First of all, a brief note on my absence from the blogosphere these past couple of months. My closest friend passed away recently and I have been preoccupied with things that take precedence over discussing the issues of the day. That is all behind me now (although he will certainly never be forgotten) and it is comforting to come back to a topic that I love: American Politics.
In my absence, I missed most of the budget and debt ceiling fight. I don't have a lot to add that hasn't already been said - the Republican Party got its head handed to it by having an awful, unachievable strategy. Their failure in the stand off was about as complete as a failure can be in the political arena. Having said that, I suspect that the electoral impact of the fight will be far less than most Democrats are hoping. November 2014 is a LONG time away in political terms and I suspect that this won't be a game-changer with the likely outcome still being Republicans retaining the House and the Democrats narrowly holding the Senate.
I also missed the disaster of an early roll-out of Obamacare. And it has been a disaster. 0 points for execution. I will simply make three points around this:
(1) The rollout woes, while important, are not the determination of the success of the program or whether it was a good idea or not. You can have a great idea poorly executed or an awful idea well executed. This one is probably more like a mediocre idea poorly executed.
(2) To Republican piling on to the Obamacare solution on premium subsidies, I'm curious - how does Medicare Advantage work? What about the Paul Ryan budget proposal on Medicaid? Seems like premium support is pretty much a conservative idea. A much simpler, liberal idea would have been single-payer. Single-payer has its own drawbacks, but to bemoan Obamacare's complexity as liberal governance is disingenuous at best and an outright lie at worst.
(3) The "if you like your insurance you can keep it" quote will haunt Obama much more than the poor performance of the website. There are legitimate reasons under the public-private model advanced in Obamacare to cancel existing policies that don't meet the bill's standard. But Obama knew this a long time ago. His promise was an outright lie, and people are likely to remember the lie long after they forget the website hassles.
On to the elections. Up tonight, we have:
(1) New Jersey Governor - incumbent Republican Chris Christie will absolutely cruise to double digit victory tonight, buoyed by strong support from moderates and independents (including myself.) The 2016 standard-bearer of sane Republicans (along with possibly Jeb Bush) will have the bully pulpit of the Governor's mansion to speak from. It will be an epic crushing by a red politican in a blue state. Take note Republicans - sane candidates like Christie win - wing nuts lose.
Polls close at 8 PM Eastern
Prediction: Christie +24.1% (no, I'm not joking!)
(2) Virginia Governor - Terry McAulife
In what has now become the nation's hottest swing state, one of the ugliest contests between two of the worst candidates for governor in recent memory will draw to a close with former DNC chair Terry McAulife edging out wing nut Republican Ken Cuccinelli (see above about who wins and loses) by solid single digits but failing to win an outright majority as a bunch of fed-up voters dump the two major parties and vote for the Libertarian, Robert Sarvis. Sarvis is polling in the high single digits, but historically in state races, independents tend to underperform their polling as people break back to the parties late. It's a non-statistical guess, but I'd wager that Sarvis' election-day support dwindles down to 5-6%.
Polls close at 7 PM Eastern
Prediction: McAulife +6.4%
(3) New York City Mayor
Democrat Bill DeBlasio will cruise to a 30, 40, maybe 45 point victory. The margin doesn't matter. The outcome is assured.
Polls close at 9 PM Eastern
Prediction: DeBlasio +41.2%
Lots of other stuff on the ballot including marijuana taxation in Colorado and a minimum wage hike in New Jersey. I'll keep you posted throughout the night.
20 minutes until the first returns....
Showing posts with label Terry McAullife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Terry McAullife. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Deeds Spanks All Comers in VA Primary, Chrysler Sale Cleared, Sotomayor Hearings Set, President Obama's Political Capital
Deeds Smokes McAullife
I'll grade myself on my call yesterday on the Virginia gubernatorial primary: right theory, right order of finish, WAY off on order of magnitude. I pride myself on calling races right and I do feel that this site got it a lot more right than any other major political website, but there is definitely room for improvement.
As of this writing, with 99%+ of precincts reporting, Creigh Deeds pulled in a whopping 50% of the primary vote in the three-way race with Terry McAullife (26%) and Brian Moran (24%) a distant second and third. I believe all of the reasons why I projected a Deeds win held true (that Republican Open Primary voters overwhelmingly voted against McAullife), but in a much bigger way than I could have imagined. I envisioned maybe a 5 point Deeds win -- all of the polls showed the race more or less a dead heat. This just shows the difficulty in polling the result of an open primary, especially a very low turnout primary as this one was.
This sets up what I consider to be a true toss-up general election. Both Virginia and New Jersey appear to be very interesting races...stay tuned.
Chrysler Sale Moves Ahead Less than 24 hours after Justice Ginsberg granted a temporary stay of the Chrysler reorganization plan, the Supreme Court has reached the decision not to grant cert and take up the case. The reorganization will move ahead as planned with combined ownership by the UAW, the Federal Government and Fiat.
