Open Left - Rasmussen

Americans are Pessimistic and Optimistic at the Same Time

tremayne — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:45:00 GMT

Some new data suggests Americans hold a negative opinion about the state of the country and are optimistic as well. How can this be? At least two explanations are possible and there's data for each:

1. People are unhappy about how things are going now but hopeful about the future.

and/or

2. The country is split. Some optimists, some pessimists.

The latter split, according to one report, is not along party lines but a split between populists and the "ruling class." Details ahead.

First, a new public opinion poll from Pew. They have historically used two measures of the "mood" of the country. One is a right track/wrong track question and the other is a measure of satisfaction. Over the last two decades these measures track very closely together (click the link to see the chart). But now the two measures are in sharp contrast with each other. Only 20 percent say they are satisfied with the state of the country while 41 percent say the country is on the right track.

The obvious explanation is the "satisfaction" measure reflects the present mood and the "right track"measure reflects expectations for the future. When you break this poll out by party afilliation you find that Democrats more than Republicans believe we are headed in the right direction. Almost everyone agrees thngs aren't great right now.

The second poll on this theme was released by Rasmussen last week. Some are skeptical of Rasmussen because its founder is reportedly Republican but I've found their election polling to be more accurate than many of the other pollsters out there and am reluctant to dismiss their results altogether.

They used 3 questions to categorized people as primarily "populist" (Mainstream according to Rasmussen) or as belonging more to the "political class."

-- Generally speaking, when it comes to important national issues, whose judgment do you trust more - the American people or America’s political leaders?
-- Some people believe that the federal government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests. Has the federal government become a special interest group?

-- Do government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors?

To create a scale, each response earns a plus 1 for the populist answer, a minus 1 for the political class answer, and a 0 for not sure.

Those who score 2 or higher are considered a populist or part of the Mainstream. Those who score minus 2 or lower are considered to be aligned with the Political Class. Those who score +1 or minus 1 are considered leaners in one direction or the other.

We can certainly quibble with this measure. But first the results. They find that 55 percent are populist and 20 percent lean that way, seven percent are "political class" and seven percent more lean that way. The "populist" group is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.

What do the "political class" believe? Most (76 percent) hold a favorable view of Treasury Secretary Geithner, most believe AIG should be bailed out and most believe the government is doing the right thing on economic matters.

The populists (or Mainstream class in Rasmussen terms) are very different. Only 12 percent have a favorable view of Geithner and they don't believe the government should be bailing out corporations such as AIG. And there's this:

The biggest surprise so far is that a plurality of the Political Class believes the economy is getting better while 66% of those in the Mainstream say it’s getting worse.

So, two different ways of interpreting the apparently contradictory mood of the country. What is your take?

Did the GOP Really Pull Even With The Democrats in the Congressional Ballot?

Daniel De Groot — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 12:00:00 GMT

On March 17, NPR published a poll under the innocuous headline "More Voters Think U.S. Is On Right Track." That poll had a rather surprising result on the question of generic Congressional ballot preference, with Democrats and Republicans tied at 42, and 15% undecided. Whoa. Is that true?

Well if you check the pollster trendlines, this seems entirely plausible:

Well I'm calling foul on this. More inside.
Being a general believer in the utility and statistical veracity of polling, I can't claim to know for a fact that these polls are in error, but I can point to other evidence which makes even this aggregate group of polls unlikely in the extreme.

