National Security Woes Plague Dems

Our friends across the aisle at Democracy Corps released a survey yesterday that received a lot of national attention.   Calling it a wake-up call, they noted “the results are sobering” for President Obama and the Democrats.  Their analysis is well worth reading, including the point that:
Historical doubts about the Democratic Party on national security show [...]

GOP Interest Remains Higher Than Dem

Going back a few weeks to the NPR poll, there was some interesting findings that I did not get to (apologies, but there was a death in the family). 
One of the last posts I wrote was on the GOP’s new lead on the generic ballot.  Just as important is the interest advantage among Republicans — [...]

GOP Now Holds Sizable Lead on the Generic Ballot. . .

For the first time since June 2003, the Republican candidate has a five point lead on the generic ballot in a new survey conducted for NPR by Public Opinion Strategies and Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner and Associates.  The Republican candidate has a 44%-39% advantage.
(The analysis of the data in this article  does not necessarily reflect the [...]

Lessons from Virginia and Massachusetts

On Sunday, January 24th, the lead op-ed in the Sunday Outlook section of the Washington Post was written by Glen Bolger and Neil Newhouse.
Here are some of the highlights from the article:
We had the privilege of serving as pollsters in two of these three victorious Republican campaigns, in Virginia and in Massachusetts, and we found [...]

It’s Not Just The Economy, Stupid

Senior White House political adviser David Axelrod recently made the case that one of three ways the Democrats could improve their position in the 2010 mid-terms would be for job growth and an economic recovery.   Obviously an economy that is creating jobs rather than simply shedding them is more helpful to the party in power, [...]

Analysis: GOP Candidates Need to Stay on Message, NOT Play the Inside the Beltway Game

The current debate among pundits regarding the GOP’s chances to take control of the House and make sizable gains in the Senate is both important and completely not important.
It is important because the perceived chances of a GOP takeover in the House and a much better ability in the Senate to check the Dems agenda [...]

TARP Leftovers? Deficit Reduction, Not Stimulus

The recently completed “Wealth in America” survey done for CNBC by Dem pollster Peter Hart, and GOP pollster (and my biz partner) Bill McInturff, had an interesting question on the unused TARP money.  The survey was conducted December 1-3, 2009 among 808 adults.
The question:
There is some two hundred billion dollars left over from the federal [...]

Shhh — Don’t Tell Anyone, But Obama Hurt Deeds in Virginia

Democrats and the press are on a self-delusional kick that Barack Obama had nothing to do with the results in Virginia and New Jersey.  That’s fine by me.  The more the Dems deny to themselves that Independents moved to the GOP and that Republican voters were fired up because of concerns about Obama, the less [...]

Fired Up, Ready to Go Storm the Ballot Boxes

The biggest story of Bob McDonnell’s dominating win in the Virginia Gubernatorial election is the enthusiasm of Republican voters, and the dispirited nature of Democratic voters.
In 2005, I did the polling for Bob’s successful run for Attorney General. It’s now famous that Bob won the race by only 323 votes over Creigh Deeds. Bob was [...]

Lessons Learned From the Virginia Gubernatorial Race

Win or lose, there are always lessons to be learned from campaigns. Here are five lessons from Virginia:

In a toss-up political environment, candidate quality matters most. The political environment has shifted back to even, away from Dem dominance. The mood of the state under a Democrat governor was mixed, and President Obama had a 51% [...]