Monmouth has a new poll out showing Democrats with a 7% lead on the generic congressional ballot. They call this a "slight gain" from the dead heat they measured in June, and I guess that's fair enough. Still, here's what things look like:
The blue dots in September are all the recent results at 538.com from high-quality pollsters. It shows an average Democratic lead of about four points.
That's not enough. Dems probably need something like a seven or eight point lead to feel like they'll be truly competitive in November. Nonetheless, things are looking up for them.
Seems to me we need three things:
- Continue the momentum, especially around abortion,
- Convince Senator Quickypants to quit fucking around and pass the damn bill,
- Be alert for media-savvy October Surprises, and line up one of our own.
Democrats need to bypass the press/media. They range from Republican-friendly to outright propagandists. Do not expect fairness or honesty. It's not going to happen.
👍👍👍
The Honourable Alito did the Democrats a great favour in being an ideologue over a clever schemer like the Chief Justice.
Amen, brother.
All polls are meaningless. The only thing that matters is turnout.
There is a sea-change in the mood of the country. So dude, where's your epilogue post on PACT?
The initial June senate vote on the bill was 84 - 14. After the Republican amendment failed last night, the final bill passed 86 - 11.
Quite stunning. Two Republicans who'd voted "no" on the initial bill switched their vote. It just goes to show how Toomey's stunt spectacularly failed in the end.
With abortion rights getting upheld in deep red, bible thumping Kansas today, it is telling you that it is a winning issue. Democrats need to be chanting abortion rights 24/7 in political campaigns from dog catcher to senator. And if they get tired of that, remind the voters that they risk losing the right to contraceptives, marriage equality, and sexual freedom if they vote for any republican candidate (note the Texas AG stated he would be happy to enforce the sodomy laws should SCOTUS shit can Lawrence vs Texas 2003).
Hopeful if gas goes down another $0.50 - $.75, there is some improvement on topside inflation stats, and we not yet in a recession by election day, perhaps we can keep the Senate
If gas is below $4 soon, Democrats have a chance. If it gets below $3, and stsys there before end of Sept., they'll hold on and maybe pick up some seats.
September polls?
The question is, if you were to donate money to a Democratic candidate, where would you get the most bang for the buck?
Not Charles Booker. He's just another Mc Grath.
Give to Democrat Secretaries of State (Griswold (CO), Clark (OH), Benson (MI), Nguyen (GA), La Follette (WI), et. al.) & more tenuous Democrat US House incumbents (Davids (KS), Luria (VA), the two challengers in Oranqe Qounty to Michelle Steel & Yunq Qim (Jay Chen & Asif Mahmood), especially since either Steel or Qim losing would be a blow to Jabberwocking, etc.), & potential Senate holds or pickups with less name recognition than Mark Kelly, Rev. ( ( ( Warnock ) ) ), or Vigilante Shrek (Cortez-Masto, Demings, Beasley, et. al.).
Golack
Crude near $88bbl as of right now.
Gas should be falling in price rapidly now.
7-8 is enough. Anymore is wave territory.
The inner workings of the minds of these voters swinging back and forth between support for republicans and democrats must be an amazing thing to behold.
No one I know suffers from that sort of indecision. I'm sure I don't want to know people like that.
My impression is somewhat different. I don’t think the predominant factor is voters vacillating between the parties. I think for many fairly conservative voters abortion was more of a modest cultural identifier than an all consuming crusade. The status quo was essentially acceptable but attacking it was also acceptable as a cultural identifier because it was all for show.
The post-Dobbs outpouring of extremism (no exceptions for rape, incest, or health of the mother contrasted terrifyingly and unacceptably with real world consequences such as declarations by Republicans that the 10-year rape victim and other children should be forced to give birth. And it’s pretty clear that all forms of contraception and sexual activities are on the Republicans radar.
That said, it's more than a cultural totem when you consider that even the mildest pro-lifers admired the steely resolve of Eric Robert Rudolph. He stood tall against what he considered infanticide.