Absence of Corroborating Evidence

The biggest problem with this result is that it suggests that voters are losing faith in Democrats to the point of being willing to reconsider and re-elect Republicans. But the other polling results both in that NPR poll and in many others don't back that claim. First, as NPR's own title noted, voters are increasingly viewing the country as being on the right track:

5/08	3/09	Response
16%	31%	RIGHT DIRECTION
80%	63%	WRONG TRACK

Now, the right/wrong tracks are still overwhelmingly negative, but the 80% of voters who said "wrong track" in 2008 didn't boot the Democrats out, is it likely that the 63% saying "wrong track" today are planning to do so in 2010? But the plot thickens further:

Not only are voters increasingly viewing the country as on the right track, but they are increasingly approving of their federal legislative branch. 36A/56D isn't anything to be excited about, but the trend is clearly increasing. So again, not conclusive, but definitely suggestive that voters are not really gearing up to vote Republican. Let's get a little more partisan now:

Here's where I think the plausiblity of the NPR and Pollster aggregate is most in question. While the Democrats in Congress are not exceedingly popular, hovering around and below a net of 0, the Republicans are somewhere below "abysmal" and actually sinking. Voters are ambivalent about the Democrats in Congress, but they loathe and despise the Republicans. Collectively (and I could also point to Obama's strong approval and popularity numbers, a very important metric for the performance of a party in a mid-term election) these make a pretty strong case that the Generic Ballot polling is wrong.

So What Happened? - NPR

Aside from being a smaller sample (~800), the big problem I have with the NPR poll is demographics.

Question D4 on page 15 of the poll asks about ideology, and provides all the historical, an excerpt of which I've extracted:

5/03	1/08	5/08	3/09	Response
43%	40%	35%	45%	TOTAL CONSERVATIVE
16%	19%	21%	19%	TOTAL LIBERAL

45% is the highest proportion answering "conservative" in any iteration of this poll listed. Even going back to the heady days of the post-invasion period of apparent success in Iraq of May 2003, only 43% said they were conservative. Is it really believable that between May 2008 and March 2009, with the landslide election of a Democratic tri-fecta in November, the country became 10% more conservative?

What About Pollster's Trend?

The problem here, in a word is Rasmussen. If you look at the actual polls that make up this aggregate, it is overwhelmingly Rasmussen comprising this trend. 16 of the 20 polls since the 2008 election are Ras. I don't have access to their internals to pick at their demographics, but in an election where Democrats won the national House popular vote by 53 to 44, Rasmussen's first post-election poll which started the day after has it only 43D/41R. From a real world PV victory of +9, Ras finds Dems only +2 literally the day after. Call me a little suspicious of their likely voter screen.

Someone else needs to poll this question for greater certainty, but for now this looks like an outlier from NPR combined with Rasmussen's poor screen.

The Making of A Landslide--A Progress Report

Paul Rosenberg — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 22:51:58 GMT

I just want to do a brief review here of some of the recent signs pointing to an ever-more-likely landslide victory scenario this November, with special emphasis on the House.

I'm combining information from three sources: Rasmussen, Democracy Corps and Cook Political Report.

First, there's the latest information on Partisan ID from Rasmussen, based on their daily tracking polls. Here's the chart I generated from their data. It shows how Democratic Party identification jumped sharply from the beginning of the primary season, after falling into the doldrums during 2007, when the Democratic Congress basically failed to deliver much of anything. It's remained fairly steady the last few months, but at record high levels:

A bit explanation and the table the chart is based on can be found on the flip, along the goods from Democracy Corps and Cook Political Report.
Democracy Corps: Battleground Disticts Extremely Promising

First, Democracy Corps makes it clear that their battleground polling is increasingly focused deep into Repubican territory:

Even as we modified our sample design to include more hard-to-reach Republican-held districts, Democrats have significantly expanded their lead in this totally Republican battleground that Bush won by 12 points in 2004 and Republican members won by the same margin in 2006. You have to remind yourself that this is not a national poll but a poll in Republican-held seats where Democrats have moved to a 7-point lead (50 to 43 percent). Further, Republican incumbents have a very weak standing to be reelected while Democratic challengers enjoy a larger pool of winnable voters to approach in this election, win the issue debates and prove to be resilient to the most vicious Republican attacks. The underlying dynamics of the race show that the battleground could expand even further into Republican territory as more voters are open to vote Democratic in November.1
Will there be a second wave election in a row? Obviously, Democrats will not win all of
these competitive seats but there is no reason to think they cannot win a majority of these seats in an environment that is increasingly Democratic.
[T]he structure of the race as well as Democrats' advantage across the board show that 2008 can be another wave election for Democrats. To take advantage of this opportunity Democrats will have to expand the playing field further into Republican territory.

