Whether or not a hurricane disrupts the Republican National Convention, we should expect Romney to get a bump out of it in the polls. He has enjoyed some narrow improvement in his standing since he announced Paul Ryan as his running mate, despite an almost uninterrupted amount of bad news on the campaign trail. I expect us all to grow quite nervous as we see the post-convention poll numbers. But try not to freak out. The Democratic convention will follow immediately after the Republican one, and we will have a star-studded list of speakers who will vastly outshine the grifters and lunatics that will be on display in Tampa. The polls should return to the status quo ante.
Meanwhile, the real erosion we’re seeing is in the congressional numbers. Here’s a summary of the latest results from the Carville-Greenberg survey:
Even before Mitt Romney named Paul Ryan to the ticket, our Battleground polling results indicated an erosion of support for Republicans, largely based on Paul Ryan’s plans for Medicare and entitlements. The advantage Republicans held among seniors in 2010 has been completely decimated. Across these Republican districts, incumbents now hold just a two-point lead with voters over age 64—a group Republicans won by 18 points in 2010.
Not surprisingly, the leading factor in this shift away from the GOP is Paul Ryan’s war on Medicare. By a decisive six-point margin, voters in these districts now say they trust Democrats more than Republicans when it comes to Medicare. Among voters in the 27 most competitive Republican battleground seats, Democrats now hold an 11-point advantage on Medicare.
This only underscores the recklessness of choosing Paul Ryan for a running mate. In the country’s most competitive districts, which overlap with the presidential battleground quite substantially, the Republican advantage with seniors has been almost entirely erased. If that result trickles up to the campaign between Obama and Romney, it will result in a blowout election.
I expect the polls to get worse before they get better, but I also am confident that we are in a strong position, poised to win the presidency, hold the Senate, and win back the House. I also believe that both the Republican and the Democratic conventions will do more to excite the Democratic base than the Republican base. And the polls will pick that up in their likely voter models.
It’s the down ticket I’m watching. It is vital that the Repubs don’t get the Senate or the House.
I hope that Akin gets clobbered if he’s still in the race on election day. He seems to relish giving the part the finger and may well stay in. He is the perfect nightmare for the party.
Ryan is not going to do well in the debate with Biden. It doesn’t matter if you like Biden or not, but he knows his stuff. Ryan doesn’t.
Some days, when I read what the Republicans say, I want to run down the street shouting, They’re going to kill us all.
If Biden does no better in his debate this year than he did in 2008, Ryan will do well.
Biden went through that debate with one hand tied behind his back, in order to avoid the impression that he was beating up on someone so far below his weight.
Not this time. We’re going to see the full Biden.
There are actually some pretty good polls out today, even if you discount the Rasmussen MO showing Claire M ahead of Akin by 10!!! Quinnipiac, considered by Nate Silver to be 1.7 points favorable to GOP just came out with some pretty strong battle ground numbers:
FLORIDA: Obama 49 – Romney 46, compared to Obama 51 – 45 percent August 1
OHIO: Obama 50 – Romney 44, unchanged from August 1
WISCONSIN: Obama 49 – Romney 47, compared to Obama 51 – 45 August 8
Both the Rasmussen and Gallup tracking polls are tied for the first time in a while (they’ve been showing mostly 1 or 2 point leads for Romney lately).
I have a feeling they’re not going to get that much out of the convention because they’ve sort of sucked the oxygen out of things with their zany Paul Ryan pick, and Romney is so well known thanks to his own gaffe’s and the Obama hammer. But, I will relax if, as you say, they get a big convention bump that contradicts my prediction.
So I’ve been reading some TPM links to some of the dead-tree media and the picture they paint is of people who are willing to vote for Romney if he were willing to break from Republican economic idiocy of tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for the poor.
He won’t of course, but I do wonder if he’ll just decide to lie wholesale about what he’ll do like he lied about everything else.
GOFFSTOWN (NH) – Sheriff Candidate Frank Szabo OK With Deadly Force To Stop Abortions. In an interview on local television station WMUR, Szabo said he believed sheriffs were granted special powers under the Constitution. Frank Szabo is a Goffstown Tea Party Republican.
Can’t even Google “GOP dropout” anymore, too many candidates have applied for this title.
Cross-posted from my diary – Lubbock County Judge Tom Head and UN Contingency Plans <VIDEO>.
Though of course even if this happens which I still don’t buy, nothing will be done because we won’t have super majorities.
