Republican 10 Point Lead Vanishes: Parties Tied at 46% in Generic Ballot

Republicans and Democrats are tied at 46% among registered voters in Gallup's weekly tracking of congressional voting preferences, marking a shift after five consecutive weeks in which the Republicans held the advantage.



These results are based on aggregated data from more than 1,650 registered voters surveyed Aug. 30-Sept. 5 as part of Gallup Daily tracking. The results reflect more competitive voting intentions than has been the case recently. Republicans' leads over Democrats among registered voters in three of the previous four weeks were the highest Gallup has measured for this midterm election campaign, and higher than any GOP advantage Gallup has measured in a midterm election year since 1942.


Last week marked the return of President Barack Obama from his 10-day vacation, and included his national address to announce the official end of combat operations in Iraq. The president's three-day job approval rating rose to 47% for Aug. 29-31 -- a level it had reached only once since mid-July. Last week also brought media commentary in the aftermath of conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck's massive rally in Washington, D.C. It is not clear if these or other factors affected Americans' voting preferences as measured by the generic ballot.


Whether the 2010 race has shifted more permanently to a more competitive positioning will be apparent in the coming weeks. Nevertheless, even the current tie in the generic ballot among registered voters points to a better year for Republicans than for Democrats, given the GOP's usual advantage in voter turnout in midterm elections.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/142892/Parties-Tied-Generic-Ballot.aspx

 

lol dream on.

Buh bye!

 

NBC’s Chuck Todd tweeted yesterday after this release about the lack of reliability in the Gallup figures:

 

Why is that you bring up Gallup unreliability only when it shows Repubs in a unfavorable position?

 

What is this, your morning propaganda dump? Sure smells like you need more fiber.

 

Yup, posting poll numbers is now propaganda.

Let these folks know while you are at it.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=205886

 

AN EPIC DEM DISASTER
By DICK MORRIS

"The magnitude of the catastrophe facing the Democratic Party in the fall elections is only gradually becoming clear to the leaders of both parties. The Democrats will lose both the Senate and the House. They will lose more House seats in 2010 than the 54 they lost in 1994 and they will lose the Senate, possibly with some seats to spare.

In state after state, the races that were once marginal are now solidly Republican, those that were possible takeaways are now likely GOP wins and the impossible seats are now fully in play.

Colorado offers a good example. Betsey Markey was supposed to be a marginal new Democratic member. But Cory Gardner, her Republican opponent, is now more than 20 points ahead. John Salazar, the brother of the Interior Secretary and a well-established Democratic incumbent in a largely Republican district, is now almost 10 points behind his GOP challenger Scott Tipton. And Ed Perlmutter, a solidly entrenched Democrat in a supposedly nearly-safe district, is running one point behind his GOP opponent, the unusually articulate Ryan Frazier (a black Republican with Obama-esque charisma). The Republicans will probably win all three seats.

Or take Arkansas. Blanche Lincoln is clinically dead, trailing John Boozman 65-27 in the latest Rasmussen poll. In the race that was supposed to be close for the open seat in AR-2, Republican Tim Griffin is massacring Democrat Joyce Elliott by 52-35. In the race that was thought to be a likely Democratic win -- AR-1, the East Arkansas district -- Republican Rick Crawford is running seven points ahead of Democrat Chad Causey. And, in the district that was considered a safe Democratic seat, the home of Blue Dog leader Mike Ross, Republican Beth Anne Rankin is showing surprising strength and may topple her opponent.

In the Senate, Republicans are solidly ahead in Delaware, North Dakota, Indiana and Arkansas. They have good leads in Colorado, Pennsylvania and Washington. The Democratic incumbents are perpetually below fifty and basically tied with their Republican challengers in Nevada, California and Wisconsin. Illinois is tied. Connecticut and New York (after the primary) are in play. That's a gain of up to 13 seats!

And, then consider West Virginia, where the hugely popular Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin -- who boasts of a 70 percent job approval rating -- looked like the certain successor to Robert Byrd. But, in the latest Rasmussen poll, he leads Republican challenger John Raese by only 48-41. When 22 percent of the state likes the job you are doing as governor but doesn't want to vote for you for senator, you are in deep, deep trouble. That's 14!

