Free Republic

7-Eleven typically offers two different coffee cup options for its 7-Election promotional campaign, each named for one of the presidential candidates from the two major political parties. This year, however, there are three options: Republican, Democrat, and “Speak Up.” No candidate names. The nondenominational “Speak Up” cup is currently winning the poll by a pretty fair margin. It offers coffee drinkers the opportunity to pencil in their own political stance, or abstain from pouring their brew into a partisan container to maintain their political purity. With the exception of Idaho and Iowa, which are both leaning Republican in 7-Eleven’s poll...

The assumption is that someone whose label is “Libertarian” has libertarian values and would promote them in office. In the case of Johnson, that notion is absurd. When Johnson took the tiller in New Mexico in 1995, the budget stood at $4.397 billion. When he left in 2003, it had grown to $7.721, an increase of 7.29 percent a year. Of the eleven governors who filed to run for president this year (two Democrats, Johnson, and eight Republicans), only one had a worse record on spending growth.... On civil liberties as with fiscal issues, Johnson’s record is less libertarian than...

Recent polls show President Obama enjoying a bounce in the polls following last week's Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C., but buried in those data is good news for Mitt Romney about voter enthusiasm and the preferences of independents, who could decide the election. The CNN/ORC International poll of registered and likely voters released Tuesday shows likely voters favoring Obama by 52 percent to 46 percent over Romney -- evidence, pundits said, of a post-convention bump for the president. But a figure buried in the report shows Romney leading Obama among likely independent voters, 54 percent to 40 percent. Both Democrats...

With a little help from his friends, former congressman Virgil Goode has taken a key step toward getting his name on November’s presidential ballot in Virginia, submitting more than 14,000 signatures to the State Board of Elections.... ..Goode was a Democrat for much of his career, then became an Independent and finally a Republican for his last six years on Capitol Hill. Now Goode is getting assistance from yet another party, the Independent Greens, whose members have collected thousands of signatures for him.... ...“Virgil supports rail, and that’s our big issue and he’s with us on that,” said Carey Campbell,...

TalkingPointsMemo today is trumpeting a new McClatchy/Marist poll showing Obama edging Romney on both the economy and foreign policy. The nationwide poll of registered voters shows Obama ahead 2-points, 46-44, on being better able to handle the economy and 6-points, 47-41, on being better able to handle foreign policy. Overall, the poll shows Obama ahead of Romney 48-46. Of course, the poll's sample undercounts GOP voters. Republicans make up 29% of the poll universe, a number far below their share of the electorate in recent elections. The overall sample is D +7, which would mirror the 2008 electorate. There is...

Former Maine Gov. Angus King — an independent — will announce a run for retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-Maine) seat in the Senate. Two sources close to King told the Kennebec Journal he would announce his campaign Monday night. King did not respond to messages seeking confirmation. A popular two-term governor and professor at Bowdoin College, King has a history of working with both parties and a demonstrated appeal to the state's large swath of independent voters. About 390,000 registered voters in Maine belong to neither major party — more than are registered as either Democrats or Republicans.

President Barack Obama is in big trouble, with both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich leading him in a dozen key swing states, according to a new USA Today/Gallup poll. Former Massachusetts Gov. Romney leads Obama among registered voters 48 percent to 43 percent in the 12 states the survey covers. And former House Speaker Gingrich leads the president 48 percent to 45 percent. Nationwide, Obama leads Gingrich 50 percent to 44 percent and Romney 47 percent to 46 percent, according to the poll. The 12 states include Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania,...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa- The KCRG-Gazette-Iowa State University poll of more than 1200 registered Iowa voters came out Thursday. Three candidates took nearly two-thirds of the overall vote. Herman Cain was at the top, with 24.5 percent. Not far behind, Texas Representative Ron Paul. Mitt Romney took about 16 percent. All other candidates polled in the single digits. When asked for a second choice, voters picked “can’t decide” more than 20 percent of the time, leaving a large gap of uncertainty in the race. In a somewhat surprising twist, Herman Cain polled better among women than other candidates in the poll....

President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats learned at least one big lesson in the November elections: What the independent voter gives, the independent voter can also take away. But now, the same temperamental bloc that threw House Democrats out of power appear to be in a giving mood again - at least as far as Obama is concerned. That unpredictable, cranky group of voters who helped carry the president into office two years ago before turning against him in dramatic fashion, may be turning back in Obama’s direction even more quickly. A series of national polls released over the last...

Thanks Karl Rove. Thanks Mike Castle. Thanks GOP elites. Conservative Christine O’Donnell carried the tea party voters. She bested the bearded Marxist with independents. But, she did not carry enough REPUBLICANS to win in Delaware tonight. What an absolute shame.

