lies – Page 4 – Moe Lane

Rasmussen succumbs to snark.

Rasmussen usually makes a good-faith effort to avoid being sardonic, but sometimes they just can’t help themselves (bolding mine):

…voters are closely divided over Congress’ most important role: 49% say it’s passing good legislation, while 43% see it as preventing bad legislation from becoming law. That’s why 39% of voters say it’s a good thing in today’s political climate to be the Party of No. But 34% disagree and say it’s not a good thing.

Seventy-four percent (74%) of voters correctly identify Republicans as the political party some have labeled the Party of No. Despite, or perhaps because of, this high level of awareness, Republicans have built a solid lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot.

The title of this Rasmussen Report, by the way: “57% Have More Trust In Those In Congress Who Voted Against Bailouts.” And that’s not even the worst news for Democrats in there. The worst news for Democrats in there is that they’ve spent the last year viciously attacking a movement that 52% of the population thinks has a better grasp of current affairs than the average Member of Congress. Because that isn’t going to translate as ‘throw all of them out;’ it’s going to translate to ‘throw all of them who are standing in the way out”…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

The March Rasmussen Trust Numbers.

Short version: nine out of ten, and the word ‘Pyrrhic’ seems ever-more appropriate when discussing the Democrats’ health care monstrosity.

	Mar-10			Feb-10
Issue	Dem	GOP	Diff	Dem	GOP	Diff	Shift
Health Care	37%	53%	(16)	42%	45%	(3)	(13)
Education	40%	43%	(3)	41%	38%	3	(6)
Social Security	36%	48%	(12)	39%	42%	(3)	(9)
Abortion	32%	47%	(15)	38%	42%	(4)	(11)
Economy	37%	49%	(12)	41%	46%	(5)	(7)
Taxes	34%	52%	(18)	37%	48%	(11)	(7)
Iraq	39%	47%	(8)	38%	42%	(4)	(4)
Nat’l Security	36%	51%	(15)	37%	47%	(10)	(5)
Gov’t Ethics	35%	33%	2	35%	28%	7	(5)
Immigration	34%	47%	(13)	34%	39%	(5)	(8)

Continue reading The March Rasmussen Trust Numbers.

Unpacking the Rasmussen partisan numbers.

I had read the latest Rasmussen examination on the topic (short version: health care debate increased both the GOP and Democrats’ partisan identification) when I noticed that they had provided a handy table of their polling results over time. I personally feel that this material is more accessible in graph form; so I pulled the results, averaged them by quarter, and graphed the whole thing out. So:

The vertical bars represent the last three federal elections. Using somewhat primitive analysis methods (‘squinting and looking’) 2005-2006 seems to show that Independent voters increased at the cost of Republican ones; and 2007-2008 seems to show Democratic voters increased at the cost of Independent ones. And since then… Republican voters are more or less holding steady, while Democratic voters are dropping at about the same rate that Independent ones are growing. Continue reading Unpacking the Rasmussen partisan numbers.

Brent Budowsky and the poll-watcher’s delusion.

I don’t normally fisk, but let’s unpack this passage, shall we? This article – called, amusingly enough, “Matt Drudge and the Republican delusion” – was dated March 25th, 2010 (today is March 30th, 2010):

Recently a Gallup poll, of course highlighted on Drudge, found that Obama’s numbers had (then) turned more unfavorable than favorable.

Presumably this one: 46/48 favorable/unfavorable.

This has (now) dramatically changed, unreported by Drudge, with Obama’s favorables now well above his unfavorables.

Presumably this one: 51% favorable. March 25th, 2010.
But not this one: 47/50 favorable/unfavorable March 29th, 2010. That’s USA/Gallup: the current regular Gallup three-day has him at 48/46 favorable/unfavorable; check back again at 1 PM EST, but I don’t expect a massive jump.

The generic Democratic vote is leading the generic Republican vote in the last Gallup congressional election survey.

He means this survey: 47/44 Dem/Rep. March 16th, 2010.
Not the latest one: 44/47 Dem/Rep. March 30, 2010 (no story yet).

The healthcare bill has passed and the president’s polls have moved up. Democratic numbers have crept up.

And, as you can see, they have crept right back down again. Let’s add two more from Gallup, since we’re here: when they polled on reactions to the bill on the 23rd, the poll numbers were 49/40 in favor… and when they polled it again on the 29th, the numbers were 47/50. Continue reading Brent Budowsky and the poll-watcher’s delusion.

#rsrh Yeah, tomorrow’s the earliest that a #hcr bump…

…will show up. The stuff that comes out today is going to be polling before the Democrats finally passed the health care debacle; and the signing of said debacle won’t be until tomorrow. Working on the assumption that this will translate into at least a temporary boost in popularity (safe guess), we should see a bump tomorrow, probably a bigger one on Wednesday, and… well. Guessing how long the White House can milk a party-line vote on health care rationing is going to be a popular sport for Beltway types over the next few days.

As you might have guessed, I’m not expecting the bump to last for very long.

The February Rasmussen Trust Numbers.

I missed this when it came out last week, not that anybody was waiting for this with bated breath. Short version: eight for ten, and the Democrats made up a good bit of lost ground more or less across the board.

	Feb-10			Jan-10
Issue	Dem	GOP	Diff	Dem	GOP	Diff	Shift
Health Care	42%	45%	(3)	37%	49%	(12)	9
Education	41%	38%	3	36%	40%	(4)	7
Social Security	39%	42%	(3)	35%	45%	(10)	7
Abortion	38%	42%	(4)	32%	46%	(14)	10
Economy	41%	46%	(5)	42%	46%	(4)	(1)
Taxes	37%	48%	(11)	34%	50%	(16)	5
Iraq	38%	42%	(4)	38%	46%	(8)	4
Nat’l Security	37%	47%	(10)	40%	49%	(9)	(1)
Gov’t Ethics	35%	28%	7	33%	30%	3	4
Immigration	34%	39%	(5)	36%	43%	(7)	2

Continue reading The February Rasmussen Trust Numbers.

‘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.