Courtesy of state Elections, a mid-day bonus update on turnout!
Party
Returned
Eligible
Turnout %
Democrat
724366
937186
0.7729159419795
Republican
510486
697744
0.731623632736362
Nonaffiliated
256272
434109
0.590340214093695
Other
16482
28586
0.576575946267404
Constitution
1501
3014
0.498009289980093
Independent Party
27147
41640
0.651945244956772
Libertarian
7889
13860
0.569191919191919
Pacific Green
5731
8963
0.639406448733683
Peace Party
47
90
0.522222222222222
Working Families Party of Oregon
735
2065
0.355932203389831
Grand Total
1550656
2167257
0.715492440444304
You can see that we're just barely past the rounding point to get us up to 72%, up 6% from this morning at 8AM, and leaving 15% more needed to set a turnout record. As I've been saying, 20% is about how much tends to come in on the last day in a Presidential election, so it seems doable but will take some heavy balloting before then. (You've turned yours in, right? RIGHT??)
The turnout gap still favors Dems by just over 4%, an advantage cut in half since just last Thursday. Of course, we've seen about 600,000 ballots come in since then, and there aren't even that many left anymore. And it can't be overstated that even turnout parity with Republicans means a solid edge in raw vote totals, given the 200K+ reg edge for the Ds this year. So things are looking pretty good overall, and I think at the least we'll hit 80%.
Taking a look at our key views, Clackamas Dems are running a point or two behind the party average at 70%, which is about par for the course. GOP returns are also a couple points below their party average. Washington County looks almost exactly the same, down to the integer if not the decimal.
The big story among the Big Three counties is Multnomah, which quite unusually leads the statewide average at the moment, albeit by less than a point. Multno Dems are also exceeding their state averages by the same amount, and continue to maintain a 5-point turnout edge on the GOP.
Marion County remains below average for both parties, but the Dems still hold onto a 3-point edge. The same is true in Deschutes County, except both parties are exceeding the average instead of trailing it (80-77 Dems). Also notable is Lane County and its 211,000 voters, with a strong 77% overall average, and both parties well above their middle marks. Other counties have higher raw turnout totals, but they're much smaller counties. Special mention to Benton County at 76% overall, and the current leader Curry County, whose 14,000 voters are 81% of the way home already. Kicks in the pants to Columbia, Jackson and Linn Counties, with sizeable populations but sub-70% turnout rates.
Well, I've achieved my goal of getting this out before the final update of the evening, so better post now...if you haven't made yourself part of the "turned-in" crowd yet, you've got until 8pm. Get hopping!
It's always interesting to see what the Beltway pundits have to say about our races, more often than not because they generally only seem peripherally plugged in, and honed in on whatever the CW happens to be. Two very recent references to the 5th District race for Darlene Hooley's seat have cropped up out of the DC word factories, both well respected as Beltway arbiters, but rather different in their assessments.
Congressional Quarterly has a full article out this morning that amply describes their view of the GOP's chances in the race between Mike Erickson and Kurt Schrader: "GOP Bid for Open Oregon House Seat Looks Deflated:"
Republican officials touted Oregon’s 5th Congressional District as providing one of their top 2008 House takeover opportunities after Democratic Rep. Darlene Hooley decided to retire rather than run this year for a sixth term. After all, Hooley’s moderate demeanor had helped her build a dozen-year career in a Willamette Valley district that is anything but a Democratic stronghold — and where President Bush ran 1 percentage point ahead of Democrat John Kerry in 2004. And the GOP had a willing candidate in businessman Mike Erickson, who at the least had proved as Hooley’s 2006 challenger that he is willing to spend deeply on his campaigns from his own pockets.
But with less than a handful of days left before the ballots are tallied in Oregon’s vote-by-mail elections, the chances that the GOP will score a much needed pickup appear to range between highly unlikely and impossible. CQ Politics now rates the race as Democrat Favored.