Releasing its latest numbers, this is what Rasmussen had to say, in part:

The Democratic Party maintained its huge edge in party identification during the month of May. Barack Obama's Party now has the largest partisan advantage over the Republicans since Rasmussen Reports began tracking this data on a monthly basis nearly six years ago (see history from January 2004 to present).
During the month of April, 41.7% of Americans considered themselves to be Democrats. Just 31.6% said they were Republicans and 26.6% were not affiliated with either major party. This is the third straight month Obama's team has enjoyed a double-digit edge.
Forty-seven percent (47%) of women say they're Democrats and just under 30% identify with the GOP. Men are more evenly divided-36% say they're Democrats and 34% Republican.
Democrats have the advantage among all age groups and also lead among those who earn less than $75,000 a year. The two parties are even among higher-income adults. Party identification is essentially even among Investors but Democrats have a 47% to 25% advantage among non-Investors.
May was also the fourth straight month that the number of Democrats topped 41%. Prior to February of this year, neither party had ever reached the 39% level of support. Rasmussen Reports tracks this information based upon telephone interviews with approximately 15,000 adults per month and has been doing so since November 2002.

And here are the underlying figures:

Partisan ID Tracking, 2004-Date: Rasmussen
	Republican	Democrat	Other	R - D	Quarterly	Dem/Rep
2004
January	34.60%	36.90%	28.50%	-2.30%		1.07
February	34.50%	38.40%	27.10%	-3.90%		1.11
March	34.30%	38.30%	27.40%	-4.00%	-3.40%	1.12
April	34.20%	37.00%	28.80%	-2.80%		1.08
May	34.70%	37.40%	27.90%	-2.60%		1.08
June	35.30%	37.30%	27.50%	-2.00%	-2.50%	1.06
July	35.50%	38.40%	26.10%	-3.00%		1.08
August	35.10%	37.70%	27.30%	-2.60%		1.07
September	37.30%	37.90%	24.80%	-0.60%	-2.10%	1.02
October	37.20%	38.70%	24.10%	-1.50%		1.04
November	37.10%	38.60%	24.30%	-1.60%		1.04
December	37.10%	38.80%	24.10%	-1.70%	-1.60%	1.05

2005
January	36.00%	37.00%	27.00%	-1.10%		1.03
February	36.20%	36.90%	26.80%	-0.70%		1.02
March	35.30%	38.10%	26.60%	-2.80%	-1.50%	1.08
April	34.40%	38.10%	27.50%	-3.70%		1.11
May	35.10%	37.00%	27.90%	-2.00%		1.05
June	35.60%	36.40%	27.90%	-0.80%	-2.20%	1.02
July	35.30%	35.90%	28.80%	-0.70%		1.02
August	34.90%	36.30%	28.70%	-1.40%		1.04
September	34.80%	36.80%	28.40%	-1.90%	-1.30%	1.06
October	34.10%	36.20%	29.60%	-2.10%		1.06
November	34.10%	37.90%	28.00%	-3.90%		1.11
December	33.90%	35.90%	30.20%	-1.90%	-2.60%	1.06

2006
January	34.50%	36.10%	29.50%	-1.60%		1.05
February	33.80%	36.50%	29.60%	-2.70%		1.08
March	34.00%	36.70%	29.30%	-2.70%	-2.40%	1.08
April	32.70%	36.40%	30.90%	-3.70%		1.11
May	33.60%	36.40%	30.00%	-2.80%		1.08
June	33.50%	37.00%	29.50%	-3.40%	-3.30%	1.1
July	32.80%	36.80%	30.40%	-3.90%		1.12
August	31.90%	37.30%	30.80%	-5.30%		1.17
September	32.30%	37.00%	30.70%	-4.80%	-4.70%	1.15
October	31.50%	37.70%	30.70%	-6.20%		1.2
November	31.40%	37.50%	31.20%	-6.10%		1.19
December	31.10%	38.00%	30.80%	-6.90%	-6.40%	1.22

