What has Obama done to Democrats in state legislatures? Prior to 2008 to after 2014

With Obama as president Republicans have more than doubled the number of state legislatures that they control.  Interestingly, the 2012 election didn't slow this trend.

Prior to the 2008 election
Republicans in control of 14 legislatures (15 with Nebraska, which is technically non-partisan but is actually controlled by Republicans)
Obama's election in 2008 had impact on the number of legislatures controlled by Republicans, but Democrats did pick up four legislatures.

Prior to the 2010 midterm election (data from NCSL.org)
Republicans in control of 14 legislatures (15 with Nebraska, which is technically non-partisan but is actually controlled by Republicans)

After the 2010 midterm election
Republicans in control of 21 legislatures (22 with Nebraska).

Prior to the 2012 election
Republicans in control of 26 legislatures (27 with Nebraska)

After the 2014 election

Republicans in control of 30 legislature  (31 with Nebraska)

To put it differently, while Democrats controlled 23 legislatures prior to 2008, they now control 11.  Over that same time Republicans went from 14 to 30.

Surprise: Big surge in positive news coverage for Obama during last week of campaign

From the Washington Post:

Now for something that will surprise not one bit of the mass of mainstream media critics out there. A study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism has found that President Obama enjoyed a “surge” in positive coverage over the last week of his campaign against Mitt Romney. 

From the study: 

"During this final week, from October 29 to November 5, positive stories about Obama (29%) outnumbered negative ones (19%) by 10 points. A week earlier, negative coverage of Obama had exceeded positive by 13 points. The final week of the campaign marked only the second time in which positive stories about Obama outnumbered negative dating back to late August."

So how did Romney fare during this period? Negative stories drubbed positive ones, according to the researchers, by a margin of 33 percent to 16 percent. . . .

"Wife runs over non-voting husband"

From Politico:

An Arizona woman who can’t stand President Barack Obama slammed her husband — literally — for not voting, wedging him between the family Jeep and the street curb, a report says. 

Holly Solomon, 28, and her husband Daniel, 36, got into an argument on Saturday night over his failure to vote, news reports say. She then chased him around a parking lot in the Jeep, screaming, before hitting him as a he tried to run to a bigger street, witnesses told police, according to the report. . . .

Should we threat the exit polls on how Hispanics voted with skepticism?

Exit polls show that Obama got 71 percent of the Hispanic vote.  But there is a big potential problem with that claim.  Namely a very conservative state with a Republican Hispanic running for the US Senate not being included in the exit polling.

Although there was a clear budgetary rationale for omitting Texas from exit polling, it is a far more serious omission. Texas has one of the nation's largest Hispanic populations. It is one of the few states where Republicans have had some success in courting Hispanics, winning as much as 49 percent of their votes in 2004. Have all of those efforts fallen apart in the Obama era? Were Texas Hispanics as sour on Mitt Romney this time as Hispanics in other states? Did they swing further in Obama's direction, as they did in Colorado, or a bit away from him, as they did in Nevada and California? And how did these voters -- mostly Mexican by ancestry -- feel about Cruz, a Cuban-American who speaks with a Texas twang? . . .

Let me give you an example of the problem here.  The 19 states that were left out of the exit polling were states that tended to very strong Republican states, not just Texas.  One of the questions included in these exit polls every eight years is whether people own guns (1988, 1996, 2004 and now it should have been in there for 2012).  If you tend to leave out heavily Republican states, do you think that it might bias you poll on the rate that people own guns?  Sure, Democrats do own guns, but at a lower rate than Republicans and where Democrats own guns at the highest rates tend to be in heavily Republican states.

Voters moving against government as the solution to our problems?

In 2008, voters said in exit poll by 51-43% gov't should do more to solve problems. This year, same question by 43-51% they said the opposite.

The mixed view from the state legislatures

Prior to the election there were 2,420 House and 874 Senate Democrats and 2,926 House and 1,030 Senate Republicans. After the election there were 2,584 House and 888 Senate Democrats and 2,785 House and 1,017 Senate Republicans. That represents a 6.8% increase in Democratic House members, and their increase in state Senate seats was only 1.6%. But remember, Republicans picked up 675 seats in 2010. So to put it another way, Republicans gave up 178, or 26%, of the 675 seats that they picked up in 2010. In addition, 70 percent of that 6.8% is from just one state (115 of the 164 seats), New Hampshire, and that is because that state has 400 state legislators.  The information is from the NCSL.org.

