trends – Moe Lane

Gallup: Erm, that early voting advantage for Obama? Well… it’s sort of, um, yeah, NOT THERE.

Romney currently leads Obama 52% to 45% among voters who say they have already cast their ballots. However, that is comparable to Romney’s 51% to 46% lead among all likely voters in Gallup’s Oct. 22-28 tracking polling. At the same time, the race is tied at 49% among those who have not yet voted but still intend to vote early, suggesting these voters could cause the race to tighten. However, Romney leads 51% to 45% among the much larger group of voters who plan to vote on Election Day, Nov. 6.

Gallup’s showing that 15% of the electorate has already voted; 33% currently say that they have already voted or plan to; and estimate that 36% of the electorate will be early voting this year. In case you were wondering, at this point in 2008 Barack Obama was winning all three categories in the previous paragraph by comfortable margins: 53/43 among already-voted, 54/40 among plan-to-vote-early, 50/44 among vote-on-Election-Day. That link’s via Dave Weigel (who also helpfully offers up the Obama campaign’s rebuttal of state polls without noting that we are constantly seeing inflated reports of early voting on the state level*); the whole thing’s via Jim Geraghty’s Daily Jolt (alas, NRO is down right now, so no direct link). Continue reading Gallup: Erm, that early voting advantage for Obama? Well… it’s sort of, um, yeah, NOT THERE.

The August Rasmussen Public Trust Numbers.

Democrats slip to -3 on health care.

I think that this is going to sting the Democrats a little.

August 2009				July 2009
Issue	Dem	GOP	Diff	Dem	GOP	Diff	Shift
Health Care	41%	44%	(3)	46%	42%	4	(7)
Education	38%	41%	(3)	41%	38%	3	(6)
Social Security	39%	43%	(4)	37%	42%	(5)	1
Abortion	36%	46%	(10)	39%	46%	(7)	(3)
Economy	40%	46%	(6)	41%	46%	(5)	(1)
Taxes	35%	51%	(16)	36%	52%	(16)	–
Iraq	42%	42%	–	41%	45%	(4)	4
Nat’l Security	43%	47%	(4)	40%	49%	(9)	5
Gov’t Ethics	34%	31%	3	33%	34%	(1)	4
Immigration	35%	43%	(8)	34%	40%	(6)	(2)

Eight out of ten again, and the only sour note is that last month’s Democratic-flavored scandals were not sufficiently public enough to overcome what appears to be the built-in public bias on Government Ethics. On the other hand, we just took first place in health care for the first time in two years, and it’s still fifteen months to November 2010. So, room for development, there. As for the Iraq question… well, for both countries’ sake I’m just as pleased to see that it’s reflecting a relatively quiet situation. The way that our domestic numbers are racking up I’m just as happy to concentrate on those right now anyway.

So, you have to wonder: at what point will the White House decide that it’s time to fold and start a new hand?

Moe Lane

(H/T: @JamesRichardson)

Crossposted to RedState.

The July Rasmussen Public Trust numbers.

Short version: the public trusts the GOP over the Democrats 8-for-10 at this point, and we flipped the Abortion and Social Security categories. That being said, the numbers readjusted themselves in the Democrats’ favor 5-for-10 as compared to last month‘s.

July 2009				June 2009
Issue	Dem	GOP	Diff	Issue	Democrats	GOP	Diff	Shift
Health Care	46%	42%	4	Health Care	47%	37%	10	(6)
Education	41%	38%	3	Education	44%	37%	7	(4)
Social Security	37%	42%	(5)	Social Security	43%	37%	6	(11)
Abortion	39%	46%	(7)	Abortion	41%	41%	–	(7)
Economy	41%	46%	(5)	Economy	39%	45%	(6)	1
Taxes	36%	52%	(16)	Taxes	39%	44%	(5)	(11)
Iraq	41%	45%	(4)	Iraq	37%	45%	(8)	4
Nat’l Security	40%	49%	(9)	Nat’l Security	36%	51%	(15)	6
Gov’t Ethics	33%	34%	(1)	Gov’t Ethics	29%	35%	(6)	5
Immigration	34%	40%	(6)	Immigration	29%	43%	(14)	8

Rasmussen has only put these numbers out here so far, unless I’ve missed it. The shift down for the Democrats may be a trend; it may also be an inevitable result of the Republicans improving their position in eight out of ten categories from May to June. Either way, I don’t think that it’s an accident that most of the GOP increases are in areas that have been in the news for the last month; particularly taxes, and particularly health care. The Democrats may want to consider adopting a strategy of visibly doing nothing at all, on anything…

Moe Lane

PS: Also, the upcoming monthly financial reports for the various committees are going to be very interesting.

Crossposted to RedState.

June’s Rasmussen trust numbers versus May’s.

[UPDATE] Rasmussen finally put up an article.

So, last month I posted Rasmussen’s report that the Republicans were back to being trusted more than Democrats on four critical topics, and trusted more and/or tied on five. It got a surprising amount of play, given that I hadn’t really thought all that much about it when I wrote it. Besides, it was one month, compared to a very, very, very bad month for Republicans; the numbers could very easily shift by the next month.

They did.

Jun-09				May-09
Issue	Democrats	GOP	Diff	Democrats	GOP	Diff	Shift
Health Care	47%	37%	10	53%	35%	18	8
Education	44%	37%	7	49%	36%	13	6
Social Security	43%	37%	6	48%	39%	9	3
Abortion	41%	41%	–	41%	41%	–	–
Economy	39%	45%	(6)	44%	43%	1	7
Taxes	39%	44%	(5)	41%	47%	(6)	(1)
Iraq	37%	45%	(8)	41%	43%	(2)	6
Nat’l Security	36%	51%	(15)	41%	48%	(7)	8
Gov’t Ethics	29%	35%	(6)	40%	29%	11	17
Immigration	29%	43%	(14)	36%	37%	(1)	13

Continue reading June’s Rasmussen trust numbers versus May’s.

Rasmussen and the quietly rusting Democratic advantage.

[UPDATE] And welcome, Weekly Standard readers.
[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers. Taking a trip, soon? Murtha’s here to help!

Examining Rasmussen’s trust-on-issues numbers from month to month is interesting enough, but I was interested in the long term trends. So I put together this chart comparing this month’s numbers with those of last October’s*:

	October 2008			May 2009
Issue	Dem	GOP	Diff	Dem	GOP	Diff	Cum Shift
Economy	51%	38%	13	44%	43%	1	(12)
Govt Ethics	40%	30%	10	40%	29%	11	1
National Sec.	47%	44%	3	41%	48%	(7)	(10)
Education	53%	34%	19	49%	36%	13	(6)
Healthcare	54%	34%	20	53%	35%	18	(2)
Taxes	47%	42%	5	41%	47%	(6)	(11)
Iraq	47%	42%	5	41%	43%	(2)	(7)
Social Security	49%	37%	12	48%	39%	9	(3)
Abortion	47%	38%	9	41%	41%	–	(9)
Immigration	40%	38%	2	36%	37%	(1)	(3)

Continue reading Rasmussen and the quietly rusting Democratic advantage.