State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/17/09)

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It must be the thesis, right?

Maybe, but if the thesis is driving the margins in the polling of the Virginia gubernatorial race lower, we should expect that when a "not this optimistic" poll from the Daily Kos and Research 2000 comes out tomorrow (?) commentators to spin the less favorable results as a function of Deeds' tax comments* at today's debate. [Nevermind the fact that the poll was in and out of the field after those comments were made.] Yes, that's an unfair depiction of the media, but such is life when poll gazing.

2009 Virginia Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Deeds	McDonnell	Undecided
Rasmussen	Sept. 16, 2009	+/- 4.5%	500 likely voters	46	48	5

The undeniable fact is that once the idea of the thesis and what it meant was internalized, the poll numbers began to dip for Bob McDonnell. But let's not lose sight of the fact that the Republican is still in a good position in the Rasmussen poll that was released today. The candidate who should be getting the focus is Creigh Deeds. The Democratic state senator is at his highest point in terms of polling since he led McDonnell in a poll conducted (by Rasmussen) the day after Deeds' victory in the Democratic primary. Taken on its face, then, this result is something of an outlier compared to the recent polling the race.

Are things closer than they were pre-thesis? Yes.

Are they within the margin of error close? That's debatable.

What's clear is that the thesis seems to have closed the gap to some degree. But does Deeds have the momentum? We'll have to see. Internally, I mocked the idea of a Thursday debate, but it was well timed if there happened to be a gaffe of some sort for either candidate (but more so for Deeds since he didn't have a thesis-type revelation already out there). Fridays are typically days to bury some bit of news before the weekend.

The race is closer, but the fundamentals of the race still favor McDonnell overall. The Republican is inching closer to the 50% mark even as Deeds is closing the gap. And that is something not to lose sight of as we head down the home stretch in this one.

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Surely the good folks at Rasmussen don't follow little ol' FHQ, but it sure sounds like they are being a wee bit defensive/opportunistic with their comment in the write up of the poll above.

"All of those figures include “leaners.” Leaners are those who initially indicate no preference for either of the candidates but answer a follow-up question and say they are leaning towards a particular candidate. Premium Members can review the data without leaners and complete demographic crosstabs."

In other words, complain if you wish, but if you want the data, pay up. Duly noted.

...said the employed political scientist still trying to shake the cheap graduate student mindset.

FHQ will say this: I'm glad to see Rasmussen come out with some "information" on how they collect their leaners data. [Hint, hint; nudge, nudge.]

*You absolutely have to love the title to that National Review blog entry.

Recent Posts:
What if Obama Won the Electoral College 1265-599?*

GOP Temporary Delegate Selection Committee to Meet on Sept. 28

Early Voting in New Jersey and Virginia?

What if Obama Won the Electoral College 1265-599?*

What?

There is a great article in the New York Times today that discusses a case being brought forth in a federal court in Mississippi that calls foul on the representative disparities in Congress. On the one hand, the entire state of Wyoming is one district with 523,000 people, but a district like Nevada's 3rd contains nearly a million people. Does that disparity mean that one district is more represented than the other? Those bringing the case think so. They propose that the House be expanded to at least 932 seats, but that 1761 seats would better fulfill the one person, one vote principle.

1761 seats!?!

FHQ is plenty satisfied with 435 House elections plus an additional 33 or 34 Senate elections every two years, but why not add 1300 more? More elections would be great for business. In all seriousness, this has been an ongoing issue since the number of seats was held at 435. Will this case go anywhere? It's doubtful but it does raise an interesting question:

We strive to adhere to the one person, one vote ideal within states but not across states. Why? It is ironic that this case is coming through Mississippi. When I was in a Southern politics class with University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock a few years back, we were discussing both how much leeway states get in drawing districts and how much easier that process has become with geographic information systems. And the example he used was Mississippi. Typically, the courts allow states wiggle room of about 5% in terms of the populations in their allotted congressional districts. In a hypothetical state with one million people and two congressional districts you could "get away" with having one district with 512,500 people and the other having 487,500 people for example. [Well, given GIS, that probably isn't realistic as long as the districts are compact and relatively competitive. But you get the point.] So, there's some leeway. As I recall, though, Mississippi didn't just get their four districts down to within 5%. In at least two cases they got them to within 5 people. And none of the four districts had anymore than 14 or 15 people more than any of the other three.

Given that matters can be so precise within the states, then, why is it that we don't insist upon this equality of representation across states? It is curious. Mainly, I'd say that the root of this issue finds its origin at the outset of the republic itself when these matters of representation and the alignment of Congress were bitterly debated. The result was the compromise that gave the US a Senate with an equal number of members from each state and a House with its membership determined by population. In the same way, 435 is a compromise of sorts. It isn't perfect.

...but it does give us enough electoral votes to track.