Biden got 12% more words in debate than Ryan

Biden got 7,245 words. Ryan 6,481. Biden got 12% more words. Count them. Yet Radditz clearly interrupted Ryan much more.


You know that Biden is in trouble when the very liberal Roger Ebert thinks that Biden has gone too far.

Some others also found Biden smirks and smiles very disruptive.




CNN Poll on debate winner: Ryan 48%, Biden 44%

Some of the mistakes by Biden include:  

Claiming that he had voted against both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"What we did is, we saved $716 billion and put it back, applied it to Medicare."
This money was cut to fund the Obamacare.

"You know, I heard that death panel argument from Sarah Palin. It seems that every vice presidential debate, I hear this kind of stuff about panels." -- Seriously? Obamacare wasn't even written up at the time of the Biden v. Palin debate.

"Romney said 'No, let Detroit go bankrupt.'"

 "Well, we weren't told they wanted more security there. We did not know they wanted more security again. And by the way, at the time we were told exactly — we said exactly what the intelligence community told us that they knew. That was the assessment. And as the intelligence community changed their view, we made it clear they changed their view."

Biden's attack on the ability to cut rates and deductions but keep the overall change revenue neutral.  Biden voted for just such a change when he voted for the Reagan tax changes in 1986.

Breitbart.com has a list of eleven inaccurate statements by Biden available here.

Actress Stacey Dash talks about Romney and the recent Twitter backlash

The Las Vegas Review Journal writes a tough endorsement of Romney for President

The Review-Journal endorsed McCain in 2008 so that their decision shouldn't come as a big shock, but their editorial this year is particularly forceful.  Here is part of what they wrote:

Mr. Obama has a much different recipe for lifting the middle class: higher taxes on investors, job creators and small businesses; borrowing money to fund more public-sector jobs and government construction projects; borrowing money to fund more green energy enterprises and projects, which make electricity more expensive, while limiting the oil and coal industries; and pushing more young people to seek a debt-funded college education when they have little hope of landing a job upon graduation. 

The suggestion that tax increases and higher energy prices will lift the middle class defies logic. But it's not terribly surprising coming from an administration that's completely lacking in business experience and openly hostile to free-market capitalism. This summer, the president famously said "the private sector is doing fine," and to business owners: "You didn't build that." . . . 

Exiting polling canceled in 19 states and DC

I am not sure what is meant by this statement:

The aim, he said, “is to still deliver a quality product in the most important states,” in the face of mounting survey costs. . . .

The issue that I have is that the rule doesn't seem to be applied equally across states.  For example, 16 of the 19 states are clearly Republican leaning states, and one could argue that the presidential race won't be close in any of them.  But there are lots of other Democrat states where the race won't be close and that don't have close Senate races (e.g., Vermont, Minnesota, Oregon).  At least one of these Republican excluded states may have a close Senate race (South Dakota).  On the other hand, there is still the chance that the very Democratic state of Hawaii will have a close Senate race though the odds of that are lower.  So what is the rule that determined why so many more of these Republican states were excluded?  Any guesses?

Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming, and the District of Columbia.

Note on Jim Lehrer as moderator of the debate

As I just blogged, it appears as if Obama got four minutes more to talk during the debate than Romney did. Even so, I have to say that this was the best debate that I have seen (possibly ever) because it let the two candidates go after each other. Apparently Mr. Lehrer planned things that way.

“Based on what the goal was, I saw it as successful,” Lehrer said in an interview with Politico. “I’ve always said this and finally I had a chance to demonstrate it: The moderator should be seen little and heard even less. It is up to the candidates to ask the follow-up questions and challenge one another.” . . .

Notably, Mr. Lehrer's boss at PBS was unwilling to defend the job that Lehrer did. I suspect that is consistent with so many liberals who blame Lehrer for Obama doing such a bad job. If so (and that occurs despite Obama being given much more time), it just shows PBS's liberal bias.

UPDATE:  Sean Hannity interviews Jim Lehrer about the debate here.

The importance of measurement error in polls: Dissecting the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll result on swing states

With a margin of error either way, an 11-point spread isn't anywhere near as big as people might think.