2007
January	32.10%	37.50%	30.30%	-5.40%		1.17
February	31.70%	37.80%	30.50%	-6.10%		1.19
March	31.50%	37.20%	31.30%	-5.70%	-5.70%	1.18
April	31.00%	36.50%	32.40%	-5.50%		1.18
May	30.80%	36.30%	32.90%	-5.50%		1.18
June	32.00%	36.10%	31.90%	-4.10%	-5.00%	1.13
July	31.30%	35.90%	32.90%	-4.60%		1.15
August	32.50%	37.40%	30.10%	-4.90%		1.15
September	32.60%	37.20%	30.20%	-4.50%	-4.70%	1.14
October	32.70%	37.30%	30.00%	-4.50%		1.14
November	32.50%	37.40%	30.20%	-4.90%		1.15
December	34.20%	36.30%	29.50%	-2.10%	-3.80%	1.06

2008
January	33.10%	38.70%	28.20%	-5.60%		1.17
February	31.80%	41.50%	26.70%	-9.70%		1.31
March	32.10%	41.10%	26.80%	-9.10%	-8.10%	1.28
April	31.40%	41.40%	27.20%	-10.00%		1.32
May	31.60%	41.70%	26.60%	-10.10%		1.32

Clearly, the movement here is a solid foundation for a political realignment. What gets done when Democrats take power will be crucial, of course. But the foundations are already there.

Democracy Corps: Battleground Disticts Extremely Promising

First, Democracy Corps (PDF here) makes it clear that their battleground polling is increasingly focused deep into Repubican territory:

Even as we modified our sample design to include more hard-to-reach Republican-held districts, Democrats have significantly expanded their lead in this totally Republican battleground that Bush won by 12 points in 2004 and Republican members won by the same margin in 2006. You have to remind yourself that this is not a national poll but a poll in Republican-held seats where Democrats have moved to a 7-point lead (50 to 43 percent). Further, Republican incumbents have a very weak standing to be reelected while Democratic challengers enjoy a larger pool of winnable voters to approach in this election, win the issue debates and prove to be resilient to the most vicious Republican attacks. The underlying dynamics of the race show that the battleground could expand even further into Republican territory as more voters are open to vote Democratic in November.1
Will there be a second wave election in a row? Obviously, Democrats will not win all of
these competitive seats but there is no reason to think they cannot win a majority of these seats in an environment that is increasingly Democratic....
[T]he structure of the race as well as Democrats' advantage across the board show that 2008 can be another wave election for Democrats. To take advantage of this opportunity Democrats will have to expand the playing field further into Republican territory.

Their first chart shows the solid position of Democrats in the low-hanging fruit districts, as well as the harder-to-reach ones:

Democrats lead the congressional vote not only in the most competitive districts (51 to 42 percent), but also in the harder-to-reach districts (48 to 45 percent).

And next, a breakdown into demographic regions:

Next, they move on to a measure of the strength of voter support:

The structure of the congressional race is still dynamic but it seems to be moving further away from Republicans. Unlike the presidential race, where Obama and McCain have nearly identical patterns of support, the congressional race shows Democrats are in a stronger position to hold on to their vote and expand their lead. The Voter Choice Scale below uses eight questions to determine intensity of support, the probability of it being eroded, the scale of winnable voters and the number that are unreachable. In this survey Democrats have more strong supporters and winnable voters than Republicans while Republicans have more vulnerable voters than Democrats.

