So many Ras Roundups!

I don't know about everyone else, but it's gotten to the point where my eyes just glaze over with these, and I kind of have to force myself to look.

All opinions expressed are my own, or stolen from someone else, or really sometimes nobody's at all.

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by: gabjoh @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:03:13 PM CST

They're just as hard to "write".

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by: James L. @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:05:15 PM CST

[ Parent ]

You are definitely doing

The right thing by bunching them together like this. For obvious reasons...

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by: conspiracy @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:27:01 PM CST

[ Parent ]

You

always do a great job at making funny opening sentences, but the rest always sucks. Although that's not your fault though.  

36, Dem, IN-09

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by: hoosierdem @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:59:44 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Run, Dino, run!

I'm almost to the point at which I'd just like Dino Rossi to run and lose for one last time.  

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by: Populista @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:04:57 PM CST

NH

There hasn't been a single poll out of NH in which I've seen good news for Paul Hodes. Is his campaign even doing anything to get his name and positions out there? And honestly I'm kind of baffled as to why an appointed Attorney General, whose never been elected is leading a congressman who represented half the state for the past 3 years. Unless AYotte is running ads every other day and getting her name id up and Hodes is giving Coakley a run for her money I can only come to think that both candidates are just running on generic party ids so far. Any thoughts?    

17, Male, Democrat, NJ-8  

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by: GayTeen4Obama @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:05:45 PM CST

I wouldn't worry about NH too much yet, all that's happening is...

...the anti-Democratic environment driving voter sentiment.

It's going to be a close race, decided by single digits.

And yeah, it's very plausible Ayotte could lead the whole way and win by 9.

But it's at least as likely that the race tightens and both sides sweat it going into election day.

And less likely but still plausible is that Ayotte ends up running a horrible campaign and crashes and burns.  She's green, she's never run for anything in her life, and you just don't know who among lifelong non-candidates are up to the challenge of a major federal race, and who is in over their heads.  Hodes on paper should be fine because he's run 3 elections and won the last 2 in a federal seat covering one-half of the state, but even then it's no guarantee he'll run a competent Senate campaign.

Right now it's all about fundraising and trying to get oxygen in local, not national, news.  Hodes' fundraising has been mediocre so that's a real concern, and I don't know either way about his statewide favorability.

Finally, Ayotte at least will have to burn through cash to win a pretty late primary, and that will cut into any financial advantage she has or perhaps even put her at a disadvantage.

42, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

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by: DCCyclone @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:21:47 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Er, should have proofread. In my 2nd-to-last paragraph...

...I meant to say I don't know about Hodes' statewide visibility, not his "favorability."

42, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

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by: DCCyclone @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:23:27 PM CST

[ Parent ]

National environment

It makes a huge difference up there because of the indies. They are by far the largest share of the electorate. Since we know the GOP have been winning these voters 2-1 in statewide elections so far this cycle it is easy to see why she has a lead.

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by: conspiracy @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:25:22 PM CST

[ Parent ]

the large number of indies

was the precise reason why I have Hodes losing here and also Carol Shea-Porter not surviving her race in NH-1.  New Hampshire, because of the high number of independents, is very susceptible to political waves and tides, or so it would seem.  The blue wave hit really hard here in 2006/2008, and it wouldn't be all that surprising that the expected red wave of 2010 hits hard as well.  

Of course, I'm not from the area, so our newenglanders might be able to expand on this.  

23, Male, Democrat, OH-13

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by: StephenCLE @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 21:52:21 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I dunno,

I look at the Dkos tracking polls and the NE as a whole is radically shifted more favorably to Democrats than the rest of the country, and Shea-Porter is a good campaigner going up, probably, against a loudmouth whack job Frank Guinta who is already got some Republicans considering the other guy in the primary.  

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by: jwaalk @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 22:03:20 PM CST

[ Parent ]

AG is a PR Machine

The AG's are often as well known as senators who've served equally long.  They get to issue press releases literally almost every day taking credit for beating the crap out of some scumbags who took advantage of consumers, old people, fouled the environment, etc.  

As for doing things to get his name out there, the goal is to win in November. I managed Hodes' campaign in 2006, the cycle after he had lost by 20 points to Charlie Bass. At his point in the campaign in 2006, few people had heard of Paul, and Bass had huge name ID. We didn't start running mail or go up on TV until around Labor Day, and there were public polls that showed Paul down twenty even in late September (which we knew from our internal polling were shit polls, but it's what we had to deal with), but we won by 8. Considering that there's only one TV station that covers NH exclusively, that most of the state is in the Boston media market, and that Hodes isn't yet well-known in the other CD, I'm not too worried at this point that Rasumussen has him down by 10, because if that's what Rasmussen has him at, he's probably within 3 points, which is a great place to be this far out from the election.  

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by: Dana Houle @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:32:33 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Thanks

for the explanation. I guess I assumed that NH's Attorney General was similar to Jersey's was virtually no one knows who he or she is and what that person does. Hopefully Hodes will pull out a victory come Nov.  

17, Male, Democrat, NJ-8  

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by: GayTeen4Obama @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:48:56 PM CST

[ Parent ]

We

don't know for sure that Ayotte will be the nominee. Hopefully she gets teabagged to death.  

36, Dem, IN-09

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by: hoosierdem @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:51:59 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I don't think she will

get past former Gov Ovide in the primary. While he's too-conservative in a Bob Smith sort of way, s=he remains very popular with the state's conservative base. At the very least he should minalamize her CoH advantage heading into the general election.

When is the NH primary? I'm eager to watch it. If it's him we can add a seat to the automatic Democratic pick up column, it'll help cancel out the certain loss of North Dakota.

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by: jwaalk @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 22:05:07 PM CST

[ Parent ]

September

Will that have to change over military ballots?