You’ve got to get deep into the weeds to tell what is going on. The Washington Post-ABC pollsters tell us that “52 percent of likely voters across swing states side with Obama and 41 percent with Romney in the new national poll.” But without the proper context, readers may jump to an incorrect conclusion when they see that figure, concluding that Obama is home-free in swing states. As I learned from Post pollster Jon Cohen, that finding is based on the responses of a total of 160 people, and it has a margin of error of 8 percentage points. So yes, there may be a difference between swing-state and national numbers, but the gap might be very small or it might be big.

Howard Stern and staff interview Obama Supporters

Congressional twitter accounts have large percentage of fake or inactive followers

Well, it looks like any simple comparisons over how popular candidates are by looking at their twitter accounts is highly problematic.  From The Hill newspaper:

Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had the highest level of phonies following them. Polis’s followers are 82 percent fake, according to the study, a higher number than any other Democrat or Republican. Most others had a higher percentage of inactive accounts beefing up their follower numbers . . . . 
Pelosi’s analysis showed 24 percent of her followers are fake and 49 percent inactive, an identical result to McCain’s.  . . .

So what does it look like for the presidential candidates?

StatusPeople, a tool designed specifically to check for fake followers, finds that of Obama’s 18.6 million Twitter followers @BarackObama, 41 percent are fake, 29 percent inactive, and just 30 percent "good," or presumably real users. 

The tool also indicates that of Romney’s current 857, 260 followers @MittRomney, 12 percent are fake, 30 percent inactive and 58 percent "good." . . . . 

"Just 27% say The Economy is Getting Better"

Newest Rasmussen Survey (Saturday, August 18, 2012):

Twenty-seven percent (27%) of consumers say the economy is getting better these days, compared to 30% of investors who say the same.  Among consumers, 49% think the economy is getting worse, while 51% of investors believe the economy is heading in the wrong direction. . . .

Meanwhile a poll from earlier this week shows that voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on eight of ten issues and Democrats on more on only one.

The issues appear to be ranked in terms of their importance to voters.  The puzzle to me is why Democrats are trusted more on energy issues.

What the Democrats are saying about Paul Ryan

Given a campaign that would accuse Romney for the death of a woman 6 years after he left Bain Capital or that Romney supposedly didn't pay his taxes for 10 years, these attacks on Paul Ryan are hardly surprising.  Here are some of the emails that I received today.  From Senator Harry Reid:

By choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt just made the most radical choice possible.  Paul Ryan is the Tea Party's darling and architect of the GOP's plan to destroy Medicare. And while dismantling the nation's social safety net, he will give even more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires like Mitt Romney. . . .

From Senior Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod:

“Congressman Ryan is a right wing ideologue and that’s reflected in the positions he’s taken. You know the budget that he constructed for the House Republicans that would include trillions of dollars in new tax cuts skewed to the wealthy, so that we would be giving a millionaire $250,000 tax cuts while we’re cutting college aid for kids and research and development and a whole range of things we need to grow. … He disagrees with Congressman Ryan’s that we should turn Medicare into a voucher program,” said Axelrod. “He disagrees with Congressman Ryan on a woman’s right to choose, Congressman Ryan would ban a woman’s right to choose even in cases of rape or incest,” he continued. . . .

Jim Messina from the Obama campaign:

Congressman Paul Ryan is best known as the author of a budget so radical The New York Times called it "the most extreme budget plan passed by a House of Congress in modern times." With Mitt Romney's support, Ryan would end Medicare as we know it and slash the investments we need to keep our economy growing -- all while cutting taxes for those at the very top. . . .

David Axelrod:

"There's no doubt that I think the appointment...has thrilled the base of the Republican party - the Tea Party Republicans, the social conservatives because Congressman Ryan is a certifiable right-wing ideologue," David Axelrod said on "CBS This Morning." 
"I saw that kind of excitement four years ago, Anthony, when John McCain appointed Sarah Palin as well, there were huge crowds, much the same kind of reaction, and I don't think it worked out very well," he continued. "And I think when the reality catches up with the moment, it's not going to be a plus for Governor Romney." . . .

"I just don't like his views. I think that they are very dangerous views." . . .