Next, we see that support for Democratic challengers is way up since already very promising levels in January-this is against named incumbents:

Next, they try to look ahead to what the campaign may bring in the way of attack messages:

The strongest attacks and impact
One of the most important findings in this survey is the fact that Democrats hold on to their lead in this battleground even after we replicate a campaign environment and respondents are exposed to an equal number of Democratic and Republican attacks. Nevertheless, there are some attacks that Democrats must preempt. Republican attacks on Democrats for increasing taxes and supporting big government run health care programs work fairly well (54 and 52 percent total serious doubts, respectively) and are also strong predictors of the congressional vote. An attack focused on amnesty is somewhat stronger (64 percent total serious doubts), though it is not a strong predictor of vote behavior.
There are two lines of attacks that can be used against Republican incumbents that raise serious doubts, which are also strong predictors of the vote and the incumbents' favorability.
That Republican incumbents are following Bush's direction in Iraq and the economy (51 percent total serious doubts) and that they will provide tax breaks for the rich, while offering nothing for the middle class which raises doubts for nearly two thirds of voters. These hits are important to show a sharp contrast between the status quo incumbents and their Democratic challengers that will deliver change.

Of course, this doesn't really account for the full depth of Republican sleaze attacks. But, then, it doesn't realloy account for the full depth of Republican sleaze that's going to keep coming out in the papers, either.

On the most salient issues, the Democrats remain in very good shape:

Good News On Iraq

On Iraq, there is good news for Democrats all around with polling that explicitly links Democratic candidates and Obama, Republicans and John McCain.

Iraq paired debate-with Obama reference

Now I'm going to read you what the candidates for Congress are saying on Iraq. Regardless of who you would vote for please tell me whether the Democratic statement or the Republican statement comes closer to your own view, even if neither is exactly right.

The Democratic candidate says the war in Iraq has cost us trillions of dollars while our economy has weakened, and has made America less secure. We must strengthen America's security by following Barack Obama's plan to start reducing our troops in Iraq in a responsible way, force the Iraqi government to use its oil money to pay for reconstruction and work with other nations to bring stability. We need to invest the money we are currently spending in Iraq to restore our military, deal with Afghanistan and strengthen America's own economy and security. But the Republican candidate for Congress wants to keep our troops in Iraq for at least another 5 years.

The Republican candidate says there has been military and political progress in Iraq, and that to withdraw now would cost more in lives and create more instability in the Middle East. If we follow John McCain's lead to see our commitment through until the end of his first term, by 2013 America will have welcomed most of our troops home and the Iraq war will have been won. Though some violence will still occur, Iraq will be a functioning democracy with al Qaeda defeated and the U.S. maintaining just a small military presence that does not play a direct combat role. But the Democratic candidate forCongress wants to pull our troops out precipitously and give al Qaeda a big victory.

Good News On "Values"

There is further good news as the ground continues to shift on gay civil unions-can marriage be far behind?

Surprisingly, Democrats even win the values debate in this Republican battleground. By a significant 9-point margin, voters favor a Democrat who supports civil unions and opposes a constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage over a Republican who favors such a constitutional amendment and characterizes Democrats as out of touch with mainstream values. More importantly, Democrats win this debate among independents and vulnerable/winnable voters though voters who are undecided in the congressional vote side with Republicans on this issue.

Democratic position on gay marriage, civil unions is favored by electorate

The Democratic candidate says, I believe we need to be fair and support granting civil unions to gay and lesbian couples, which grant many of the legal rights and responsibilities of married couples. But I oppose a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage because decisions about marriage should be left to the states as they always have been. This debate is important, but the Republican candidate for Congress is using it to divide our country and distract our attention from their lack of solutions to end the war in Iraq and fix our struggling economy.

The Republican candidate says, the recent decision by the California Supreme Court to legalize gay marriage is a big step that can lead to force other states to accept marriage between gay and lesbian couples. We need a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and preserve the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. Of course, this country faces a lot of other problems than need to be addressed, but our core values are under assault and it is a shame that Democrats are not standing up for American families.

All in all, the Democracy Corps report leaves us with only one question: "What's not to like?"