This is because of a confluence of positive factors for the Democrats that include the emergence of state Sen. Kurt Schrader as a strong nominee; a big push by the party to add new Democratic voters to the registration rolls; and presidential nominee Barack Obama ’s surge to a big lead over Republican John McCain in statewide polls on the race for the state’s seven electoral votes. But the biggest reason why the Republicans seem to have fallen out of contention may be the fact that Erickson emerged from a bruising GOP primary on May 20 enveloped in a controversy that hobbled his campaign. [emph mine]
I think we can leave that "hobbling controversy" unsaid, right? Read the article if you don't know what it is. The CQ also notes that Erickon raised $2.3 million for the race--but just $600,000 of it came from someone other than top donor...Mike Erickson. Also too, as Sarah Palin might say, whatever they've raised in total Schrader still had over 100 grand to spend in mid-October, while Erickson was looking at $23K (although of course he could replenish his account at any time).
A close race is expected between state Sen. Kurt Schrader (D) and businessman Mike Erickson (R) in the contest to replace retiring Rep. Darlene Hooley (D) in the 5th District.
Which begs the question: by whom, other than Mike Erickson and anyone else he funded to expect that? Is WaPo allergic to polling? Again, from CQ:
Even the Democratic candidate’s considerable efforts don’t appear to explain the huge gap in the latest non-partisan poll in the race, conducted by SurveyUSA Oct. 27-28, that showed Schrader blowing out to a 55 percent to 31 percent lead over Erickson.
Wow, neck and neck! If it's two giraffes kissing over a fence, maybe. It being early fall, perhaps the big dope harvest has come in and the editorial board's respective pot dealers are flush at the moment. Other than exec editor Len Downie, Jr. being stoned out of his gourd all month, I don't have a ready explanation otherwise. Schrader will cruise.
I was pleasantly surprised a few minutes ago with a special Monday morning update on ballot returns by Elections Director John Lindback--who I want to give a personal thanks to for being so forthcoming and responsive with data to a lowly blogger like myself. I've taken Mr. Lindback to task in the past for his perspective on fusion balloting, but I have nothing but praise for the way he does his job overall, as should be clear from the relatively trouble-free elections we have in Oregon. And as I said, you can't get better customer service than having the head honcho ship you up-to-the-minute data on a regular basis.
So, without excess adieu:
As of 11/3/2008 8:00 AM
Party
Returned
Eligible
Return%
Democrat
575,777
936,477
61%
Republican
378,677
697,053
54%
Nonaffiliated
181,263
433,958
42%
Other
12,277
28,592
43%
Constitution
1,075
3,013
36%
Independent Party
19,997
41,294
48%
Libertarian
5,707
13,848
41%
Pacific Green
4,133
8,959
46%
Peace party
31
86
36%
Working Families Party
532
2,065
26%
Grand Total
1,179,469
2,165,345
54%
This one actually looks big and readable enough, but I wish I had the know how to take spreadsheet data and render it nicely in our html editing boxes...so I apologize again for the less-than-professional view. Thanks to reader darrelplant for the table HTML! But the data's the thing, right? And while the gap continues to slowly inch down towards 7% favoring Democrats, it's still over 7%, and now here were are with just two days left. Lindback tells me these are NOT all the ballots dropped through yesterday; he has promised me an afternoon update as well.
I also did some work at the county level yesterday . I'll try to flesh it out in the afternoon update, but the gist is that the more GOP the county, the higher the GOP turnout--which bodes pretty poorly for them, actually, since the places where the GOP registrations are proportionally weakest are where the most people are. Having 50% of the registration share, as the GOP does in Grant County, is all well and good--but there are only 4,500 voters in Grant. So one percent's worth of turnout (which is the amount the GOP is exceeding the state average by in Grant) is worth about 22 votes. In Multnomah there are only 17% Republicans, but that still means 75,000 of them...and 1% of turnout (minus 1% in the case of Multno) is thus 750 voters. Clearly, higher turnout in high GOP areas can be more than wiped out by lower turnout in low GOP areas that nonetheless have a large raw number of GOP voters.
