damned lies – Page 4

‘When Democrats Turn.’

Well, everybody’s turning – Congress is at 18/78 approval/disapproval, which makes you wonder about the four percent who can’t make up their minds – but the Democrats have gone from 45% to 30% in a month, which … well, is this not a pretty graph?

Particularly that 15 point drop among Democrats, which is not so much a drop as a ‘dive.’ Unfortunately, the nature of graphs such as these cannot convey a sense of a tumbling, end-over-end, unpowered fall; not that I’m suggesting that anything happened in the last month that might have caused a catastrophic engine failure for the Democratic party.

Moe Lane

PS: For those Democrats wondering why no-one in their party leadership doesn’t seem to want to embrace this as evidence that Congressional Democrats should embrace the President’s agenda… look at the graph of independent support. It’s been eroding over the last year… and started to steadily erode once the Democrats acquired their super-majority in July 2009. For many Congressional Democrats, this is the only job that they’ve ever known; they get twitchy when people suggest strategies that might end up forcing them to actually have to work for a living.

Crossposted to RedState.

The January Rasmussen Trust Numbers.

These I still see the point of putting up. It’s not like the USSC is about to rule to strike down restrictions… OK, that joke is simply not going to work this early in the (snowed-in) day. Short version: nine of ten, the Democrats managed to make up some of their deficit in the economy category (hey, that joke worked!), and I conclude that Government Ethics requires more in the way of prolonged scandals on the Democratic side in order to move public perceptions off of its current default.

	Jan-10			Dec-09
Issue	Dem	GOP	Diff	Dem	GOP	Diff	Shift
Health Care	37%	49%	(12)	42%	44%	(2)	(10)
Education	36%	40%	(4)	41%	39%	2	(6)
Social Security	35%	45%	(10)	41%	41%	–	(10)
Abortion	32%	46%	(14)	38%	43%	(5)	(9)
Economy	42%	46%	(4)	36%	48%	(12)	8
Taxes	34%	50%	(16)	36%	47%	(11)	(5)
Iraq	38%	46%	(8)	38%	45%	(7)	(1)
Nat’l Security	40%	49%	(9)	37%	50%	(13)	4
Gov’t Ethics	33%	30%	3	31%	34%	(3)	6
Immigration	36%	43%	(7)	33%	45%	(12)	5

More after the fold. Continue reading The January Rasmussen Trust Numbers.

Reviewing the December Fundraising Numbers.

It’s that time again. Short version: RNC above DNC, DNC took a big cash on hand hit, NRSC over DSCC in the biggest shocker, NRCC/DCCC more or less the same, DCCC has a big CoH advantage, and blessed if I know how much any of this means, post-Citizens’ United and post-Brown.

	Raised	CoH	Debts
RNC	6.84	8.42	0.00
DNC	4.54	8.67	4.69
NRSC	4.10	8.30	0.00
DSCC	3.40	12.50	1.20
NRCC	3.21	2.67	0.00
DCCC	3.81	16.69	2.00

GOP	14.15	19.39	0.00
Dem	11.75	37.86	7.89

Continue reading Reviewing the December Fundraising Numbers.

Fortunately, they will ignore Tom Jensen utterly.

He’s been making the tactical error of not telling Democrats what they want to hear lately*, so any excuse to discount this cold water on GOP party disunity is a good enough one, right?

In the wake of NY-23 last fall a lot of Democrats hoped that the ideological war within the Republican Party would impede GOP progress in 2010. I just don’t see it though.

Take a look at Florida- yesterday’s Quinnipiac poll showed Marco Rubio getting 82% of the GOP vote against Kendrick Meek and Charlie Crist getting 80%. The Rubio people might be disappointed if Crist still manages to win the primary, but they’d still vote for him to keep Democrats from increasing their margin in the Senate. And the Crist people might think Rubio is too far to the right, but that would probably be outweighed by a feeling that Meek is too far to the left.