This is a good thing for what is left of Chrysler. It has a chance to remake itself. There is a lot of work to do. Chrysler lags badly in innovation, design and quality to its global competitors (Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen and Ford are all miles ahead in all three categories) and it may yet fail, but it has a lifeline and the small-car technology from Fiat to lean into. This expedited bankruptcy also sets the precedent for the much-larger GM to follow a similar process.
Sotomayor Hearings to Begin July 13th
The Senate judiciary committee hearings for Supreme Court-Designee Sonia Sotomayor will begin July 13th. This is earlier than many Senate Republicans had wanted, arguing for hearings no earlier than late August to allow a thorough review of Judge Sotomayor's record. As I previously discussed, this argument is nonesense as we are talking about a twice-Senate confirmed nominee whose record has already been thoroughly reviewed. But it is a normal tactic for the opposition party to play a waiting game and hope something blows up. I would still be very surprised if Sotomayor doesn't pick up 70 votes and sail through her nomination. But you never know.
That the hearings are set to begin smack-dab in the middle of when congressional Democrats had hoped to be debating health care reform will spread the President's capital awfully thin. Let's take a look at home much he still has.
Holding Strong But Still Trending Down
First, for our new readers, let me explain the methodology of the poll aggregation graphs below. Unlike many sites (such as the widely reported realclearpolitics), I do not treat all polls as equal. Polls have different sample sizes and are therefore given weight based on its overall sample size, to create one "super poll". Also, polls have different methodology for treatment of "no opinion". Gallup, for instance, reports "no opinion" responses (their latest poll shows 61% approve, 34% disapprove, 5% "no opinion") whereas Rasmussen does not (their latest poll 58% approve, 41% disapprove, does not add to 100% due to rounding.) Therefore looking at just the approval percentage is not meaningful. I therefore use what I call "approve minus disapprove", that is the percentage of those surveyed who approve minus the percentage that disapprove. This gives a consistent basis for comparing the results over time. If the number is positive, President Obama generally has public approval, if negative he does not. I also show for reference the 7.2% line, the percentage by which the President won the national popular vote in November. This methodology closely replicates the polling aggregation method that I used to correctly project within 0.1% the results of the November election.
The verdict so far this month? More of the same. President Obama continues to enjoy broad approval, but the margin continues to slowly tighten. He is more popular than he was in November -- that is there appear to be McCain voters who approve of the President. But you can see from the trend why the administration is intent on getting things done now -- in politics you either use political capital or lose it.
I also look at the poll breakdowns by polling methodology. As some polls survey all adult Americans, some restrict to registered voters and some attempt to target likely voters, the numbers naturally vary.
As of today, the numbers by polling type are:
Adult Americans: +30%
Registered Voters: +26%
Likely Voters: +17%
It is worth noting that Rasmussen is consistently the only poll tracking Likely Voters. This is worth noting as the Rasmussen results have been all over the map, bouncing between +6% and +17% over just the past 4 days. I find it hard to believe that President Obama's underlying popularity is shifting that much day to day, so I wonder somewhat if Rasmussen is tinkering with the methodology. The +17% number seems more realistic, given that it would be hard to believe that there is a 20%+ spread between registered and likely voters. The Gallup polling last year that looked at both generally showed a 3-5% spread between the two (registered voters tend to be somewhat more liberal than likely voters.)
Month to month, President Obama is still off about 4% in June versus his May numbers, but still over 18% above his November vote totals.
My conclusion: the President still has a lot of capital. People are wary of large deficits and continuing high unemployment but are generally feeling better about the direction of the country and the economy than they were a few months ago (consumer confidence is at its highest level since last September, and right track/wrong track polling has gone from -48% on election day to even today.) Republicans have yet to organize a coherent attack (Rush, Newt and Dick are not helping) or present clear policy alternatives. The honeymoon will end (Republicans will eventually rebuild their party and rally around a coherent message, people will continue to feel economic pain at least for the next several months and the country as a whole is definitely to the right of the President), but for now, the President can afford to press hard.
Whether all this capital translates into being able to do Health Care, Energy Reform AND Immigration Reform in a meaningful way remains to be seen. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush accomplished NONE of those three things in 8 years each in office. President Obama is attempting to do it in one. If he pulls it off, it will be the most significant first year of a President in U.S. history. It should be interesting to watch.
Welcome again if you are a new reader. Please bookmark, visit often and tell your friends.
I'll grade myself on my call yesterday on the Virginia gubernatorial primary: right theory, right order of finish, WAY off on order of magnitude. I pride myself on calling races right and I do feel that this site got it a lot more right than any other major political website, but there is definitely room for improvement.
As of this writing, with 99%+ of precincts reporting, Creigh Deeds pulled in a whopping 50% of the primary vote in the three-way race with Terry McAullife (26%) and Brian Moran (24%) a distant second and third. I believe all of the reasons why I projected a Deeds win held true (that Republican Open Primary voters overwhelmingly voted against McAullife), but in a much bigger way than I could have imagined. I envisioned maybe a 5 point Deeds win -- all of the polls showed the race more or less a dead heat. This just shows the difficulty in polling the result of an open primary, especially a very low turnout primary as this one was.