Will Republicans flood their county offices with remaining ballots the last two days? And will that flood be accompanied by a slowdown of Democrats? It's possible; perhaps Dems are excited and thus voting early, whereas Republicans are less excited but will still vote. My hunch says that electoral ennui is a chronic rather than fleeting condition for the Republicans, and that for the first time in many years Democrats will win the turnout game. And while the ennui may be chronic, the resulting pain for the GOP will be acute.
Are you STILL, somehow, undecided on what to do with our Senate race? Are you STILL considering that maybe Gordon Smith's experience and seniority are what we need, and anyway he's one of our nation's most moderate Republicans? Or are you so weakly committed to Jeff Merkley (I know the feeling) that you're thinking maybe Smith's not so great an evil after all?
Wash those thoughts right out of your hair and head on over to Stop Gordon Smith, the compendium of facts and analyses that make it abundantly clear that Smith needs to go on Tuesday.
And if you need a 30-second distillation, here's my favorite anti-Smith ad of the cycle, aptly produced by the DSCC:
In a last push for getting out the Oregon vote, DNC Chair (and 50-state strategy godfather) Howard Dean will blitz through the Northwest today, including a stop at the Obama/Merkley HQ in Southeast Portland at 430 pm, followed by Eugene at 730. He'll be joined by--if the GOTV works--the entire statewide contingent of elected officials, all Democrats. More details from the Oregon Obama team:
With only two days left to vote in this crucial election, Gov. Dean, Sen. Wyden, Jeff Merkley, Kate Brown, Ben Westlund, John Kroger, and Brad Avakian will kick-off get-out-the-vote mobilization events in Portland and Eugene.
WHO: Gov. HowardDean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)
Jeff Merkley, Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate
Kate Brown, Democratic Candidate for Oregon Secretary of State
Ben Westlund, Democratic Candidate for Oregon State Treasurer
John Kroger, Democratic Candidate for Oregon Attorney General
Brad Avakian, Democratic Candidate for Oregon State Treasurer
WHERE: 4:30 PM - PORTLAND
Campaign for Change Headquarters
3016 SE Division St.
Portland, OR 97202
7:30 PM – EUGENE
Campaign for Change Eugene Office
150 W Broadway
Bask in the reflected glory of a potential Democratic sweep, pay homage to one of the two men most generally responsible for that opportunity (Obama being the other), and psych yourself up for the last couple days of politicking, in an election going straight into the history books. More grandchildren material, as I've been saying. GOTV!
In what is at least the penultimate Survey USA look at Oregon's Senate race, both the toplines and the trendlines for Jeff Merkley are bright indeed as the balloting heads into the final week. The Portland guy who wants you to think he's rural leads the conservative guy who wants you to think he's moderate, 49-42. That's a slight improvement from the previous poll, at 46-41, although it looks like undecideds coming home. The cross tabs are here; surely KATU has video of a Portland political science perfesser explaining the results that you can seek out if you want the punditry version. Swing State Project also has a little analysis and commentariat.
The thing that several people seem to be keying on in the blogosphere is the composition of the poll as having half already voted. This is something I recall from the primary as well, where SUSA was showing "voted" percentages well in excess of what the Elections Division was getting back from the counties. Now, there is a definite lag between "voting" and having the mail get it, take it to the county office, have it processed and recorded and show up in the county totals the next day--but let's assume there's a two-three day lag. As of the 26th, which was the last day available at this writing, 18% of registered voters had turned in a ballot and had it recorded.
So give that 18% a couple of days to percolate. Either we're going to see a 2004 model, in which case turnout will be quite high, or a 2000 model which would simply be pretty high. Right now one would have to lean towards 2000 in any analysis, although it's certainly early. But even using an optimistic model like 2004, it would still be another four days for 50% of ballots to be in. Is there really a four day lag between "voting" and recording, or do people conflate "decided" with "voted?"
