Poll Tracker

[Warph]

http://townhall.com/polltracker

[Warph]

Townhall Poll Tracker - Latest Political Polls - 05/02/2012

http://townhall.com/polltracker/latestpolls

[jarhead]

Warph,
I have read that a incumbent that is leading by no more than 5 points  at this stage of the game , in the polls, has never been re-elected. We can only hope and pray that, that cycle is not broken

[Warph]

Warph,
I have read that a incumbent that is leading by no more than 5 points  at this stage of the game , in the polls, has never been re-elected. We can only hope and pray that, that cycle is not broken

Yeah... hope you're right, Jar.  Here's what the Senate looks like for 2012... :

"Senate chances are good in 2012 that they will win majority."

Just as 2006 and 2008 were disastrous for the Republicans, the election of 2010 was a disaster for the Democrats. The Republicans won control of the House of Representatives by winning 63 seats, but although they won six seats in the Senate remained the minority party by a margin of 53-47 (including two independents who side with the Democrats). There is a strong chance that the Republicans will complete their takeover of Congress in the 2012 elections.

The party affiliation of the senators who are facing re-election this year gives the Republicans a decided advantage. Including the two independents, the Democrats will be defending a total of 23 senate seats while only 10 Republicans are up for re-election. This alone would favor the GOP since it has to defend fewer seats while having more opportunities for gains.

To make matters even worse for the Democrats, many incumbent senators are retiring rather than face angry constituents in a re-election battle. This means that neither candidate in the general election in these states will have the advantage of incumbency. Democratic senators who have already announced their retirements include Kent Conrad (N.D.), Joe Lieberman (Conn.), Jim Webb (Va.), Herb Kohl (Wis.), Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), Daniel Akaka (Hawaii), and Ben Nelson (Neb.). Connecticut leans Democrat and Nebraska leans Republican, but the rest of these states are tossups according to the Cook Political Report.

There are also two Republican senators retiring, Jon Kyl of Arizona and Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas. Both of those seats are generally considered to be safely in Republican hands. Texas is rated as strongly Republican while Arizona is likely Republican.

Cook also considers Montana (Jon Tester, D) and Missouri (Claire McCaskill, D) to be tossups. On the Republican side, Massachusetts (Scott Brown) and Nevada (Jon Ensign) are also considered tossups.

Several other Democratic seats might also be in play. Florida is rated as leaning Democrat in the re-election of Bill Nelson, but the state has been a tossup in recent elections according to 270towin.com. Likewise, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan is given the edge by Cook, but the economic woes of this Rust Belt state, home of Detroit and the auto companies, might make voters discard the Democratic incumbent.

The states of Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania make interesting cases as well. The three states lie atop the Marcellus Shale, a geologic formation that contains an abundance of oil and natural gas. The energy boom in these areas has created jobs that are very vulnerable to the regulation of fracking, which the EPA has considered. President Obama's "green" environmental initiatives may hurt the Democrats in these states.

Ohio is already a swing state with one Republican and one Democratic senator. The Democrat, Sherrod Brown, is up for re-election. Ohio has picked the winner in the last four presidential elections.

Pennsylvania's senate delegation is similarly split with Democrat Bob Casey up for re-election, although it leans more toward the Democrats than its two neighbors. West Virginia has two Democratic senators with Joe Manchin facing re-election, but the state has voted Republican in three of the last four presidential elections.

With a large number of vulnerable Democrats, the Republicans have a good chance of winning enough Democratic seats, while defending the few vulnerable Republican seats, to take a majority of the senate. This is especially likely in a year with an unpopular president facing re-election in a poor economy. Neither of Georgia's two senators is up for re-election this year.

***HOUSE RACES - To control Congress, the Republicans must also maintain control of the House of Representatives, whose 435 members all face re-election. Since the Republicans hold more seats in the house they obviously have more seats to defend so the question is whether the Republicans have more seats vulnerable than the Democrats.

An important variable in the house races is that 2010 was a census year. Based on 2010 census data, house districts were redrawn over the past year. Slower growth in blue states and emigration to red states means that states that typically vote Republican will gain seats in this election while several Democratic states will lose seats. Georgia's congressional delegation will gain one member after this year's election. Additionally, since the Republicans won heavily in state races as well as in Congress, the GOP had an edge in the redistricting process, allowing them to redraw districts to favor Republican candidates.