Hat tip to Rick Hasen at the Election Law Blog for the link.

*Where did those numbers come from? Well, there's no way of accurately knowing how these new districts would be allocated. I could probably figure it out, but used a shorthand calculation instead. Obama won about 68% of the electoral votes last November. After adding in the 100 senatorial electoral votes plus Washington DC's three to the 1761, FHQ found that 68% of 1864 is 1265. Now, that would be fun to track in 2012.

Oh and in the interest of continued fun, I should add that under the 932 seat scenario, there would have been 1035 electoral votes. Using similar math to the above, Obama would have won 702-333.


Recent Posts:
GOP Temporary Delegate Selection Committee to Meet on Sept. 28

Early Voting in New Jersey and Virginia?

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/15/09)

GOP Temporary Delegate Selection Committee to Meet on Sept. 28

According to John DiStaso, writing for the New Hampshire Union-Leader, the Republican Party's Temporary Delegate Selection Committee is slated to meet on September 28 to continue discussing the order of 2012 presidential primaries and caucuses. Overall, the group is charged with setting the rules that will govern the entire delegate selection process for the next presidential election cycle. The committee is historic in that it the first time in the modern era that the Republican Party has set its rules for the next cycle in a forum other than the preceding national nominating convention.

Here's the full excerpt from DiStaso:

RATH ON THE COMMITTEE. A bit of presidential primary news here.

Former state RNC member Tom Rath is now a member of the national party's Temporary Delegate Selection Committee, which is trying to figure out a way to alleviate "front-loading" in the 2012 primary/caucus schedule.

Rath said the next meeting is Sept. 28. He also said that the committee's charge is to focus on the order of delegate selection events after New Hampshire's primary.

The party rule that created the delegate selection committee guarantees New Hampshire and South Carolina spots ahead of the pack. It does not address Iowa since its caucus-goers do not directly select delegates. That is done later through a complex process.

Recent Posts:
Early Voting in New Jersey and Virginia?

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/15/09)

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/15/09)

Early Voting in New Jersey and Virginia?

It was nearly one year ago to the day that the first votes were cast in the presidential election. [On September 18, 2008 some areas of the Louisville area in Kentucky began early voting.] The story of the 2008 election was the Obama campaign's organization. Fueled by dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers and savvy campaign operatives, the Obama candidacy excelled throughout the year; from the primaries through the general election. Toward the end of the campaign, a large part of that organization was built around not only get-out-the-vote efforts but on banking votes in states where early voting was allowed. If you can get folks to vote early, those are people you don't have to constantly badger in the last few precious hours of the race to go to their polling stations and vote.

What was exciting about this was that the groundwork for strategy in subsequent campaigns -- presidential and otherwise -- was being laid. At the close of the 2008 election, I was most interested in how the Republican Party would respond in future elections and/or how they would perform in the area of early voting if and when the GOP held an enthusiasm gap advantage. As polls in New Jersey and Virginia throughout 2009 have indicated, there does seem to be a bit more motivation on the right than on the left in both states' gubernatorial elections.

The perfect storm to test this, right?

Well, no. While likely voters in most of the recent polling samples have tilted toward the Republicans -- indicative of a more energized segment of registered voters on the right versus the left -- neither New Jersey nor Virginia have early voting systems in place. Republicans, therefore, cannot bank those early votes and watch as the less-energized Democrats attempt to catch up. No, that's why most of yesterday was spent trading financial figures in Virginia. A $7 million infusion from the RNC will certainly come in handy given the previous $5 million pledge from the DNC and a slight Deeds edge in cash raised over the last couple of months (though the Democrat trails McDonnell in cash on hand). Regardless, both sides will need the cash for a more traditional get-out-the-vote campaign leading up to the November 3 election.

And no, Massachusetts doesn't have early voting either (just absentee voting), so we'll have to wait (past the special election to fill Kennedy's Senate seat) until the early primary election of 2010 to see the effects of early voting at work again.


Recent Posts:
State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/15/09)

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/15/09)

"Wait till her fat keister is sitting at this desk"?

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (9/15/09)

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Was it the thesis?

That will be the question asked all day Wednesday when this new Clarus Research Group poll sees the light of day in the morning. Regardless of whether it was Bob McDonnell's thesis or something else, the margin between the former Virginia Attorney General and Democratic state senator Creigh Deeds is as narrow as it has been in any poll since mid-July.

2009 Virginia Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Deeds	McDonnell	Undecided
Clarus Research Group	Sept. 10-14, 2009	+/- 4%	600 registered voters	37	42	20

Notably Deeds has pulled even with McDonnell among women (a figure that has been all over the place in recent polling in the Old Dominion) and has a slight edge (five points) among voters in vote-rich Northern Virginia. Solid numbers for the Democrat.