Why the disaster? Obama's poll numbers alone don't account for it. With a job approval in the low forties, he is not as radioactive as Bush was. He still has a ways to fall to reach those depths. So why the unbelievable wipeout in the congressional races?

Obama has a lot to do with it. But so does Congress itself. With congressional approval at 23 percent in the realclearpolitics.com average, the Democrats in the House and Senate have contributed mightily to their own demise. The Rangel and Waters investigations and the impending decision to let each keep his and her seat does a lot to undermine Congress' image. So did the deals surrounding health care reform as the public watched sausage being made in Washington. The spectacle of Congress voting on bills the members have not read adds to public discontent.

In most off-year cycles, it is the president's party that is judged in the voting. But, this year, Congress has been in the forefront of most of the legislation -- up to actually writing the stimulus and health care bills -- that the body itself is attracting its own negatives. Republican insurgents' success in derailing incumbent senators in Alaska and Utah attest to the bipartisan nature of the disaffection.

But, for whatever reason, the only mistake either party can make as 2010 approaches is to aim too low. It is not the marginal seats that are in play, it is the safe ones!"

 

Perhaps you should taste it, just to be sure.

 

I think we're all done here.

 

Here are Toe Sucking Dicks other Predictions


"Oct 28: Undecideds Should Break For McCain: "As Obama has oscillated, moving somewhat above or somewhat below 50 percent in all the October polls, his election likely hangs in the balance. If he falls short of 50 percent in these circumstances, a majority of the voters can be said to have rejected him. Likely a disproportionate number of the undecideds will vote for McCain."

Oct 21: The Populism Divide: "Then came Obama’s conversation with Joe the Plumber, possibly the decisive moment in the election."

Oct 14: The Nuts At ACORN Could Cause Obama’s Fall: "At the very least, the negative publicity ACORN will attract will paint Obama as a radical with questionable judgment. At the most, it might cause voters to wonder if he is not himself involved in electoral fraud."

Sep 16: Candidate and Party: The Obama Deficit: "How odd that Obama, with a world-class personality and an incredibly charismatic speaking style, should be losing the mano-a-mano contest to McCain, who is 25 years older and a foot shorter. But McCain has opened up a decisive lead over Obama, actually using the Democrat’s articulateness against him."

Sep 9: Obama vs. Obama: "Now that McCain has definitively, and I suspect irreversibly, separated himself from Bush, he has become an acceptable alternative to Obama for voters seeking change...Obama was wrong to invest so much in the Bush-McCain linkage...The Obama campaign doesn’t seem to get that it is running against McCain, not Sarah Palin. They spent the entire Republican convention and the week since attacking the vice presidential candidate. That’s like stabbing the capillaries instead of the arteries. Nobody is going to vote for or against McCain because they want Sarah Palin to be vice president of the United States, or don’t."

Sep 3: Dems Pounce Too Soon: "If Palin emerges from her [convention] speech in good shape, the Democrats will be falling all over themselves trying to explain to alienated women why they attacked her on such personal issues, blaming her for her sister’s messy divorce, her daughter’s pregnancy and her husband’s DWI of 20 years ago. Women — and men — will be impressed that Palin is the kind of anti-Washington establishment candidate for whom they are yearning. She’ll explain what she did in Alaska and what she’ll do to the power elite in Washington. Her integrity, courage and commitment are going to shine through."

Sep 2: Stick With Sarah, Who Engenders Empathy, Inspiration: "Sarah Palin’s selection will end up as a big win for John McCain. ...The attacks on Palin mirror the problems that tens of millions of American women find in their everyday lives. To attack them would be to condemn themselves and their own choices in their own lives. Watching Palin standing strong and McCain backing her up will be inspiring to many of them. And the identification of the Democrats with the attacks on her will turn them off...The Republicans, McCain and Palin, will come through this crisis in great shape."

