As a political prognosticator, I am at somewhat of a disadvantage this year because I live in Pennsylvania where sanity prevails. According to a recent Franklin & Marshall University poll, the incumbent Republican Governor Tom Corbett is losing to Democrat Tom Wolf by a whopping 25 points.
The poll found the incumbent trailing his Democratic challenger by 49 percent to 24 percent, with one in four registered voters still undecided.
Pennsylvania has never voted out an incumbent governor, so these poll results should be stunning. Something less decisive but related is happening in Michigan, where Governor Rick Snyder has fallen behind in the polls to a relatively unknown former congressman. Indeed, if you don’t add special sauce, the polls are very positive for the Democratic Party. What’s bringing down their prospects in prognostications are things like fundamentals and historical markers. But when you ask people how they intend to vote, things look fairly positive. The generic Congressional vote is still positive for the Democrats, with the most recent poll giving them a five point advantage. The most recent poll out of Wisconsin has Governor Scott Walker losing and even Rasmussen has Sen. Mark Pryor narrowly ahead in Arkansas.
Where I live, the Republicans have never been more unpopular, and I’m trying not to let that distort my analysis. It is not a normal thing for an incumbent governor here to lose, let alone by more than twenty points. Things are not as dire for the GOP in other states, and I recognize that. But the wave I am seeing is not one that pushes against the Democrats. At all.
One can on;y hope that this is a positive sign that shows the ousting of TPGOPers all over the country. As a Veteran I found this Veterans post very interesting.
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/08/angry-vet-slams-gop-plan-2016-plan-gop
My concern is that the Democrats lack the boldness to catch the general wave when it comes.
As every day passes, those people who did sign up for Obamacare know what’s in it and know that the Republicans have lied to them for six solid years. To the extent that the GOP scared away their base from even signing up, that is less of a problem for the GOP.
But that is the sort of reality check that does not track with polls and might only show up on election day.
Very few dems are bold
hope springs eternal, but my fear is both the Dems inability to get out the vote, and the Republican success at gerrymandering, both for Federal and State and local elections virtually insures that they will be able to continue to muck up the process well into the future. I hope I am wrong.
I’m not so sure you’ve got the right of it, rpar.
Gerrymandering works if you are on a relatively closely divided populace. You get a few districts with gigantic (relatively) representation for the majority/close minority and the rest are comfortably, tho not absolutely for the other party. Case in point is PA. There are districts that have ZERO Republican votes. There are no republican districts with zero democratic votes.
However, when your party and the leading light (governor) are stinky hated, the non-base faithful fall away and all those districts that were “safe” become competitive.
At least, hopefully. I’ve seen it happen in the south and Missouri.
Gerrymandering has been compared to a highly leveraged investment. It works great unless the “market” goes down; then you can get wiped out.
8/25/2014 Gallup – Disapproval of Congress Linked to Higher Voter Turnout
And then there’s Ohio…
Sounds like Corbett is getting the same treatment as Santorum: PA voters tending Dem, but insufficiently wary of wingnut GOPers
What about these rumors that Scott Brown is riding a wave of Koch money and pulling even in NH? RCP’s polling data is all almost 2 weeks old and I’m only seeing reports from right-wing outlets.
Brown is toast.
You heard it here first.