Author: mikeel

Rasmussen Congressional Poll–could the House flip back?

Rasmussen’s latest Congressional generic poll has the Democrats only up 43%-38%.

While I think Rasmussen has been touting that 2008 will be more of a Republican year, this poll result should be a cause of a lot of worry.

We’re likely going to field fewer candidates than 2006, and the Republicans will need one less

seat after March 11 (I’m very pessimistic about

this special election).

What’s to blame?  I think it’s a combination of poor leadership, the surge (let’s admit it–it hasn’t really worked, but a brilliant political move), and the effect of consistently poor approval ratings.  You can’t escape 25% forever.

Any thoughts?

NH-Sen: Has Billy Shaheen’s gaffe hurt his wife’s chances?

With all of this focus on Billy Shaheen’s comment on Obama’s alleged past drug use, there hasn’t been much discussion of the potential impact on the Senate race.

My view on this is that it will have a slight negative impact, perhaps more so if Obama wins

in New Hampshire.  Actually, it may appear that

Mark Penn (who should be fired) may have had a greater hand in this dustup.  But if this race gets close, this blunder could be a factor.

What do you think the impact will be?

IN-07, MA-05–a couple of questions

1.  MA-05, has there been any recent polling, public or private?  It would be great to get a poll result just before the election.

2. IN-07, has Julia Carson got a primary opponent yet?  I don’t like primary challenges
as a rule, as most of them are destructive.  But one here might be for the best.

Charlie Cook has downgraded IN-07 to Likely Democratic, based on Carson’s likely decision to seek reelection.  He also seems to think Dem turnout will be down to dissatisfaction with Congress’ inability to end the Iraq war.

MA-05 thoughts–could this slip away?

Survey USA’s poll showing Nikki Tsiongas only leading Jim Ogonowski 51-41%, has given me (and should give Democrats) some pause.

And frankly, the Democrats have underperformed in
special elections this year.  In GA-10, the runoff was between two Republicans.  We lost a seat in the NY state assembly.  Additionally, the
Dallas mayor’s race was a terrible result.

If this seat goes Republican, especially to a candidate who says we should be in Iraq indefinitely, this may be a bad omen for holding on to the House next year.

Given that the GOP has their strongest possible
candidate with 9/11 connections (his brother piloted one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center), is this a race to worry about?  Comments appreciated, especially those with some local knowledge.