Cook Political Report-GOP In Retreat

Finally, Mother Jones reports:

10 House Races All Headed in One Direction
Charlie Cook and the folks at the Cook Political Report have changed their ratings on 10 different House races. A Republican is the incumbent in all of them. Guess which direction they're heading:
CA-04 - OPEN (Doolittle) - Solid Republican to Likely Republican
CO-04 - Marilyn Musgrave - Lean Republican to Toss Up
CT-04 - Chris Shays - Lean Republican to Toss Up
IL-10 - Mark Kirk - Lean Republican to Toss Up
NM-02 - OPEN (Pearce) - Likely Republican to Lean Republican
NY-29 - Randy Kuhl - Lean Republican to Toss Up
NC-08 - Robin Hayes - Lean Republican to Toss Up
OH-01 - Steve Chabot - Lean Republican to Toss Up
VA-02 - Thelma Drake - Likely Republican to Lean Republican
WA-08 - Dave Reichert - Lean Republican to Toss Up

We're still a long way from November, of course. But that means even more opportunities to make even greater inroads.

Obama 42, McCain 38, Barr 6, Nader 4: Rasmussen's flawed 3rd party poll

green in brooklyn — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:42:57 GMT

Cross posted on from DailyKos with a different poll

Rasmussen recently published results of their first (as far as I know) poll involving more than the two major party candidates. While I am glad to see some reality based polling going on (there will be 5 or 6 candidates on most of the ballot for Pres in most states in November), Rasmussen has some pretty serious flaws in methodology (shocking, I know).

Obama earns 42% of the vote, McCain 38%, Bob Barr 6% and Ralph Nader 4%. Given those options, 11% were undecided.Barr and Nader were mentioned as candidates of the Libertarian Party and the Green Party respectively.

By comparison, Sunday's 2-way numbers were Obama 45 McCain 44 - clearly this is good news for Obama, even if the real pull the lever November support of these two candidates is only half what is shown here. Details on the poll numbers, as well as analysis of both the results and Rasmussen's flawed methodology after the jump.

Barr picked up 7% of the Republican vote, 5% of the Democratic vote, and 5% of the unaffiliated vote. participants to choose between Barack Obama, John McCain and some other candidate.
Nader got 1% of the Republican vote, 3% of the Democratic vote, and 8% support from those not affiliated with either major party.

It's interesting to note that A) Barr pulls more from McCain than Nader does from Obama, and B) Barr gets more democratic support than Nader - most of Nader's support comes from 'people unaffiliated with either major party' - which of course includes several million voters who are members of 3rd parties, and not 'unaffiliated' as all.

It's the last sentence of the first graph, however, that is a big, well, fabrication:

Barr and Nader were mentioned as candidates of the Libertarian Party and the Green Party respectively.

1) Ralph Nader is not a Green
Ralph Nader is not a member of the Green Party, nor has he ever been. He was our candidate in 2000, but NOT in 2004. Greens in 2004 decided not to endorse Nader, instead choosing to nominate relatively unknown party activist David Cobb, who concentrated on raising money for and supporting local candidates.

2) Cynthia McKinney will win the Green Party Nomination
There is more of a chance of Obama losing the Dem nomination in August than McKinney losing it in July at the Green Party Convention in Chicago. Nader has said unequivocally that he is not seeking the Green Party nomination in 2008, but is running as an independent candidate. As in 2004, there are some Greens (mainly limited to California this time), who want to nominate no one, and instead endorse Nader and give him our ballot lines. At the convention in July, two things have to occur for this to happen. The Greens have to nominate 'no candidate', and then vote to endorse a Nader candidacy. In 2004, we were facing an illegal war in Iraq, the possibility of another 4 years of Bush, and backlash from progressives at a local level against Greens b/c of Nader being blamed for Bush in 2000, and thus an unknown got the nomination over Nader. This year, we have a Dem congress, voted into office to stop the war, than has shown no ability or real inclination to do so, serious Nader fatigue amongst Greens, and a six term Black woman former Dem who stands for everything Greens do, and projects an image of a diverse Green Party that long time Greens activists have been working toward for a long time.

