Recent polling for Senate: Montana: Tester up 1.4% over Rehberg (I'll take it.) Nevada: Berkley and Heller tied (I'll take that as well.) Missouri: McCaskill up 6% on Akin Wisconsin: Baldwin up on Thompson by 1% Ohio: Brown over Mandel by 4% Connecticut: Murphy over McMahon by 6% Massachusetts: Warren up 6% over Brown Virginia: Kaine +7% over Allen Indiana: Donnelly up 2% on Mourdock (Whose name sounds like he should be a head Orc in a Tolkein book.)
It's a beautiful thing! Tea Party favorites, Michele Bachmann, Allen West, and Joe Walsh are all fighting for their political lives.
On the more fun side, between 2010 and 2012, I think the Tea Party likely cost the GOP control of the Senate. They should have had NV (2010), DE (2010), IN, and MO at the very least, if not for nominating crazy people.
Steve King is in a close one too. The polls there have been as small as a 2 point lead for King recently. Plus with the Obama ground game pushing turnout across Iowa, Christie Vilsack might get enough of a bump to pull it off. I'm really hoping all 4 of these idiots go.
the "Obama ground game" is a canard, the Dem turnout for 2000/2002/2004/2006/2008/2010 has been 39/38/37/38/39/35 http://baseballcrank.com/mt2/tra.pl?__mode=view&entry_id=7373 (bottom two lines are Ds that voted R and Rs that voted D) Obama won because of of depressed white/GOP turnout and winning independents in 2008. The exact opposite is the case this year.
First of all ground game is far more than just turning out self-identified Democrats. You spend March until October, simply ID'ing people with a little persuasion on some targeted folks. If you do a partisan breakdown of those IDs, you'll find a ton of independents thrown in who might ID as an Obama supporter. Those people will then become part of your turnout operation during the last week of the election despite their technically not ID'ing as a Democrat. Obama outperformed almost every poll by 2-3 points in 2008 which correlates almost exactly with the bump that a good field program will generally do for a campaign. Ground game won Obama Indiana, period. Flooding Indiana with volunteers from Illinois created a turnout program that the state had never seen before. That didnt just involve turning out Democrats, it involved turning out a lot of independents who decided to vote for Obama. Even beyond Obama, turnout and ground game was also way Harry Reid won in Nevada in 2010. Hispanic turnout there hit record numbers thanks to a very strong turnout machine they have there. In Montana, Democrats typically outperform any similar rural Republican state in part because their ground game is just far superior to any other state's in the region. Bottom line the goal of a ground game is to turn out all of your supporters, not just Democrats.
The point of a ground game is overperform polls - who's winning independents isn't really relevant. As a whole, independents are the least likely group to vote. So the goal of a ground game is to get your portion of independents to come out more than the other guy - then you do better with them than the polls say.
Yes, I've never seen a candidate excite voters the way Romney has. People absolutely love Mitt Romney! It's amazing how much enthusiasm people have for Mitt.
The Tea Party Creationist/Misogynist Mourdock is now -11 vs the Democrat. The white scum Tea Partyers have managed to screw up a Senate seat in red-blooded Indiana. God bless their Confederate asses.
Mourdock is a funny one. After Akin opened his mouth, Mourdock's staff cancelled all interviews and debates. They basically locked him in an office and prevented him from opening his mouth. They then agree to 1 debate a few days before it was supposed to start and then he opens his mouth and destroys any chance of winning. And unfortunately for Republicans, you cant gerrymander a Senate seat so there are actual consequences to saying stupid things.
Akin and Mourdock are just 2 seats. Nevada was theirs in 2010 when they could have done everyone a favor and retired Harry Reid, but the idiot Republicans nominated Sharron Angle. Don't forget Christine O'Donnell in New Jersey. Whatever happens Tuesday, Republicans should have 4 more seats in the Senate but their moronic candidates gave it away.
The O'Donnell win was especially sad. Mike Castle was one of the few Republicans you can genuinely call a moderate. Republican groups absolutely hated the guy because he crossed over and voted with Democrats on a ton of issues. If I remember correctly he was rated as the most moderate Republican in the US Congress and Senate.
With her, idiot Republicans deservedly found out "double or nothing" sometimes means nothing. Sheer and utter lunatic stupidity. It would really be nice if the national Republican party wasn't trash and offered alternatives I could vote for.
There was no way Republican could lose this seat if Lugar ran again, I hope this moron Mourdock loses big.
Flake up to no good in AZ: Does it bother Repubs that a huge amount of time and effort are being spent this cycle to try and prevent Americans from voting?