According to the most recent Cook Political Report, only one Republican seat is counted as likely to go Democrat, while two Democratic seats are likely to go Republican. Five Democrats are in districts that lean Republican, while only three Republicans are in districts that lean Democrat. Georgia's John Barrow (D-12) is one of the Democrats in a Republican leaning district. The Republican challenger, as yet undetermined before Georgia's primary, is up by 12 points.

Cook has also identified 20 districts as tossups. Of these, 14 are leaning Republican and six are leaning Democrat, but, as the name implies, tossups could go either way. In fact, with nine months to go before the election, a variety of factors from scandals to economic news to a war with Iran could change the dynamics of many races.

There are a few other trends that favor Republicans as well, however. While a poll of party affiliation by Gallup currently shows Democrats with a two point advantage over Republicans (29-27 percent or 45-45 including leaners), the real story is that Democratic Party affiliation has fallen sharply since November 2008 when Barack Obama was elected. At that point, the Democrats led by 37-28 percent (51-40 including leaners). The current numbers are even slightly more favorable to Republicans than they were at the time of the 2010 congressional landslide. Even though Democrats have made some gains in the Rasmussen generic congressional ballot over the past few weeks, Republicans still hold a slight edge there as well.

[Warph]

Shades of Sarah Palin....


Condi Rice as VP Offers Mitt Romney Rewards and Risks
By: Kevin Derby | Posted: May 2, 2012

Buzz has been building in recent days that Condoleezza Rice, who headed the State Department in George W. Bush's second term, would be a strong pick for Mitt Romney's presidential running mate on the Republican ticket.

Rice certainly would bring some strengths if she ends up as Romney's understudy, including becoming the first African-American woman to place on a national ticket. Romney has little background on foreign policy; Rice easily would fill that gap.

Two polls released in recent days show Rice remains popular with voters. 

Almost two-thirds of those surveyed in a poll of likely voters by Rasmussen Reports -- 66 percent -- see the former secretary of state favorably, while 24 percent view her as unfavorable. The poll of 1,000 likely voters was taken on April 24-25 and had a margin of error of +/- 3 percent. Compare that to a similar Rasmussen poll on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. That poll finds that 53 percent of voters see Clinton in a favorable light while 42 percent view her unfavorably. The poll of 1,000 likely voters was taken on April 20-21, and had a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.

Rice also topped a CNN/ORC poll of Republicans released last week that showed 26 percent wanted her as Romney's running mate, followed by Rick Santorum with 21 percent. Prominent national pundits like Juan Williams in The Hill have made the case for Romney to pick Rice.

But there are major problems with Rice ending up on the ticket.

As Santorum's unlikely success in the Republican primaries showed, Romney has problems appealing to social conservatives. Rice is unlikely to do a lot to help there.

Even during her tenure under Bush, Rice has made no bones about being pro-choice on abortion -- a major obstacle for many social conservatives. She has also been critical of conservative attempts to crack down on immigration at the state level, such as recent legislation in Alabama and Arizona. While this may help Romney bring in Hispanic voters, it could undermine his attempts to rally the conservative base.

Most presidential and vice presidential candidates do not emerge from the Cabinet. There have been exceptions, of course. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren and James Buchanan used their secretary of state status as a launching pad for successful presidential bids. But since the Civil War, there have been only a handful of presidents -- William Howard Taft and Herbert Hoover -- and vice presidents -- Henry Wallace and Dick Cheney -- who have moved up from the Cabinet. George H.W. Bush, with his stints at the U.N., RNC, China and the CIA before serving as vice president, is the best example of a modern president who moved up through the appointment ladder.

Sam Rayburn, the legendary Texan who served as speaker of the House, put it aptly to his old ally Lyndon Johnson in the first days of the Kennedy administration. LBJ was gushing about the team Kennedy had assembled from the business and nonprofit worlds to serve in the Cabinet. Rayburn expressed reservations, noting that few of them had ever sought elected office.

"I wish one of them had been elected to dogcatcher or something," Rayburn replied.

Rayburn had his finger on something. Some candidates -- Wallace, who served almost eight years as agriculture secretary but never ran for office before being nominated for vice president in 1940, comes to mind -- find ending up on a national ticket to be a bewildering experience. It adds one more element of risk if Romney ends up choosing Rice, despite her high poll numbers at the moment.