McKinney is ahead in the official delegate count McKinney 167, Nader 113, Others 77, NOTA/Umcommitted 19) but Nader drew a huge chunk of his support in 2004 from three states: CA, FL & NY. Nader did well in the CA primary this year (2:1 over McKinney), but not nearly as well as he did in 2004, and the NY delegate count, which was 36-4 Nader-Cobb in 2004 (I was one of the 4), is probably going to go to McKinney by a significant margin, as will Fl, NJ, PA, etc, and she may even win on the first ballot.

3) 3 old white guys and a young black guy.
The poll includes McCain (old white guy - see last night's SNL), Barr (old white former Congresscritter), Nader (even older white/Lebanese guy, but more people think Obama is Muslim than realize that Nader's parents are Lebanese), and Obama. Let's add a Black Woman to that equation - in fact, the first black woman elected to Congress from the state of Georgiam who voted against the Patriot Act, every funding bill for Iraq, and introduced article sof Impeachment against Bush, Cheney & Rice. After a divisive dem race where the losing democratic candidate got more than 15 million votes, most of them from women, I think at least a few disenchanted Hillary supporters them will consider voting for McKinney over McCain, many of whom wouldn't vote for Nader.

4) Bob Barr may not win the LP nomination.
He got in the race late, the purist libertarians don't think he's libertarian enough, and he's running against literally 16 other people. No one really has any clue what will happen in Denver next weekend, but if Obama and the DNC were smart, they'd try to infiltrate the LP convention to sway delegates to vote for Bob Barr, who is the Dems wet dream of a third party candidate, as he may well get Nader 2000 numbers (not 6%, but 3% will really hurt McCain, who is having a tough time rallying the various constituents of the GOP as it is) mostly drawing from the fiscal conservatives that McCain desperately needs to win. I wish I could be a fly on the wall for the floor fight for the LP nomination, between the people who want to build the party into something that can get more than 1/2% of the vote every 4 years, those trying to continue to build on the Ron Paul revolution, and those who want their candidates pure and therefore irrelevantly Libertarian (like Mary Ruwart and Wayne Allen Root). And of course, Ron Paul will likely not be there in person, but his presence will be felt. If I can find a link to a webcast or broadcast of the LP convention, I will add an update.

5) Chuck Baldwin
Chuck Baldwin, a former campaign insider for Ron Paul, has won the Constitution Party nomination. I doubt he'll do as well as Bob Barr would, but if Ron Paul endorses, or there continues to be discontent among the social conservative Republicans, especially in dark red NW Florida where Baldwin is a pastor and radio talk show host, I think a bunch of the votes Rasmussen has going to Barr may go to him, and perhaps enough votes in Florida to affect a tight race.

As in 2000 and 2004, this poll probably overstates the real 3rd party vote totals (Nader polled 6-7% of the vote a week before the 2000 race, and got 2.7%), but there is a lot of discontent out there, inside and outside the two major parties. I think it likely that Obama will have to win a landslide to get more than 50% of the vote, but it's not hard to see a scenario where McCain gets less than 40%, especially if Barr gets the LP nomination, and Barr and/or Baldwin get into debates. The Obama folks should really push to have at least one national debate with the major 3rd party candidates (in September, say), as McCain has more to lose than Obama at this point.