Then again, they may not have much of a choice. If you look at the NJ and VA gubernatorial races, one glaring difference between the two is that in NJ hope didn’t actually die, choking, for Democrats until the actual day of the election; but in VA it was blatantly obvious that Deeds had achieved DOOM about a month previously. One major reason? In NJ, third-party candidate Daggett kept polling absurdly high – as in, double digits. That kept it from being immediately obvious that Corzine didn’t actually have a chance, which meant that by the time it was obvious the psychological impact had been lessened. Not relevant for Corzine, true… but NJ Democrats only lost one seat in their state legislature’s election, while VA ones lost a net six. Because VA Democrats despaired, and their visible despair was likely infectious.

In other words: clinging to the belief that the GOP is going to fragment any day now may not turn defeat into victory – but it could keep defeat from turning into rout, lower down on the ticket. So don’t expect this meme to go away; even if playing more or less to lose is not even remotely a viable route to victory…

Moe Lane

*Yes, I recognize that you could make the argument that he’s been telling Republicans what they want to hear.

Crossposted to RedState.

The December Rasmussen Public Trust Numbers.

The full report isn’t up yet, but these are the reported Rasmussen trust numbers for December. Short version: seven out of ten for the GOP, two ties, and the Democrats get to be more trusted on education.

Dec-09				Nov-09
Issue	Dem	GOP	Diff	Dem	GOP	Diff	Shift
Health Care	43%	46%	(3)	42%	44%	(2)	(1)
Education	45%	39%	6	41%	39%	2	4
Social Security	43%	43%	–	41%	41%	–	–
Abortion	39%	46%	(7)	38%	43%	(5)	(2)
Economy	37%	48%	(11)	36%	48%	(12)	1
Taxes	38%	47%	(9)	36%	47%	(11)	2
Iraq	34%	49%	(15)	38%	45%	(7)	(8)
Nat’l Security	35%	52%	(17)	37%	50%	(13)	(4)
Gov’t Ethics	29%	29%	–	31%	34%	(3)	3
Immigration	32%	47%	(15)	33%	45%	(12)	(3)

Continue reading The December Rasmussen Public Trust Numbers.

The November Rasmussen Public Trust Numbers.

I had actually put this together on Sunday, but: well, new baby. Rasmussen’s new trust numbers are out. The short version is: eight for ten for the GOP, and the Democrats’ free-fall from last month have been mostly reset back to September’s numbers…

Nov-09				Oct-09
Issue	Dem	GOP	Diff	Dem	GOP	Diff	Shift
Health Care	42%	44%	(2)	40%	46%	(6)	4
Education	41%	39%	2	38%	43%	(5)	7
Social Security	41%	41%	–	37%	45%	(8)	8
Abortion	38%	43%	(5)	35%	47%	(12)	7
Economy	36%	48%	(12)	35%	49%	(14)	2
Taxes	36%	47%	(11)	35%	50%	(15)	4
Iraq	38%	45%	(7)	31%	50%	(19)	12
Nat’l Security	37%	50%	(13)	31%	54%	(23)	10
Gov’t Ethics	31%	34%	(3)	29%	33%	(4)	1
Immigration	33%	45%	(12)	33%	40%	(7)	(5)

…except for health care, of course. The Democrats seem to have lost that particular automatic lead. And, on reflection: there’s not much to say about this, except that it’s amazing how quickly a new equilibrium can form in politics. Last year the GOP was trying to get itself more trusted on one out of ten, let alone eight…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Looking at the Cook Competitive Race Chart.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers. And AoSHQ readers, too.

Looking at the Cook Political Report’s latest competitive race chart is in itself informative – the short version is that of the top 108 competitive races, the following ratios apply:

	Dem	GOP
Likely D	45	0
Leans D	23	1
Toss-up D	12	0
Toss-up R	0	3
Leans R	1	8
Likely R	0	15
Total	81	27

…but there’s some interesting things that can be seen with a little sorting. Below is a chart of competitive seats, sorted by Cook Partisan Rating:

Continue reading Looking at the Cook Competitive Race Chart.