All of which doesn't really do any harm to Merkley's prospects as the candidate named more often by those who've voted. Whether the true percentage is 50% or 30% or even 20%, if Merkley's ahead then those votes are banked and the GOTV can focus on an ever-narrowing group of potential voters. But it does call into question the reality that half of these voters have really voted, and thus are truly "banked." Because the percentage turned in, is so out of whack even for likely voters--given that LVs are over 90% of the base registered voter sample--the main value that the stat might have is unknown, because you can't safely say "Smith now needs X% of the remainder in order to win."
That quibble aside, let's look inside the crosstabs and see who appears to be driving this race going into the final stretch.
New poll over in the sidebar--how will our Senate race turn out? Who will win, and by what margin of victory? And as long as you're in a predictive mood, why not head over to the DPO's "November Madness" game? For a measly $5 contribution to the state party, you get the chance to guess at Obama's electoral college total on the 4th, as well as his popular vote percentage in all 50 states. It's unclear what, if anything, you can win other than bragging rights, but DPO could use the money and it's always fun to predict and then see how you did on Election Night. You can enter multiple times, so try different strategies and hedge your bets. I'll even give you a little hint: start with 300 EV for Obama as a floor, and go upward from there. :)
[Arthur Stamoulis, Director of the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign, sent this out to recap the very interesting forum held on how sometimes esoteric trade policy affects you where you live. (It's also notable who did NOT show up; see the bottom.) Since he did such a nice job formatting the email with pictures and quotations of the speakers, I'm going to reproduce it as it was, crediting him (obviously) with the story... ]
The Future of Trade
A Public Forum on the Local Impacts of Free Trade Agreements -- and Opportunities for Change
On October 14, 2008, the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign hosted a forum in Portland on "The Future of Trade." Co-sponsored by the First Unitarian Church's Economic Justice Action Group, the forum featured a panel discussion, testimonials from displaced workers and a response from political candidates. Here is video from the event.
Rev. Kate Lore (8:52) Social Justice Minister, First Unitarian Church Opening remarks on the future of trade
It’s important to acknowledge just how far we’ve come [since the 1999 WTO protests]. Ten years ago, most people had never even heard of the WTO. Today, it is the subject of a Hollywood movie. Ten years ago, many people were still ambivalent about the concept of free trade. Today, the pollsters at the Pew Research Center report, “There is now broad agreement that free trade negatively affects wages, jobs and economic growth in the United States.”
Tom Chamberlain(8:46) President, Oregon AFL-CIO On job loss and wage stagnation due to existing trade pacts
What we do with these trade agreements is look for the lowest common denominator -- the poorest nations to exploit. Then we turn American workers against them, saying those countries are taking our jobs away. Well, they’re not taking our jobs away. The rich and the powerful are taking our jobs away.
Can you believe it? After almost two solid years of presidential campaign events and news, as of today Oregonians can finally begin voting for their choice of President. As the McCain campaign would say, turn those ballots back in soon after you get them, to avoid long lines at the polls on Nov 4th (cough). Seriously though, it IS a really good idea to turn them around quickly, because then the campaign you voted for can cross you off the list and concentrate on remaining voters. Obviously, the more votes that come in earlier in the process, the easier the job is to focus on those ballots not yet in. In states where early balloting has already begun, such as Georgia, turnout is high and as much as 50% of the electorate is projected to have actually voted BEFORE "Election Day." How long before everyone else votes like Oregon? Not long, I think.
The rift between myself and local curmudgeon Jack Bogdanski has been well-discussed and publicized, and there's no love lost. But to give credit where it's due, Bog has coined a wonderful phrase for the flurry of campaign literature that begins arriving in mailboxes the same time the ballots do: election porn. I don't know if other state campaigns have adjusted to the early voting period and disseminate their mailers accordingly in the cycle, but here in Oregon they know very well when to hit people as they're making up their minds.