This sets up what I consider to be a true toss-up general election. Both Virginia and New Jersey appear to be very interesting races...stay tuned.
Chrysler Sale Moves Ahead Less than 24 hours after Justice Ginsberg granted a temporary stay of the Chrysler reorganization plan, the Supreme Court has reached the decision not to grant cert and take up the case. The reorganization will move ahead as planned with combined ownership by the UAW, the Federal Government and Fiat.
This is a good thing for what is left of Chrysler. It has a chance to remake itself. There is a lot of work to do. Chrysler lags badly in innovation, design and quality to its global competitors (Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen and Ford are all miles ahead in all three categories) and it may yet fail, but it has a lifeline and the small-car technology from Fiat to lean into. This expedited bankruptcy also sets the precedent for the much-larger GM to follow a similar process.
Sotomayor Hearings to Begin July 13th
The Senate judiciary committee hearings for Supreme Court-Designee Sonia Sotomayor will begin July 13th. This is earlier than many Senate Republicans had wanted, arguing for hearings no earlier than late August to allow a thorough review of Judge Sotomayor's record. As I previously discussed, this argument is nonesense as we are talking about a twice-Senate confirmed nominee whose record has already been thoroughly reviewed. But it is a normal tactic for the opposition party to play a waiting game and hope something blows up. I would still be very surprised if Sotomayor doesn't pick up 70 votes and sail through her nomination. But you never know.
That the hearings are set to begin smack-dab in the middle of when congressional Democrats had hoped to be debating health care reform will spread the President's capital awfully thin. Let's take a look at home much he still has.
Holding Strong But Still Trending Down
First, for our new readers, let me explain the methodology of the poll aggregation graphs below. Unlike many sites (such as the widely reported realclearpolitics), I do not treat all polls as equal. Polls have different sample sizes and are therefore given weight based on its overall sample size, to create one "super poll". Also, polls have different methodology for treatment of "no opinion". Gallup, for instance, reports "no opinion" responses (their latest poll shows 61% approve, 34% disapprove, 5% "no opinion") whereas Rasmussen does not (their latest poll 58% approve, 41% disapprove, does not add to 100% due to rounding.) Therefore looking at just the approval percentage is not meaningful. I therefore use what I call "approve minus disapprove", that is the percentage of those surveyed who approve minus the percentage that disapprove. This gives a consistent basis for comparing the results over time. If the number is positive, President Obama generally has public approval, if negative he does not. I also show for reference the 7.2% line, the percentage by which the President won the national popular vote in November. This methodology closely replicates the polling aggregation method that I used to correctly project within 0.1% the results of the November election.
The verdict so far this month? More of the same. President Obama continues to enjoy broad approval, but the margin continues to slowly tighten. He is more popular than he was in November -- that is there appear to be McCain voters who approve of the President. But you can see from the trend why the administration is intent on getting things done now -- in politics you either use political capital or lose it.
I also look at the poll breakdowns by polling methodology. As some polls survey all adult Americans, some restrict to registered voters and some attempt to target likely voters, the numbers naturally vary.As of today, the numbers by polling type are:
Adult Americans: +30%
Registered Voters: +26%
Likely Voters: +17%
It is worth noting that Rasmussen is consistently the only poll tracking Likely Voters. This is worth noting as the Rasmussen results have been all over the map, bouncing between +6% and +17% over just the past 4 days. I find it hard to believe that President Obama's underlying popularity is shifting that much day to day, so I wonder somewhat if Rasmussen is tinkering with the methodology. The +17% number seems more realistic, given that it would be hard to believe that there is a 20%+ spread between registered and likely voters. The Gallup polling last year that looked at both generally showed a 3-5% spread between the two (registered voters tend to be somewhat more liberal than likely voters.)
Month to month, President Obama is still off about 4% in June versus his May numbers, but still over 18% above his November vote totals.My conclusion: the President still has a lot of capital. People are wary of large deficits and continuing high unemployment but are generally feeling better about the direction of the country and the economy than they were a few months ago (consumer confidence is at its highest level since last September, and right track/wrong track polling has gone from -48% on election day to even today.) Republicans have yet to organize a coherent attack (Rush, Newt and Dick are not helping) or present clear policy alternatives. The honeymoon will end (Republicans will eventually rebuild their party and rally around a coherent message, people will continue to feel economic pain at least for the next several months and the country as a whole is definitely to the right of the President), but for now, the President can afford to press hard.
Whether all this capital translates into being able to do Health Care, Energy Reform AND Immigration Reform in a meaningful way remains to be seen. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush accomplished NONE of those three things in 8 years each in office. President Obama is attempting to do it in one. If he pulls it off, it will be the most significant first year of a President in U.S. history. It should be interesting to watch.
Welcome again if you are a new reader. Please bookmark, visit often and tell your friends.
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