The Democratic Wave Since 2004--Rasmussen Tracking

Paul Rosenberg — Sun, 11 May 2008 19:46:57 GMT

First the Republicans began losing voters, then, only quite recently the Democrats began gaining them. Although the magnitude is less than that shown in a recent Pew Poll, the broad storyline is the same. Indeed, within the last month, the Rasmussen figures have suddenly jumped into the same range that Pew gave:

Table on the flip.
The movement since the primaries started is particularly striking--though the potential for it has been building for some time:

Partisan ID Tracking, 2004-Date: Rasmussen
	Republican	Democrat	Other	R - D	Quarterly	Dem/Rep
2004
January	34.60%	36.90%	28.50%	-2.30%		1.07
February	34.50%	38.40%	27.10%	-3.90%		1.11
March	34.30%	38.30%	27.40%	-4.00%	-3.40%	1.12
April	34.20%	37.00%	28.80%	-2.80%		1.08
May	34.70%	37.40%	27.90%	-2.60%		1.08
June	35.30%	37.30%	27.50%	-2.00%	-2.50%	1.06
July	35.50%	38.40%	26.10%	-3.00%		1.08
August	35.10%	37.70%	27.30%	-2.60%		1.07
September	37.30%	37.90%	24.80%	-0.60%	-2.10%	1.02
October	37.20%	38.70%	24.10%	-1.50%		1.04
November	37.10%	38.60%	24.30%	-1.60%		1.04
December	37.10%	38.80%	24.10%	-1.70%	-1.60%	1.05

2005
January	36.00%	37.00%	27.00%	-1.10%		1.03
February	36.20%	36.90%	26.80%	-0.70%		1.02
March	35.30%	38.10%	26.60%	-2.80%	-1.50%	1.08
April	34.40%	38.10%	27.50%	-3.70%		1.11
May	35.10%	37.00%	27.90%	-2.00%		1.05
June	35.60%	36.40%	27.90%	-0.80%	-2.20%	1.02
July	35.30%	35.90%	28.80%	-0.70%		1.02
August	34.90%	36.30%	28.70%	-1.40%		1.04
September	34.80%	36.80%	28.40%	-1.90%	-1.30%	1.06
October	34.10%	36.20%	29.60%	-2.10%		1.06
November	34.10%	37.90%	28.00%	-3.90%		1.11
December	33.90%	35.90%	30.20%	-1.90%	-2.60%	1.06

2006
January	34.50%	36.10%	29.50%	-1.60%		1.05
February	33.80%	36.50%	29.60%	-2.70%		1.08
March	34.00%	36.70%	29.30%	-2.70%	-2.40%	1.08
April	32.70%	36.40%	30.90%	-3.70%		1.11
May	33.60%	36.40%	30.00%	-2.80%		1.08
June	33.50%	37.00%	29.50%	-3.40%	-3.30%	1.1
July	32.80%	36.80%	30.40%	-3.90%		1.12
August	31.90%	37.30%	30.80%	-5.30%		1.17
September	32.30%	37.00%	30.70%	-4.80%	-4.70%	1.15
October	31.50%	37.70%	30.70%	-6.20%		1.2
November	31.40%	37.50%	31.20%	-6.10%		1.19
December	31.10%	38.00%	30.80%	-6.90%	-6.40%	1.22

2007
January	32.10%	37.50%	30.30%	-5.40%		1.17
February	31.70%	37.80%	30.50%	-6.10%		1.19
March	31.50%	37.20%	31.30%	-5.70%	-5.70%	1.18
April	31.00%	36.50%	32.40%	-5.50%		1.18
May	30.80%	36.30%	32.90%	-5.50%		1.18
June	32.00%	36.10%	31.90%	-4.10%	-5.00%	1.13
July	31.30%	35.90%	32.90%	-4.60%		1.15
August	32.50%	37.40%	30.10%	-4.90%		1.15
September	32.60%	37.20%	30.20%	-4.50%	-4.70%	1.14
October	32.70%	37.30%	30.00%	-4.50%		1.14
November	32.50%	37.40%	30.20%	-4.90%		1.15
December	34.20%	36.30%	29.50%	-2.10%	-3.80%	1.06

2008
January	33.10%	38.70%	28.20%	-5.60%		1.17
February	31.80%	41.50%	26.70%	-9.70%		1.31
March	32.10%	41.10%	26.80%	-9.10%	-8.10%	1.28
April	31.40%	41.40%	27.20%	-10.00%		1.32