NJ-GOV: New PPP, Rasmussen polls out.

And if you thought that yesterday’s semi-cryptic blog post from the former was just some prepare-the-Democrats-for-some-bad-news, and not an attempt to raise Republican hopes… well, you were right.

Chris Christie now leads Jon Corzine 42-38 in the race to be New Jersey’s next Governor, a slight increase from our poll two weeks that showed his advantage at 40-39.

In other words, the partisan Democratic polling firm is reporting that the race has shifted in Christie’s direction by three points, and now has a lead barely out of the MoE. Rasmussen likewise reports that Christie has increased his lead to 46/43, with Daggett at 7%, which is down four from last week. But here’s what may be the important part of that report:

Christie leads by eight points among those who are certain they will show up and vote. A week ago, he was up by five among that group. Christie’s supporters are also less likely to say they might consider voting for someone else.

A week to go. Word is that Quinnipiac will have out something later this week; in the meantime, expect New Jersey to get inundated with even more campaign advertising and national scrutiny .

Moe Lane

PS: Christie for Governor.

Crossposted to RedState.

The October Rasmussen Trust numbers. (Ten for ten)

[UPDATE] Welcome, AoSHQ readers. And Instapundit readers. And Jules Crittenden readers, too. And Hot Air readers, of course. I cover this every month, you know.

Rasmussen hasn’t written the article yet – but they put the new numbers on their BY THE NUMBERS page. And it’s not pretty for Democrats:

October 2009				September 2009
Issue	Dem	GOP	Diff	Dem	GOP	Diff	Shift
Health Care	40%	46%	(6)	44%	44%	–	(6)
Education	38%	43%	(5)	45%	40%	5	(10)
Social Security	37%	45%	(8)	43%	41%	2	(10)
Abortion	35%	47%	(12)	37%	44%	(7)	(5)
Economy	35%	49%	(14)	39%	47%	(8)	(6)
Taxes	35%	50%	(15)	40%	48%	(8)	(7)
Iraq	31%	50%	(19)	37%	47%	(10)	(9)
Nat’l Security	31%	54%	(23)	39%	51%	(12)	(11)
Gov’t Ethics	29%	33%	(4)	34%	35%	(1)	(3)
Immigration	33%	40%	(7)	33%	45%	(12)	5

Note the dives on… everything, really, except immigration issues: the GOP increased its lead in 9 out of 10 categories since last month. But particularly note the Health Care, Social Security, Economy, and Taxes numbers. Does the Democratic Party feel like demonizing their opponents on health care rationing some more? – because I think that the GOP can somehow manage to find the strength to keep bearing up under the Democrats’ scorn.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Rasmussen: 54/42 against health care rationing.

It would seem that finally putting out all the various versions, alternates, and fevered mutterings of what the Democrats are trying to call ‘health care reform’ has helped to clarify matters for voters some more. It’s just not clarifying matters in a fashion that will make the current ruling party happy. Rasmussen’s latest snapshot:

Now that the Senate Finance Committee has passed its version of health care reform, 42% of voters nationwide favor the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s down two points from a week ago and down four from the week before.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 54% are opposed to the plan.

It is perhaps unkind to point out two details about the 42%:

The current state of affairs means that the number represents support for the hope that there will eventually be an acceptable health care bill.
Hope is not a plan.

…but it’s probably necessary. Watching the… seven*?… Democratic factions try to reconcile the mess that they’ve created for themselves should be remarkably engrossing.

Moe Lane

*Well, you’ve got House progressives & Senate liberals; like vulnerable House members and ‘moderate’ Democratic Senators, there’s the House/Senate split on outlook to consider. So that’s four. Then there’s the House’s and the Senate’s leadership, with the two groups being barely civil to each other these days. That’s two more. And then there’s the White House, who pretty much caused this mess by letting the other six factions have free rein over the process. So, seven.

Crossposted to RedState.