However, there are some aspects of this poll that stand out.
1) 20% undecided? In September? That is a very high number this late in the race. Now, it could just simply be that some respondents in this sample are reconsidering their position given the news in the race of late, but are hesitant to shift over to Deeds completely. There has not been a total of undecideds that high since the Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll a week before the Democratic primary; in other words, in a time when there was uncertainty surrounding Deeds' viability or even candidacy.

2) Registered voters? Again, at this late stage, most polling firms have switched to a likely voters only model (and others are even including leaners. cough! Rasmussen. cough!). It is curious, then, that Clarus has stuck with the registered sample and not the narrower likely voter sample. We saw just yesterday in the Monmouth poll in New Jersey how large a discrepancy can exist between the two samples. Chris Christie led by eight points among likely voters, yet Jon Corzine edged the former US attorney out among registered voters by a point (something the DNC wanted to point out today.). That's a nine point swing. A similar nine point swing in Virginia would put McDonnell up 14 (Not that that would be the case here. I'm just trying to illustrate what we're actually looking at in this case.) and that would be in line with the Survey USA poll that was released the week after the thesis revelation occurred.

Of course, FHQ did state last week, that we would have to give it a week or so to see how much impact the bombardment of thesis stories would have on the race. That much time is now behind us, and the race looks closer.

...with some caveats.

As for FHQ's graduated weighted average of the race, McDonnell has been pulled back under the 50% mark but continues to hold a sizable advantage over Deeds. Is the momentum on Deeds' side now, though? Maybe. But recall that there were a series of polls that had Corzine within a handful of points of Christie about two weeks ago. Those polls now seem a part of the distant past, however.

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Recent Posts:
State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/15/09)

"Wait till her fat keister is sitting at this desk"?

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/14/09)

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/15/09)

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What was it Dectective Frank Drebin said in the first Naked Gun movie as he was attempting to disperse the crowd gawking at an exploding fireworks factory?

Nothing to see here, folks.

Now, today's Public Policy Polling survey of the New Jersey gubernatorial race was certainly interesting in some aspects (It wasn't as status quo-maintaining as the Monmouth poll a day ago.), but it was not an earth-shattering revelation of Corzine's late season comeback either. Honestly, the most interesting part of both this race and the race in Virginia is that Democrats are either seemingly tired after 2008 or complacent. What else explains how a state that President Obama won by 15 points last November suddenly has a 2009 (likely) electorate that favors Obama by only two points? Democrats just aren't opting into either of these races in the numbers that they did only a year ago. And though Chris Christie is the one gaining from that situation, Jon Corzine has been continually stuck in the upper 30s (in FHQ's averaging) throughout, stymied of late by the slow growth behind independent candidate, Chris Daggett's run.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Public Policy Polling [pdf]	Sept. 11-14, 2009	+/- 4.5%	500 likely voters	35	44	13	7

What's more is that PPP compared 2005 support for Corzine against his current position and found that he has only managed to win over 62% of those that supported him just four short years ago. You won't win many (re)elections that way. Christie is even pulling in one in five of the those 2005 Corzine supporters.

Despite those rather dismal numbers underlying the toplines, the race is still within ten points (barely) and largely unchanged by the addition of this poll. But if you're after a competitive election (And what self-respecting political junkie isn't?), then Corzine will need to have moved full time into the low to mid-40s by the end of the month and be trending even further upward by then.

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Recent Posts:
"Wait till her fat keister is sitting at this desk"?

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/14/09)

Vote for Arizona

"Wait till her fat keister is sitting at this desk"?

I think we missed some real entertainment opportunities during the Bush administration. While folks on the left gleefully pointed out the public foibles of the former president, I'm wondering if that "coached-up," public persona was an uncomfortable one for Bush 43; one that didn't allow him to be himself.

I don't know. If he was given the opportunity to be himself (which, perhaps would have made him even more controversial), we may have gotten a few more of these:

On Barack Obama: "This is a dangerous world and this cat isn't remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you."

On Joe Biden: "If bull was currency, Joe Biden would be a billionaire."

On Sarah Palin: "I'm trying to remember if I've met her before. What is she, the governor of Guam?"

Of course, the title quotation was in reference to Hillary Clinton taking up a spot at the desk in the Oval Office. I can't decide which one I like most. They are all good in unique ways.

The real question: What gems did we miss in 2004? There had to have been some good one liners about John Kerry that we all missed out on.

Update: ...or maybe it was as the left made it out to seem.

Hat tip to Political Wire for the lines.


Recent Posts:
State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/14/09)

Vote for Arizona

"You Lie!"