At first it just seems like a laugh line or attention getting to use the term election porn, but it's actually a thoughtfully apt analogy. Like porn, the direct mail brochures we receive at election time are highly visual, usually sleazy, paid for by shadowy people--and while most decry them, in the privacy of our homes many of us still look at them.
The best porn usually comes from groups backing or opposing ballot measures, because typically there's no candidate who has to answer for the various scare tactics and misleading charges, and in many cases it's the only advertising the voter will see for the measure, as opposed to TV and radio for the candidates. And of course it helps when folks like Bill Sizemore and Kevin Mannix are the ones pushing the measures. (Not to say that Democratic advocacy is necessarily much loftier, for their part). Just yesterday I must have gotten a half dozen pieces, with three from the ballot measure campaigns that I'll show you and discuss below the fold.
If you haven't been over to fivethirtyeight.com and are at all interested in polling science and electoral predictions, you are truly missing out. One of the stat geniuses at Baseball Prospectus, Nate Silver, has turned his attention and nose for probability measurement into hands down the hottest political site this election cycle.
His place is called FiveThirtyEight.com, a reference to the number of Congressional Districts plus 100 Senators. Their featured product is a daily electoral college prediction, based on a wide variety of historical, numerical and probabilistic variables and run through a simulator 10,000 times. (Currently they have Obama winning over 95% of those simulations, with a near-200 point advantage in the electoral college, but that's beside the point for this story).
Besides that, they do Senate predictions and have put together a truly great series of reports from the ground, visiting both campaigns' offices across the Midwestern chunk of the country. And somewhat in that vein as well, they are trying to profile every state, demographically and sociopolitically.
Yesterday was--like our primary--finally our turn after many other states. Let's start with the great table of factors they reviewed:
I frankly think they're still behind the curve a bit, given the spate of recent polling showing Merkley slightly on top, but Congressional Quarterly has finally rescinded its analysis that Gordon Smith was nominally favored, and labeled the tight race with its most competitive category, No Clear Favorite:
Despite attempts to link himself with high-profile Democrats, Republican Gordon H. Smith is facing an increasingly difficult battle for votes in the highly competitive Oregon Senate race.
Due to Smith’s perceived challenges, continued Democratic growth in the state of Oregon and Smith’s failure to gain a strong lead in recent polls, CQ Politics is changing the rating of the race from Leans Republican to No Clear Favorite, our most competitive category.
“It’s really a toss up right now,” political scientist Robert Eisinger of Lewis & Clark College in Portland told CQ Politics.
The latest assist from Chuck Schumer to Jeff Merkley is a pretty good one, called "Party." It subtly portrays Smith as someone partying while the country suffers for their avarice. Maybe it's a good thing that DSCC needed to come in and boost the Dem candidate; their ads have been somewhat better, although both theirs and Merkley's are infused with that mainstream, 20th century ad approach.
I wanted to watch the debate between Jeff Merkley and Gordon Smith last night, and came home intending to, but was called away from the house until after it was over. If you missed it at as well, you may find it helpful to use these links to watch it for yourself: They are KGW videos, and I don't see any way to embed them, so you'll have to follow the links, sorry.
What analysis do I have of the performances? I will admit upfront that I could only stand to watch part one, and I must say that both men were excreable. Gordon Smith was creepy-looking, in a way I can't really define. Something about him just looked dark and sinister. His voice was even and didn't really show tension, but it still sounded like verbal teeth clenching. And oh yeah, there's the small matter of nearly everything coming out of his mouth being a total fabrication or smear. At one point Smith even asserted that because he'd participated in revenue hikes in the Leg, that ipso facto meant Merkley was a dead lock to do so in the Senate--"He's gonna raise your taxes, folks."
Jeff Merkley's performance may have been very good on paper--literally, read rather than seen or heard. By and large his policy poisitions are the right ones, and he definitely gets credit from me for being against a bailout bill many Democrats backed. On the issues, I have no doubt that a majority of Oregonians would vote to boot Smith, and I think there's a fairly decent chance they will.
