Polls

Scott Walker Wins Again

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I do enjoy watching things blow up for the left. That I will admit.

Today, the Seventh Circuit Federal Appeals Court upheld Act 10, in yet another victory for the Walker administration.

After all the protests and nonsense in 2011 – after all the Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth – after the senators fleeing the state and all of the other drama, the left pulled out one of their “old reliable” tricks – try to win in the courts. Each and every time, they have lost. Lost, lost, lost.

So the score now reads Walker infinite, the left, zero. The left is out of money, and running out of court options. The only thing left that I know of is a pending Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that I predict will also go in favor of the Walker administration.

The election this fall for Gov. of Wisconsin, according to the latest poll, sits at Walker 56%, and the Democrat candidate Burke, 40%. Unless Walker seriously screws something up, he will coast. The DNC will not be sending Burke any money for what is essentially an election that is over before it starts.

Illinois Mirror Poll Shows Republican Bruce Rauner is up 13 Points Over Incumbent Democrat Pat Quinn in IL Governor’s Race

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My friend Eric Kohn runs a terrific new site: Illinois Mirror.

Here is his opening manifesto.

Illinois’ legacy, calcified media long ago abdicated its obligation to provide useful knowledge that engenders an informed public. I don’t really care if it’s out of disinterest, laziness, partisanship, or cozy relationships with those in power, but the establishment media outlets stand by and tap their keyboards while Illinois crumbles. So, if the air-brushed, teleprompter-fed local media won’t do its job, Illinois Mirror will.
 
We accept the responsibility that they abandoned. We’ll offer a perspectives that they ignore to reveal how Illinois government really works and its effects on the public.

Right on.

And so far, so good. In fact: So far, so outstanding.

The Illinois Mirror today published the amazing results of its poll for the Governor’s race.

This is the first poll for this race.

The Illinois Mirror poll shows GOP candidate Bruce Rauner up THIRTEEN POINTS over Donk Pat Quinn!

Wow. We know Pat is awful, and we know the state is an ongoing train wreck. But still, for a purportedly Blue state, that is a surprising number.

Barring a disaster, we will elect a GOP governor who at least talks like a reformer and, fingers crossed, will actually be one.

I, and many others like me, ask only this of Bruce Rauner: Be what you say you are, do what you say you will do.

Please.

The old timers in the GOP were against Rauner. And the teachers unions pushed their members to switch-hit and take GOP ballots to vote for Kirk Dillard, the main establishment GOP candidate. As a result, Dillard got within a couple of points of Rauner, confounding many polls which predicted a Rauner blowout.

In fact, the only poll that correctly showed the race would be close was the Illinois Mirror poll!

Nice work.

Question for the studio audience: Is there any chance this lopsided poll result will be a bellwether for the USA generally in November?

I sure hope so.

And keep your eye on the Illinois Mirror!

Waiting for tonight

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My typing may be a bit off today as my dog bit me last night. It was partially my fault because he snapped at me as I was taking off his leash and I smacked him in the nose. He was faster than I was and bit my hand. Bassett hounds are supposed to be mellow but I got the one exception.

I voted a week ago by absentee so that is done. California has a bunch of state propositions and I voted no on all of them except 32, which would constrain union fund raising, but it will probably lose. I was disappointed to see NRO come out against it because of some footling concern about something. I have been disappointed by NRO several times this year, first when they fired John Derbyshire. His writing is funny and wise at the same time. You probably all know the story of the dispute, in which I believe that Derb was completely correct.

We also have this small matter of a presidential election today.

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Presidential Forensics Done Romney-Style

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After watching the 2012 Presidential Debates, I’ve come to the conclusion we are now seeing a new branch of “President Debate Forensics” being established that is utterly different in objective than traditional one concerned with scorning points. Instead, it is concerned with communicating the candidate’s PRESIDENTIAL demeanor through visual media.

That it has been successful in communicating that demeanor can be seen in this Michael Barone piece. Barone says the public’s break towards Romney is happening with affluent suburban voters and particularly college educated women.

It looks like my thought of Romney’s last debate performance being a “intimate performance for women” was spot-on, and his intended audience is responding –

That tends to validate my alternative scenario that Mitt Romney would fare much better in affluent suburbs than Republican nominees since 1992, running more like George Bush did in 1988. The only way Pennsylvania and Michigan can be close is if Obama’s support in affluent Philadelphia and Detroit suburbs has melted away.

This also helps explain why Romney still narrowly trails in Ohio polls. Affluent suburban counties cast about one-quarter of the votes in Pennsylvania and Michigan but only one-eighth in Ohio.

A pro-Romney affluent swing is confirmed by the internals of some national polls. The 2008 exit poll showed Obama narrowly carrying voters with incomes over $75,000. Post-debate Pew Research and Battleground polls have shown affluent suburbanite Romney carrying them by statistically significant margins.

In particular, college-educated women seem to have swung toward Romney since Oct. 3. He surely had them in mind in the foreign policy debate when he kept emphasizing his hopes for peace and pledged no more wars like Iraq and Afghanistan.

At this point, my gut says that the Romney campaign bet it all on the debates to get past the Pro-Obama media filters to voters and prepared accordingly.

Romney’s debate performances moved the focus groups so consistently. I have to think that his debate preparation firm was coaching him through his debate preparation with multiple primary and general election focus groups. Focus groups that were providing video performance feed back to Romney through out both the Republican Primary and General Election campaigns.

Romney just set a new and very high bar in American Presidential campaigning by founding a new “Presidential forensics” branch of debate. One that isn’t intended to “win” debates in the traditional debate forensics sense of “scoring points.”

“Presidential forensics” Romney-style is intended to showcase the candidate’s ability to project a PRESIDENTIAL demeanor to a visual media audience past media gatekeepers, whatever the debate format or moderator bias.

It worked. It will be copied.

The last quarter is here.

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Bob Krumm, a well known Democratic Party consultant has weighed in today with an analysis that looks like a post mortem on the election.

If you’re in the Obama campaign–or a numerologist sympathetic to it–you probably console yourself with comparisons to polling results from 2008. Today Barack Obama is running about three points behind where he was at this point in the race two years ago, while Mitt Romney is about four points ahead of John McCain. Since Barack Obama won by 7.3% in 2008, the seven-point swing this year still puts the race within reach.

However this is not 2008. That year was an anomaly in my lifetime: the first election since 1952 when there was neither an incumbent president nor a sitting vice president on the ballot. The 2008 election was a choice; this year is a referendum.

We have watched the trend lines and many of us were highly suspicious of the polls last summer.

The 2012 election returns to the historical norm where you have an incumbent and a challenger. The primary metric is the incumbent’s level of support. He is only safe when he is well above 50%. When his support dips below 50% he is in danger. If it stays below 48% he is in extreme danger. Barack Obama sits at 47% and hasn’t been higher than 48% since the first debate.

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