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by: conspiracy @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 22:07:35 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Huh?

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by: jwaalk @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 22:18:24 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Minnesota has already changed

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08...

Not sure if New Hampshire has to.

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by: conspiracy @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 22:23:37 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Ovide Lamontagne is NOT a former governor

I don't even think he's a former elected official in any capacity.

Male, 22, DC-At Large

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by: JFM110 @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 23:59:31 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I'm sorry, my mistake

He was the 1996 Republican nominee for governor of New Hampshire, losing to Jeanne Shaheen.

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by: jwaalk @ Thu Mar 11, 2010 at 02:12:01 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Isn't Lynch running at the top of the Ticket?

If he is, I am not too worried.

19, Male, Democrat, CA-44 (home) CA-12 (college)

Bill Hedrick(D) for CA-44

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by: daman09 @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 23:45:38 PM CST

[ Parent ]

These still tell us something

Just allow about five points in a Dem direction with regard to the margin.

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by: conspiracy @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:18:30 PM CST

just

wait Im sure Tek will find some reason out of these polls to prove that the world is going to end come 2012 and that the Dems will take such a beating at the polls that we'll lose seats that aren't even up for election in 2010.  

17, Male, Democrat, NJ-8  

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by: GayTeen4Obama @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:21:41 PM CST

[ Parent ]

RA

Stop putting words in my mouth, you have no idea what I am about to post.

As far as these polls, as I have said previously, Rasmussen has an extreme house effect, basically their model only makes sense if you believe turnout in November will be best case for Republicans and worst case for us.  While that is possible I think we may be starting to roll back that trend.  

I can't see any way that Murray is actually trailing Rossi, It makes ZERO sense for that to be true.

29/D/Male/NY-01

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by: Tekzilla @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:53:06 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Well it's good to know

that Gialianoulis is probably leading Kirk by about 10 points, if they have this teabagging nobody Bill Bradly leading Pat Quinn.

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by: jwaalk @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 22:07:40 PM CST

[ Parent ]

How

is some unkown like Bill Binnie leading Paul Hodes? It makes no sense at all. Now I'll admitt it is fully plausible for Ayotte to lead by 9, but Binnie not so much.  

36, Dem, IN-09

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by: hoosierdem @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:36:51 PM CST

Well

Unlike Hodes, Binnie, I believe, has spent quite a bit of money on TV already.

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by: James L. @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:52:17 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Well

that makes more sense. I suppose he's taking a page out of the Whitman playbook.

36, Dem, IN-09

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by: hoosierdem @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:56:23 PM CST

[ Parent ]

RA

This is Rasmussen where nearly everyone has 100% Name recognition and nearly everyone has an opinion and there are no undecideds.

29/D/Male/NY-01

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by: Tekzilla @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:54:00 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Thing about Binnie

Despite his union-busting and offshoring history, Binnie's got a moderate profile and he's rich and has been flooding the state with ads:

http://www.concordmonitor.com/...

Plus, he's not seen as a threat yet so no one really attacks him. I would love to see a non-biased poll of the Republican primary...I think Ayotte might start to get squeezed from both left and right.

29, D, CA-27, 2nd class citizen

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by: arealmlc @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 21:02:36 PM CST

[ Parent ]

SPAAAAAAM

party: Democratic, ideology: moderate, district: CT-01

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by: Glenn Magus Harvey @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 20:48:22 PM CST

WA

Why is he not testing the potential front-runner here? If Don Benton can't raise money, then Paul Akers will be the strongest candidate. He has spent money on TV ads and radio ads. Why is Rasmussen polling races with no chance of becoming competitive, but not testing the strongest candidates in potentially competitive races?  

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by: GOPVOTER @ Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 21:23:34 PM CST

Anyone

see the new AP HCR poll? It only people opposing HCR by 2 points. I have a strong feeling that within a week or two we will finally see a poll showing people approving of HCR. Also Gallup had approval at negative 3. Now guess what Scotty boy had it at. Negative 11!
http://surveys.ap.org/data/GfK...

36, Dem, IN-09

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by: hoosierdem @ Thu Mar 11, 2010 at 05:56:13 AM CST

Yup

http://www.pollster.com/polls/...

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by: conspiracy @ Thu Mar 11, 2010 at 06:01:17 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Giannoulias looking really good

If Kirk can't lead in a Rasmussen poll, he really doesn't have much of a shot now does he?  

Still, I remain fairly ambivalent on this race.  Of the "toss-up races" that Dems are currently holding, I think it's the 2nd mostly likely win behind Pennsylvania.  I don't have any doubt that Specter is going to cream Toomey.  This race though, I don't have the same confidence that Giannoulias is going to roll over Kirk, Kirk's really shown toughness in democratic territory before.  

Illinois and Pennsylvania are two races that Team Blue has to win in order to keep a solid majority in the Senate.  North Dakota and Arkansas are gone for sure.  Delaware (thanks a lot Beau!) and Nevada are probably gone, so that makes 4 seats.  Colorado is a seat I have as leaning Republican at the moment, so that would be five. Indiana looks like a pure tossup, that would be six.  So I've got Illinois and Pennsylvania as 7th and 8th in the pecking order, which by this point you're getting dangerously close to giving up the majority.  The Republicans though, have tough retentions in New Hampshire, Ohio, and Missouri, and I think at least one of those will turn Dem, with Missouri being the most likely of the three.

23, Male, Democrat, OH-13

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by: StephenCLE @ Thu Mar 11, 2010 at 10:24:22 AM CST

"Like a surly prison cafeteria worker serving up a pot of gruel"

That, my friend, is poetry.

I'll be interested in the polls after they pass HCR.

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by: st paul sage @ Thu Mar 11, 2010 at 10:41:33 AM CST