DFL congressman Jim Oberstar, accustomed to winning with 65% or more of the vote in Minnesota's 8th Congressional District, finds himself running even with Republican challenger Chip Cravaack, heading into the final weekend of the campaign, a new SurveyUSA poll conducted for KSTP-TV in Minneapolis shows. Today, it's 47% Oberstar, 46% Cravaack, a result within the survey's theoretical margin of sampling error.

WASHINGTON – Independents who embraced President Barack Obama's call for change in 2008 are ready for a shift again, and that's worrisome news for Democrats. Only 32 percent of those citing no allegiance to either major party say they want Democrats to keep control of Congress in this November's elections, according to combined results of recent Associated Press-GfK polls. That's way down from the 52 percent of independents who backed Obama over Republican Sen. John McCain two years ago, and the 49 percent to 41 percent edge by which they preferred Democratic candidates for the House in that election, according...

It’s more than two years ahead of the 2012 presidential vote, but a new Zogby International survey conducted for The O’Leary Report has found a clear majority of independents think it’s time for somebody new in the Oval office. The Zogby survey was conducted June 25-28 with interviews of 2,061 registered voters. The survey has a 2.2 percent margin of error. When asked if they think President Obama should be re-elected or is it time for somebody new in the White House, 50 percent of the respondents overall said they want somebody else as chief executive. Obama should get a...

There are a number of interesting things about Resurgent Republic’s one-year anniversary poll, conducted at the end of April among 1,000 registered voters nationwide, but none more so than the clear evidence it provides that independent voters are deserting the Democrats in droves. By a margin of better than 2 to 1, self-identified independents agreed that an increase in the number of Republicans in Congress is necessary in order to bring about “a check and balance on runaway Washington government.” Independents also agreed that the country is on “the wrong track” by a 65 to 25 percent margin. Most surveys,...

The national breakdown of the Tea Party composition is 57 percent Republican, 28 percent Independent and 13 percent Democratic, according to three national polls by the Winston Group, a Republican-leaning firm that conducted the surveys on behalf of an education advocacy group. Two-thirds of the group call themselves conservative, 26 are moderate and 8 percent say they are liberal.

As reported by The Hill, a Winston Group survey did three phone surveys of registered voters from December to February. Of the 3,000 interviewed, 17% identified themselves as members of the Tea Party movement. Of that 17%, less than six out of ten were Republicans. Nearly 30% said they were independents, and 13% identified themselves as Democrats, exploding the myth that Tea Party activists are a homogeneous group of angry conservatives. Read the full report here: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/polls/90541-survey-four-in-10-tea-party-members-dem-or-indie

President Obama and congressional Democrats face an uphill climb to reclaim the support of independent voters who vaulted them to the White House and huge majorities in Congress in 2008. At the end of the bitter, intensely partisan battle to pass Mr. Obama's health care overhaul plan, independent voters, once captivated by hopeful campaign promises, are feeling burned and appear eager to oust Democrats in November's midterm elections. "There is an overall sense of frustration that no one is listening," pollster Scott Rasmussen said about a problem that has plagued the political party in power for decades. Mr. Rasmussen said...

Supporters like to portray President Obama and his agenda as centrist. But those actually in the political center beg to differ. In fact, 66% of independents say their ideology is to the right of Obama, according to the latest IBD/TIPP poll. Just 14% say they’re more liberal. Independents: • Oppose Obama's handling of the economy by 2-to-1. Among those with strong opinions, disapproval soars to 6-to-1 — 30% vs. 5%. • On health care, 53% disapprove

WASHINGTON -- President Obama's overall approval rating has sunk to a new low -- and independent voters who propelled him to the White House have gotten downright sick of the job he's doing, according to a devastating poll released yesterday. Obama's job-approval rating has tanked to a dismal 29 percent among independents, the Marist College survey found. His disapproval rating is nearly twice as high -- 57 percent. Obama's overall approval among all registered voters hit a new low of 44 percent, the lowest of any poll that uses people to survey voters. The near-total loss of independents could prove...

So much for a post-SOTU bounce. A new Marist poll of registered voters nationwide puts Barack Obama’s approval at just 44%, the same as the Rasmussen tracking poll this weekend. The numbers among independents will really rattle the White House. Fewer registered voters nationwide — 44% — currently approve of President Barack Obama’s job performance than disapprove — 47%. When Marist last asked about the president’s approval rating in December, 46% thought well of Obama’s job performance while 44% gave him low marks. Perhaps, particularly concerning for Mr. Obama is the drop in support among Independents. For the first time...