Even if there aren’t any more bit ticket items like the PPACA or DADT repeal, having a solid Democratic stamp on all of the ordinary business – the appropriations bills, the new tax bill that’s coming done the pike, etc. – is very important.
Hmm, they still can’t fillibuster appropriations bills?
Ultimately, annual appropriations bills have to pass.
They can delay, but they can’t block them the way they can with new initiatives.
Forget the horse race polls for now. The campaign has barely begun. Here’s the one thatreally matters at this point.
If Dems get a solid, truthful message across, they win. Some excerpts from the poll, selected and rearranged to make a point:
IOW, the Dems have a great shot at finally breaking through to that 65+ voting block.
Other interesting findings: –By 51 to 33, Americans think it’s more important to keep Medicare and Social Security as it is than to reduce the deficit. Down from 61% who thought the deficit was the top priority in January.
–“46% say Ryan is an only fair (23%) or poor (22%) choice, while just 28% call him an excellent (14%) or good (14%) choice”.
There’s lots more grist for the campaign mill at the website, but the bottom line is, if the Dems keep tying RyanRomney/GOP to the attack on SS/Medicare, plus their escalating war on women — in other words telling the truth — they could even win a blowout election. And the best news is that so far, they’re right on target, as are the progressive orgs doing independent media. I don’t even think the Reps are going to get a significant convention bounce — all scrutiny is a negative, not a positive, for them.
Pretty pathetic that so many would believe this of a Democratic President. Shows how low the party has sunk with Ben Nelson’s Kent Conrad’s et cetera.
This bunch probably doesn’t know he’s a Democratic president.
Wake up! Medicare in it’s current form is not sustainable! Ryan’s plan saves Medicare. We will win this debate!
It can’t save it… it can only take the name and apply it to the new one, after scrapping the old one.
Sort of like what Cunard did with the Queen Mary 2.
No, Medicare for All saves Medicare. Maybe even Obamacare saves it. Ryan destroys it. You have a long way to go to win this debate unless the RyanRomney Big Lies prevail. Nobody likes the Ryan “plan” once they know what it does. And they’re finally learning.
Bring.
It.
On.
You thought you were going to win the Social Security privatization debate, too, didn’t you?
Joe…
We’re brining’ it!
That’s why the selection of Ryan excites radical right-wingers like me…Ryan is an articulate spokesman for our message, which is based on an adult understanding of economic reality, as opposed to childish, emotional, Progressive arguments based on simplistic platitudes…
This debate will be great for the country!
At some point I’d just appreciate it if your lot would ever, you know, stop and look in the mirror. Just for a second? The conservative view that everything is black and white, tax cuts and deregulation solve everything, on and on…and you wrangle up the nerve to utter shit like this. I’m almost tempted to call Poe’s Law.
We’re black and white? Really?
There extreme black and whitists on both side of the aisle…look at asshole Todd Akin…
But please examine the language used by mainstream spokespeople on each side…show me the right-wing equivalent of “Romney’s either a liar or a felon”…even considering the insane “birther” argument that Obama was born in Kenya…show me the right-wing equivalent of Romney killing Joe Soptic’s wife…
Your side is more prone to these typs of attacks because your philosophy relies on emotion more than reason…
Don’t get me wrong…emotion and reason are both legitimate bases on which to make decisions…we don’t strictly want a cold, unemotional society that makes strictly rational decisions…
But it’s a matter of balance…this country spends forty cents of every dollar taken in to Service The Fucking Debt!!!
The house is burning down!!!
We cannot afforded liberal/progressive emotionalism right now
OK, let’s play: Vince Foster
Your Turn…
show me the right-wing equivalent of “Romney’s either a liar or a felon”
I am just so afraid that Barack Obama is someone who sees our country as so flawed that he pals around with a domestic terrorist. – your last Vice-Presidential nominee.
Over and over studies have shown that the Bush tax policies are the largest contributors to our current fiscal crisis. When Clinton raised taxes we were on the road to paying down the debt.
And you want balance? The President has talked over and over about a balanced approach while the Republicans are a one trick pony with cut taxes.
our message, which is based on an adult understanding of economic reality, as opposed to childish, emotional, Progressive arguments based on simplistic platitudes…
Oh, please, don’t be such a fanboi.
The Republicans’ Medicare message is based around the misleading $716 billion number and the notion that the money is being taken from “people like you” and given to “the welfare class.”
It’s a bog-standard Mediscare attack, flavored with dogwhistle racial resentment.
“The advantage Republicans held among seniors in 2010 has been completely decimated. Across these Republican districts, incumbents now hold just a two-point lead with voters over age 64–a group Republicans won by 18 points in 2010.”