National Education Association:

ROMNEY DOUBLES DOWN ON RIGHT WING AGENDA FOR THE MEGA-RICH

WASHINGTON—National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel released the following statement reacting to Gov. Mitt Romney’s selection of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his Vice Presidential running mate. 

“For weeks, there’s been speculation about who Gov. Romney would choose to be his running mate and what it would mean. And now we have our answer. By selecting Ryan, Romney has doubled down on his view that opportunity is only for those who can afford it or are willing to game the system.  He's shown yet again that he is more willing to help the rich get richer than ensuring middle class families get ahead. 

“Ryan’s position on fundamental education issues like funding for early childhood education and efforts to keep class sizes small don’t speak to ensuring that every child in this country gets a quality education, it continues Romney’s misguided and out of touch mentality that class size doesn’t matter and children should get as much education as they can ‘afford’. Elections are about choices, and Governor Romney’s VP selection indicates that once again he chose the corporate fat cats and Wall Street barons over students, teachers, bus drivers, nurses and secretaries. The three million members of NEA know you can’t put Americans back to work by cutting jobs, educate our kids by laying off teachers, or level the playing field for small businesses by rigging it in favor of big corporations. 

"Ryan was the architect of the budget plan that would have gutted Medicare and converted it to a voucher program.  Ryan and Romney have shown over and over again that they are more willing to run up trillion dollar deficits to help the rich get richer while undercutting opportunity for middle class families. 

“These are the positions and policies of Governor Romney. And so NEA members know enough to know that a Romney-Ryan administration is bad for our students, families and the wrong direction for America.”

Senator Patty Murray:

Ryan is best known for the extreme budget that bears his name -- one that would end Medicare as we know it while giving huge tax breaks to billionaires and corporations. A Romney-Ryan ticket is a frightening prospect for the middle class and anyone who might one day need Medicare or Social Security. . . .

Huffington Post: VP Ryan: A Nightmare for the Poor and Minorities

His savage cost cutting plan is well-known. He'd cut tens of billions from Medicaid and Medicare, and more than a trillion from everything from food stamps to welfare over the next decade. The Ryan slash and burn plan mercifully hasn't happened during his tenure as House Budget Committee Chair. But as Vice President Ryan, he would be in a commanding position to make his cost cutting plan a nightmare come true for the poor and minorities. . . . 

ABC News: "5 Things Mitt Doesn't Want You to Know About Paul Ryan"
Calling the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities nonpartisan shows ABC News' bias right off the bat.

1. His budget plans include big cuts, and there's ample room for Democrats to continue with their "Romneyhood narrative." The nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates 62 percent of Ryan's cuts are to programs for the poor. 

2. Ryan's budget proposals have included big changes to Medicare - including gradually replacing the program with a voucher program for private health care, and gradually raising the retirement age. . . . . 

3. He voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. . . . 

4. He's easily pegged as Washington insider. . . . 

5. This is both a pro and a con to Ryan, depending on who you ask, but he's notably further to the left on the issue of lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender rights than the base of the party. . . .

The New Yorker Magazine

For one thing, Ryan has no significant private-sector experience. Besides summer jobs working at McDonald’s or at his family’s construction company, or waiting tables as a young Washington staffer, Ryan has none of the business-world experience Romney frequently touts as essential for governing. In the run-up to his first campaign for Congress, in 1998, that gap was enough of a concern for Ryan that he briefly became a “marketing consultant” at the family business, an obvious bit of résumé puffing. . . .

Where was the liberal New Yorker's concern over lack of private-sector experience by either Obama or Biden in 2008?

CNN's Candy Crowley claimed some Republicans think this "looks a little bit like some sort of ticket death wish," though she names no Republicans who have said this.

Quinnipiac Polling's Peter Brown tries to explain why their polls don't weight Democrats and Republicans by their expected vote shares

It seems pretty obvious that you should weight the samples by what you think that the Democrat and Republican vote shares will be.  They weight the vote shares by demographics for race and age and gender.  The same should be true for political affiliation.  From the Hugh Hewitt Show's website:

. . . HH: I want to start with the models, which are creating quite a lot of controversy. In Florida, the model that Quinnipiac used gave Democrats a nine point edge in turnout. In Ohio, the sample had an eight point Democratic advantage. What’s the reasoning behind those models?
PB: Well, what is important to understand is that the way Quinnipiac and most other major polls do their sampling is we do not wait for party ID. We ask voters, or the people we interview, do they consider themselves a Democrat, a Republican, an independent or a member of a minor party. And that’s different than asking them what their party registration is. What you’re comparing it to is party registration. In other words, when someone starts as a voter, they have the opportunity of, in most states, of being a Republican, a Democrat, or a member of a minor party or unaffiliated. . . .
HH: Now what I don’t understand this, so educate me on it, if Democrats only had a three point advantage in Florida in the final turnout measurement in 2008, but in your poll they have a nine point turnout advantage, why is that not a source of skepticism for people?
PB: Well, I mean, clearly there will be some people who are skeptics. This is how we’ve always done our polls. Our record is very good in terms of accuracy. Again, remember, we’re asking people what they consider themselves at the time we call them.
HH: But I don’t know how that goes to the issue, Peter, so help me. I’m not being argumentative, I really want to know. Why would guys run a poll with nine percent more Democrats than Republicans when that percentage advantage, I mean, if you’re trying to tell people how the state is going to go, I don’t think this is particularly helpful, because you’ve oversampled Democrats, right?
PB: But we didn’t set out to oversample Democrats. We did our normal, random digit dial way of calling people. And there were, these are likely voters. They had to pass a screen. Because it’s a presidential year, it’s not a particularly heavy screen. . . .
HH: I mean, you really think that’s true? I mean, as a professional, you believe that Democrats have a nine point turnout advantage in Florida?
PB: Our record has been very good. You know, Hugh, I…
HH: That’s not responsive. It’s just a question. Do you personally, Peter, believe that Democrats enjoy a nine point turnout advantage right now?
PB: What I believe is what we found. . . .

Odds improving that Republicans will take control of Senate

From The Hill Newspaper:

. . . Republicans say they are on the verge of being able to wrest the four seats they need to regain control of the upper chamber (three if Romney wins), but Democrats still appear to be in line to barely hold on to the majority.
Things have improved for the GOP in Nevada, with Rep. Shelley Berkley’s (D-Nev.) ongoing ethics controversy hampering her chances of defeating Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) in that state’s tight race.
At the same time, increasingly nasty and expensive GOP primaries in Arizona, Michigan, Missouri and Wisconsin have the potential to hurt the party’s chances come November.
In Florida, Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) has spent weeks fighting with the local media rather than focusing on Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who is favored to win reelection. . . .

Democrats face real big enthusiasm deficit this election, and it is getting worse

This article is from The Hill newspaper:

Democrats are far less enthusiastic about the 2012 election than they were in 2004 and 2008, according to a new poll released on Wednesday.   

A Gallup/USA Today poll found that only 39 percent of Democrats now say they are “more enthusiastic than usual” about the 2012 election. That’s down from 68 percent in 2004 and 61 in 2008.   

Republicans, conversely, have seen a sharp rise since 2008, when only 35 percent said they were “more enthusiastic than usual.” In the latest survey, 51 percent said they were enthusiastic about the upcoming election, a 12-point advantage over the Democrats.   

Also troubling for Democrats is that a significant portion of that drop has come since the general election race between President Obama and GOP candidate Mitt Romney kicked-off this year. In February, Democrats only trailed Republicans in enthusiasm by a margin of 53 to 45. . . .

When does campaigning become stalking?: Democrats putting videos of Republican Congressional candidates' homes online

From Politico:

. . . While most serious campaigns on both sides use campaign trackers — staffers whose job is to record on video every public appearance and statement by an opponent — House Democrats are taking it to another level. They’re now recording video of the homes of GOP congressmen and candidates and posting the raw footage on the Internet for all to see. . . .Wisconsin GOP Rep. Reid Ribble, who said he’s also been followed by a cameraman when shopping for groceries, said the home videos cross a line. . . .Republicans whose homes have been videotaped say they understand that politics is a contact sport and that every public utterance they make is fair game. But, they argue, filming a home — and posting actual addresses— ought to be off-limits, if only out of respect for their families and neighbors. . . .Trackers assigned to California GOP candidate Ricky Gill, a highly touted challenger to Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney, pushed the edge of the envelope even further.  In May, a clip of Gill’s parents’ Lodi, Calif., mansion appeared online. . . .Democrats, on the other hand, insist the videos are fair game — and are unapologetic about the hardball tactics. . . .