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/14/09)

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I'm taking a rather surly approach with this update because the narrative in the New Jersey gubernatorial race (that Corzine isn't living up to the typical Democratic electoral comeback in the Garden state) is really getting tiresome. I don't say that as a Corzine fan [FHQ is indifferent.], but rather as someone who is irritable when the same tired and false story of this trend is rolled out. Yes, recently in New Jersey politics there has been a series of elections in which the Republican did better than expected in early polling only to see that position fade down the stretch of the campaign. Mostly when this idea comes up, commentators will bring up the polling in the state from the 2004 presidential election when Bush ran consistently within (less than) 10 points of Kerry. Chris Cillizza (The Fix) at The Washington Post dusted this argument off today and carted it out for all to see and even added the Senate elections in 2000, 2002 and 2006 and the gubernatorial election from four years ago as evidence of this "trend" of Republican surge and decline.

Look, FHQ can't throw stones while living in a glass house. We've certainly done a fair amount of talking about Corzine's cushion among the electorate in a Democratic-leaning state, but we have also tried to caution that for any comeback to take place, the governor is absolutely going to have to emerge from the upper 30s rut he has been stuck in the entire year. [The real danger for Corzine now appears to be the independent candidacy of Chris Daggett, who will reportedly pull in 15% in tomorrow's Public Policy Polling release from New Jersey.] It cannot simply be a matter of Christie's support dropping off.

That said, of the elections Cillizza mentioned as evidence, the 2006 Senate race between Menendez and Kean fits the bill (and I'll have to track down the polling from the 2000 and 2002 races), but the gubernatorial race in 2005 does not. It may have been closer than expected, but at no point during the post-primary period (early June onward) was Republican nominee, Doug Forrester, ahead of the Garden state senator-turned-candidate for governor. In fact, as I have continually pointed out, gubernatorial races in New Jersey have failed to perform to the rubric of this phenomenon in every election stretching back to 1977 when Democrat Brendan Byrne became the last Democrat to pull off the comeback.

Here are the facts of the race currently:
1) Corzine is stuck in a range between about 38% and 42% in recent polling (...meaning FHQ probably has him slightly undervalued in our averaging). This has not changed since 2009 began.

2) Christie has slipped from a summer peak above the 50% mark, but has seemingly settled in to the 44-47% area of late.

3) The new poll out of Monmouth this morning did nothing to change the underlying dynamic of the race.

4) Corzine can come back but the incumbent will have to increase his stock some and continue to hope that Chris Daggett's support goes the way of so many other early fall third party supporters in other electoral arenas (ie: to one of the two major party candidates).

And none of those points is in any way consistent with the September Surge tag that is appended to all of Corzine's Twitter updates within the last few days.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Monmouth/Gannett [pdf]	Sept. 8-10, 2009	+/- 4.3%	531 likely voters	39	47	5	7

Again, the Monmouth poll was nothing new. Both candidates fit into the same ranges, but Corzine did lead among the wider, registered voter sample that was surveyed. That means zilch unless Corzine can close the so-called enthusiasm gap (which PPP is set to talk about some more with its release tomorrow) and turn those registered voters who prefer him into actual voters that can help reelect him. That may or may not be a tall order, but with the well-worn upper 30s rut the governor continues to find himself in (see below), it appears that it is.

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Recent Posts:
Vote for Arizona

"You Lie!"

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/10/09)

Vote for Arizona

We don't usually do this, but FHQ is urging all its readers to head over to Public Policy Polling's blog and vote for Arizona as the location for the firm's next survey. You can also choose from among California, Georgia, Missouri or Ohio.

Yes, they'll include a 2012 presidential question (if you must know) since, as Tom Jensen puts it, "without John McCain at the top of the ticket this might be one of the most flippable states." Indeed. Obviously FHQ finds that inherently interesting but the primary challenge from McCain's right flank has also piqued our interest. I doubt they'll find McCain in trouble, but we'd like an answer to that question more than the 2010 questions in the other states.

...but that's just FHQ.


Recent Posts:
"You Lie!"

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/10/09)

FHQ Reading Room (9/10/09): Redistricting

"You Lie!"

Typically, FHQ tries to steer clear of this sort of thing (...unless it happens in the context of a campaign.*). Having been born and bred in the South, we also have an aversion to actors taking on southern drawls (They are usually missing some element of authenticity.). But on a Friday, after a long week, this one is too good to pass up.

"YOU LIE"with Joe Wilson from Corbin Bernsen

Hat Tip to the folks at CQ's Politics (Un)seriously for the link.

*Of course, I have been making the argument to my intro classes this week that House members are constantly in the midst of a permanent campaign. In keeping with that, I should probably include a link to the Public Policy Polling survey that shows Wilson behind 2008 challenger, Rob Miller, in a hypothetical 2010 match up.


Recent Posts:
State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/10/09)

FHQ Reading Room (9/10/09): Redistricting

It's Never too Early for a 2012 (Value Voters) Straw Poll