Sep 1: Palin Pick Hurts Obama Bounce: "The young governor has yet to prove herself in the hurly-burly of a national campaign, but the early indications are that her story, as well as her beliefs, will have broad appeal in this unsettled year."

Aug 26: The Better Hillary Does, The Worse For Obama: "By not putting Hillary on his ticket and then giving her a primetime speech at the convention on Tuesday, Obama has the worst of both possible worlds. The better Hillary’s speech, the more people ask why she was passed over for vice president...He didn’t help himself with these women by not choosing Hillary. Now, when Hillary spends all of Tuesday night showing what a grievous omission leaving her off the ticket really was, the electoral consequences for Obama are likely to be horrific."

Aug 5: Bad Economy May Hurt Obama: "It almost doesn’t matter that McCain is not an economist and avows ignorance of what Thomas Carlyle called the “dismal science.” We know McCain. We know he will surround himself with some pretty capable people. And, above all, we know that he won’t raise taxes. Were these calmer times, with less of a threat from abroad and less economic danger, we might indulge our penchant for change and elect a neophyte in the hope that he will offer something different."

Jul 29: Obama’s Women Problem: "But a bigger problem may be a cultural alienation older white women feel toward Obama. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright may linger as a worry in their increasingly gray heads as they contemplate an Obama presidency. This fear of the unknown and the gap they seem to feel with Obama is so strong that it is overcoming their normal proclivity to back Democrats...Of course, McCain is a uniquely attractive candidate to the Democratic and independent base. Long regarded as a maverick Republican, he attracts these swing voters and is ideally positioned to exploit the estrangement between older women and Barack Obama."

Jul 8: Obama Would, In Fact, Govern From The Left: "Even if Obama means what he is saying as he moves to the center trying to win the general election, the fact is that he will be forced to move very far to the left should he become president, forced by the liberals in his own party...Obama will not be able to help himself. The Democratic majority in Congress won’t settle for triangulation. They will make the Obama of November into a liar and the Obama of the primaries into an honest man."

Apr 8: Obama’s Weakness Is Weakness: "McCain can use the predisposition of voters to see Obama as weak, coupled with the Iraq issue, to make the strength issue his key advantage."

Jan 23: How Clinton Will Win The Nomination By Losing S.C.: "Obama has done everything he possibly could to keep race out of this election. And the Clintons attracted national scorn when they tried to bring it back in by attempting to minimize the role Martin Luther King Jr. played in the civil rights movement. But here they have a way of appearing to seek the black vote, losing it, and getting their white backlash, all without any fingerprints showing. The more President Clinton begs black voters to back his wife, and the more they spurn her, the more the election becomes about race — and Obama ultimately loses."

Dec 5, 2007: Hillary, Rudy May Know Life After Death: "There is only one way for Hillary to shift the focus onto Obama or John Edwards: lose. By losing in Iowa and New Hampshire, she makes the key question not her veracity but Obama’s or Edwards’s ability to win. Democrats are going to be reluctant to nominate someone they know so little about as Obama and will wonder if the nation is ready for an African-American candidate (it is) or for a man who has been senator for 104 weeks before running for president (it’s not)...But recover they both [Clinton and Giuliani] likely will. Remember how Gary Hart beat Mondale in New Hampshire in 1984 and Mondale came back to win? And how Paul Tsongas beat Clinton there in 1992 and Clinton eventually won? And how McCain defeated Bush in New Hampshire in 2000 but how Bush came back to win? Different year. New candidates. Same deal.

Feb 7, 2007: Hillary and Rudy Could Wrap It Up This Year: "The nominees for the 2008 presidential race will be selected in 2007. The tempo of the new political process, driven by 24-hour cable news, Internet bloggers, conservative talk radio, and liberal NPR is so rapid that the nomination race cannot exist in stasis waiting for Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina to get around to holding their votes in early 2008. Well before they open their caucuses or polling places, this nomination, in each party, will have been decided by the national media coverage during 2007...Right now, neither Rudy nor Hillary has a front-runner’s lock, but they are clearly the man and woman to beat in their respective parties. If they hold their leads through Labor Day, my bet is that it will be all over.""