If this is reflective of seniors souring on the GOP’s medicare plans, why isn’t Obama further ahead? It seems to me we have a LOT of educating to do.
If I had to guess, I’d say that Obama’s support has dropped significantly from 2008 among financial industry workers and blue collar white males.
Boo… love your optimism!
Did you see the prediction from the University of Colorado? Using a formula that has successfully predicted every single Presidential election since 1980 (that’s an 8-0 record!), Romney win comfortably, 53 to 47, with 320 electoral votes. Mark my words…Obama will not win a percentage of the vote more than one point (at best!) above his approval rating.
We must take our country back to save it from Statist Doom!
You know there’s this thing called the “internet” we have these days. With it, you can provide what’s called a “link” to cite the things you’re talking about. You might try and use one of these “links” sometime, because otherwise, it can seem like you’re just randomly making stuff up to prove your point.
Sorry…Im a technology idiot…
Google “University of Colorado presidential election prediction”
I’ll work on my computer literacy…
See my comment below with link. Bush don’t do math as Quayle doesn’t do spelling. Our patriot GW1776 is quoting from Republican science, in this case two professors of the Univ. of Colorado. [The same UoC that monitors troubling students]
Then why does Gallup find greater enthusiasm among Republican voters? Why does Fox come out with it’s first “Likely Voter”, as opposed to Registered Voter” poll show a huge Increase in Romney support?
Looking backward I can find a model to “predict” past elections. This study is flawed because it is biased in looking forward and pick the winner. See also great dissimilarities in the polls. The factors used are absolute, not recognizing the fact the US is in a prolonged and unusual deep recession, like the 1930s. The economic factor of unemployment should be relative. Take away the unemployment and use the Republican factor “per capita income” since 1980 and Reagonomics. The two professors will find the result that the voters would be farther removed from the GOP and the election result would have given the Democrats more victories. Congress doesn’t work, doesn’t do its job. Republicans will be punished, this election cycle won’t be a Tea Party. Nor will the abortion issue or equal marital rights be in favor of the right-wing evangelical party of the late Jerry Falwell. The pendulum is returning where people realize the American Dream can only be based on EQUALITY, not just about the privileged few. Dream on living the 1776 Patriots and gun-toting militia turning supremacists across this divided nation. Here is a link and explains where we are … back in 1939.
Letterman weighs in to announce all is well with a faux quote from Akin, “Florida seldom suffers damage from a legitimate hurricane”.
McCain was leading nationally in September. Polls had Pennsylvania as a virtual tie in September; McCain was winning Indiana until late October; McCain was winning Virginia until late September; McCain was winning Colorado until right about this time of year; McCain led in Nevada until October.
And yet, at that time, anyone who seriously thought Get Off My Lawn had a chance in hell at winning was cuckoo for cocoa puffs. Romney doesn’t stand a chance, and if the generic really is that good, maybe I’ll be wrong about my initial thoughts that we wouldn’t take the House. I didn’t run any math and it was just face-value, but still…
And I note that today Nate Silver has Obama back up to a 68.6 chance of victory, after slipping to 66.7 yesterday (this happened over the course of a few days).
Yes…and McCain would have won if not for the collapse of Lehman brothers…his post-convention “bounce” held steady for 10 days after the convention, then evaporated quickly after September 13th (Lehman Brothers’ collapse)…
Go back and look at the numbers, Progs…no Lehman Brothers’ collapse, no Obama Presidency…
In reality, though, we needed Obama, just like we needed Jimmy Carter…to display the utter ineptitude of leftist policies to ensure the ascendancy of conservative ideals for a generation!!!
Oh christ I’m feeling sleepy…That comment was so, so….zzzzzzzzz
Well…I’m feeling sleepy too…wake up early, work all day, have one too many cocktails…sleepy…
I must be nuts…other than working, and my horses, reading this blog is my favorite form of entertainment!!!
What the hell is wrong with me? I get my entertainment from reading vitriolic posts from Progs who seem to hate people like me.
It’s ok, GW, I don’t hate you. In order to hate you have to have some kind of regard for the person.
You? Not so much. From your words (assuming you aren’t a devils advocate progressive having fun) you are to be pitied.
You don’t hate what you pity. You just don’t want to touch it.
So your theory is that John McCain’s convention bounce – a term developed to conjure the image of something that goes up and then down – would have lasted forever except for Lehman.
Uniquely, in the history of American politics, John McCain’s convention bounce wouldn’t have come down.
Seems like wishful thinking to me.