Jan 05 2010
First Indication Of 2010 Political Climate For Dems
Everyone mark your calenders for January 19, when Massachusetts will be holding a special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s senate seat. According to a Rasmussen poll released today there is a very good chance MA will follow on the governor elections in VA and NJ in 2009:
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state finds Coakley ahead of Brown 50% to 41%.
…
Both candidates get better than 70% of the vote from members of their respective parties, but Brown leads 65% to 21% among voters not affiliated with either of the major parties.
This compares well with another private poll that hit the news yesterday. The key here is the independents. Just like in NJ and VA they are swinging madly away from the Democrat candidate (65-21). If the GOP and independents come out in large numbers (bolstered by the senior vote) MA could be a harbinger of a 2010 election season that will surpass the damage the Democrats did to themselves in 1994.
I was wondering, the election is the 19th and if Brown wins, then doesn’t that give the Senate only 59 votes? Thus our chances of stopping Obamacare goes way up with votes in the Senate after the 19th. So why isn’t the National Rep Committee giving him more support and money for ads, etc? Just a thought.
Bobsunshine,
Perhaps the Republican leadership has made a decision that they would rather have HealthScare as a campaign issue to run against rather than saving the citizens from a socialist takeover of 1/6 of the economy and giving us Crappycare in the process!
I don’t trust any party except the TEA PARTY! Throw em all out (except my House member Steve King) and make the new ones undo the damage the carreerists have done!
Too much fraud engineered into Massachusetts by now. Brown could win 60% of the votes actually cast and it still would come out as a 48 – 52 loss.
Massachusetts is no longer a democracy – it is a liberal oligarchy which finds it useful to pay lip service to the pretense of democracy for public relations purposes.
Bob and hunter,
The real reason I was seeing is to not spook the Democrats into turning out. If the Dems stay complacent and the GOP and Indies surge it will happen
A few things to note:
1. Unaffiliated voters are the least likely to vote. While they are the fastest growing demographic in the electorate, their voting numbers are “dismal” and being disenchanted with the political system, they often “sit out” elections. Take the military as an example. Less than 5% of service members cast ballots in off year elections.
2. If the unaffiliated voters become energized and show up at the polls, then “everything you think you know is wrong”. Independents are unpredictable, fickle, and can change their mind while standing in line to vote. This means that polling data from Independent voters is often unreliable and volatile.
There is an Independent running in this race by the name of Joseph L. Kennedy. No relation to Ted but most voters are so poorly informed that some will vote because it’s a Kennedy not knowing it’s a Libertarian. This should strip some votes from Coakley and maybe enough to upset the polls….
Nice little piece of Karmic Backlash since this is the way JFK won is first seat… Dad paid someone with the same name as his opposition to run as an independent and split the votes..
Brown is swimming upstream and it would take a perfect storm for him to squeak through a victory. However, there was a very interesting nugget in that Rasmussen poll:
“Special elections are typically decided by who shows up to vote and it is clear from the data that Brown’s supporters are more enthusiastic. In fact, among those who are absolutely certain they will vote, Brown pulls to within two points of Coakley.”
Do I dare hope?
Rasmuussen’s poll is interesting to say the least. Brown is shown only winning 70% of the Republicans but his supporters are more enthusiastic? He is shown way ahead with independents but independents only make up 27% of the turnout.
The turnout model is really interesting. In 2008 the MA turnout was 17R-43I-40D. Rasmussen has the special election as 21R-27I-52D. The theory is that in special elections the hyper-partisans show up and the independent middle stays home.
Now, Scott Rasmussen is a highly trained professional and one doubts his models at ones own peril. He over polls both Dems/Reps, liberals/conservatives and under polls independents and moderates.
I wonder if he does another poll next week and adjusts his turnout model. The two point difference his publishes as an after thought may contain some clues. To pick up 7 points one could decrease the number of Reps who support Coakley that vote or decrease the democratic turnout or increase the independent turnout or any combination of the three above factors.
This race seems to be fluid and Brown would seem to have a chance.
dhunter:
There is no Tea Party party. That is just a fact. The Tea Party is a movement, not a party and the people in that movement are all over the place on just about every issue but fiscal spending. I doubt very much if they could unify to make a party, I think they would probably turn on each other if they tried to. They will accomplish more by putting pressure on the existing parties.
I heard that Brown said he had gotten everything he needed and asked for from the national GOP. The idea that he did not came from some article in the Boston press…who just happen to be very pro Democrat. It might well be that the stories about a lack of support are intended to undermine the Republicans.
WWS:
I am not so sure about that. I think MA is just a traditional Democratic stronghold and people vote out of partisan loyalty. I don’t think they have to cheat in that state, people actually vote to elect these people. Now, if people really do want a change, they can still make that happen…if they bother to turn up and vote for that change. If you say it does not matter if or how these people vote, then that in and of itself can become a self fulfilling prophecy.
Terrye … there is an old joke about an election in MA where the results were the Democrat had a million votes and the Republican had two. When asked what he thought of the results, the Democrat said “The bahstahd voted twice!”.
Dorgan just announced his retirement from the Senate.
crosspatch:
That is pretty funny. and sadly apt.
Mark:
I heard that. I was shocked.
You’re right, I shouldn’t be so pessimistic, although it’s hard to believe in a state that turned the Kennedy’s into defacto royalty. Still, even Michigan may elect a Rep Governor next year, so wonders may indeed happen.
WWS:
Well you know, sometimes you do have to wonder. Look at Detroit and Chicago and even the city of DC and try to understand how it is that the people keep electing these idiots. It makes a person cynical. It really does.