning becomes 56.36%.

We've seen some outrageous polling in the past week, but Rasmussen has been generally regarded as the most accurate. Still, it's good to see the spread in results based on potential over-estimation of the Democrat vote.

-PJ

[Qbert]

"Romney needs to make Obama the story now, not let Obama make Romney the story with innuendos, lies, and mis-reporting the news."

Agree.

And he hasn't done very much to distinguish himself from Obama- it should be easy, really: Obama is the most leftwing president our country has seen in modern times. The whole argument behind Romney being the nominee- to the Establishment at least- was that he would appeal to moderate voters (and that was what Axelrude & Co. feared in him the most).

But if Romney wants to be the guy in the "middle", simple being passive and neutral is not the way to convince most people (if it was, he would be way ahead by now). Instead, he needs to point out how far Obama is trying to push this country to the left with his policies- against its will. If Obama is viewed as the candidate who is way too far to the left (which of course he is), there's only one place for voters to go...

[Political Junkie Too]

See the post after yours for the impacts of shifting the results by 0% to 2.5% towards Romney.

To be precise, Romney has two +1% leaners in Florida and Iowa, which equate to roughly a 60%-40% probability of the leader winning. Obama has Virginia at +1%, too. I'm putting these states into the Toss-up category, although their actual probabilities are used for the expected value calculations.

For comparison, a +2% lead equates to roughly a 70%-30% probability of the leader winning, which is a more likely lean. These also depend on the poll's margin of error for each state.

For my Electoral College Balance chart, if the probability of the leader winning is between 50%-60%, I'm calling it a Toss-up. If it is roughly between 60% and 80%, it's Lean. If it's between 80% and 99%, it's Strong. If it's 100%, it's Safe.

Colorado is the only true Toss-up at a 45% tie.

-PJ

[P.O.E.]

Thought you might be interested in this map too.

at the bottom of the post is a link to a zoomable map of the 2010 house election results.

[Political Junkie Too]

Thanks.

Randita and Interceptpoint did a similar analysis in 2010. I produced charts from their data for them. We didn't have the prestige of Nate Silver at the New York Times, but we tracked pretty closesly with him.

Their website was called Key House Races 2010. Sadly, the hosting site for my maps is no longer available.

-PJ

[Political Junkie Too]

I might as well repost here my prediction of what Obama will do to control the momentum against Romney.

The MSM tried to sucker Romney into announcing his VP choice early in order to give Obama new talking points. So far, it didn't work. The sooner that Romney announces, the sooner he will lose control of the news.

Romney will wait until after the Olympics to announce. If he's smart, he'll wait until the convention to announce in order to keep the Democrats from trying to control the messaging from Romney.

Since Democrats have their convention after Republicans, Obama will steal the momentum from Romney by announcing at the convention that he is replacing Biden with someone else.

The MSM will do their part from this point.

One tantalizing tidbit is that Obama has given the Wednesday night VP speech slot to Bill Clinton, not Joe Biden. Reportedly, Clinton will be the one to formally place Obama's name into nomination. Could it also be the plan for Bill to announce that his wife will take Biden's place on the ticket?

-PJ

[Political Junkie Too]

What happens after another generation is indoctrinated in government schools?

I'm starting to become less concerned about the indoctrination aspect of public schools, and am becoming more concerned about the lack of basic skills being taught in the schools today. It's as if the "3 R's" have been pushed to homework to make room for the alternate lifestyle, anti-religious (except Islam), tree-hugging, no borders, class-envy, self-esteeming indoctrination going on today.

Yes, the schools will produce drones who will pull the lever for Democrats, but what happens when those drones can't make change for a dollar, or can't graduate from college, or can't compete for jobs in the global marketplace?

That's what I fear.

-PJ