Two things worth mentioning:
First, if they are going to run on protecting abortion rights, the Democrats need to make it clear exactly what they’re going to do about abortion. And they need a specific pledge from every Democrat on this point. Josh Marshall has been doing a whole series on this point and I think his reasoning is very sound.
Second, if you’re going to be the party of supporting abortion rights, the Democrats need to be the party that supports abortion rights and not just the party supporting abortion rights until it’s time to campaign for Henry Cuellar.
Mitch
I don't think we need to call abortion a "right". THIS is problematic
First and foremost this should be protected info under HIPPA for patient, doctor and medical facility. Call it Concealed Carry for Women.
Second, the emphasis should be on prevention NOT termination.
This then eliminates the states trying to ban travel for abortion because they just don't know it's gonna happen. Teens (and some pre-teens) should have easy access to contraceptives
As an old Christian let me say this, WE (meaning Christians) have failed to instill our parents level of morals into our kids. Why? Because my generation failed to LEARN the morals of our parents. Let's face it we boomers loved sex, drugs and rock and roll as much as any other generation that has come along since then. Technology has made "porn" available to the masses. You no longer have to go to a store to buy a paper wrapped playboy magazine. That took a deliberate act by a person. Now, you can accidentally log into any porn site you want to with a click ! After awhile this avalanche of sex loosens just about anyones morals and there's no amount of preaching John Hagee, Charles Stanley, Creflo Dollar, and many MANY others could do to change that outlook. Now we have hypocrites like Jerry Falwell and far too many Catholic priests who's moral compasses have gone awry
Do we just give up? Or do we get real about it? I say get real. I eloped with my wife (her Dad crawled into a bottle after 23 years in the Air Force). We did not want THAT pressure of a wedding on him and we didn't want to expose my family to a mean drunk. Later we went and had our marriage blessed by the Church - but not until we "confessed" to having premarital sex. We thought "how silly is that?" But we did it because getting our marriage blessed by the Church was important enough to us both.
I sometimes think when it comes to abortion I am more Jewish than Christian in my outlook.
But we cannot legislate morality. We can teach it, but it is up to the individual to learn it. That 10 year old pregnant girl did more FOR abortion access than she could ever imagine. I hope she lives a happy, guilt-free life that is also free of trauma.
The republicans won't let her though
Christ did not discuss abortion in the New Testament, so one would suspect he had Jewish views on it too.
The current "Christian" view is more about controlling women and wanting to call those who disagree with them "baby-killers". Concern about unwanted pregnancies should mean greater access to birth control, concern about women losing their jobs if they take time off to have another child should mean paid parental leave laws, etc. Opposition to those is very revealing...
Kevin, the need for plus 5 percent was a product of the very efficient Gerrymandering of the 2010-12 legislatures dominated by Tea Partiers. The recent realignments have been limited by state courts enough so that Democrats have netted a gain of between six and ten seats. Over the decade that "efficient" Gerrymandering was washed out by demographic change in too many places, so the still-Republican legislatures took a different tack this cycle. They had the goal of making "Redder" districts that will remain "Red" for the entire decade.
So the net wastage of votes by Democrats has fallen to a bit below four percent at this time, which makes control of the House this year a practical goal. Whether the anger at the repeal of Roe v. Wade wreaks the same havoc in November that it did Tuesday in Kansas of course remains to be seen.
But things are looking up.
This is a national poll of 808 people. Such polls can probably disclose trends, but are not of much value in predicting overall election outcomes. The pollsters don't say where the people are (its "a probability-based national random sample"), but sampling equally from all states and all districts (two from each Congressional district?) would be fairly useless - only a relatively small number of races are not locked up. No matter how you do it, there couldn't be many actual respondents in the uncertain districts.
Pollsters tend to get about a thousand respondents because that gets the theoretical overall minimum statistical uncertainty down to a few percent, but the real uncertainty as to national outcome is much greater because the uncertain contests are not sampled enough. I am not sure if any national pollsters make any effort to sample in a more productive way. Polls in individual districts tend to be paid for by candidates and may be biased.