But from the get-go, Merkley was jumpy and hyperkinetic, swinging his hands and fists around, and seemingly bouncing on the balls of his feet. He was the opposite of Smith in that his speech was erratically enunciated, somewhat slurred and with one word tumbling out after another, the next one riding the back of the previous. He had been improving, but last night he was like Roger Clemens waiting to face the Red Sox at Fenway in the playoffs--way too tight, way too pumped, and firing fastballs over everyone's heads.
Nobody helped themselves in this debate that I saw, IMO--although if someone wants to point out an especially effective segment for either man that's in the final two parts, I'm happy to check it out and revise if necessary. If both men hurt themselves equally, Smith by being creepy and Merkley by pounding too many Red Bulls beforehand, that's a net win for Smith, unfortunately. Jeff had all the momentum the last month or so; let's hope this debate doesn't kill it.
[Loaded Orygun is happy to (with permission) reprint the diaries coming from Les and Sue AuCoin, who are headed to Ohio to campaign/canvass for Democratic candidates. You can read them yourself at Ohio Political Journal, or catch the reprints here...]
In Round 2, McCain needed a game-changer, and did not get it. Obama wanted to close the sale and did not do it. But Obama moved closer to his goal than McCain did his, with 29 days left, by sweeping the board on polls judging the debate.
On the other hand, a recent AP-Yahoo! News poll found that 18 percent of likely voters are up for grabs — undecided or willing to change their minds — little more than five weeks before Americans choose between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain.
A large chunk of these voters say they are hurting on a personal level from the country’s economic woes, and, like everyone else, they say the economy is the top issue. Most are looking for a better life and a leader to help make it happen — and most haven’t found what they seek in Obama or McCain.
Apropos of this, over at Five Thirty Eight blog, there’s a discussion of race and what Obama’s ceiling may be, and some concern that he may be near it, which would mean, if true, that McCain has an advantage with those undecideds.
It’s the most nerve-wracking election I’ve ever been through.
[Loaded Orygun is happy to (with permission) reprint the diaries coming from Les and Sue AuCoin, who are headed to Ohio to campaign/canvass for Democratic candidates. You can read them yourself at Ohio Political Journal, or catch the reprints here...]
Waterloo, Iowa
I’ll just say this: if on this trip we’re going to meet our Waterloo, let it be in Iowa, not Ohio.
This, though not representative of Ohio undecideds, is one of the targets of our mission. Leave a comment with the message you think will reach him. (Don't be too serious.)
Eleven and a half hours on the road today, across South Dakota (a helluva lot wider than tall, dammit!), and into Iowa.
If any of you have ever driven from Madras to Culver–central Oregon flatland farming country–then you have as good as driven through Iowa. Except that those few Oregon miles are on a spool here and someone keeps rolling them out ahead of you, ahead of you, ahead …
I’ve been thinking about the Biden-Palin debate all day, and it came to me who Palin reminds me of: Trudy, the Bag Lady, in our friend, Lily Tomlin’s one-woman play, Searching For Signs Of Intelligent Life In The Universe. Trudy, see, was a conduit for messages from deep space.
How else does one explain the collision of thought shards or Ifill questions and Palin answers passing each other like ships in a fog?
I’m proud of Joe Biden. If Failin’ beat expectations, I say, well, if you start at zero …
(My best friend in Ashland wrote to tell me that she was winking at him.)
[Loaded Orygun is happy to (with permission) reprint the diaries coming from Les and Sue AuCoin, who are headed to Ohio to campaign/canvass for Democratic candidates. You can read them yourself at Ohio Political Journal, or catch the reprints here...]
On Wednesday, my wife and I will drop everything we’re doing and drive to Ohio to campaign for Barack Obama and Joe Biden for the last month of the campaign.
We hope we can provide a modicum of help in a battleground state for a ticket we hope and believe will lead the country into a new era of progressive governance and away from the law-of-the-jungle, soak-the-middle class, robber baron era of most of the last thirty years.
But the most important thing we will influence will no doubt be our own psyches. If we sit by as observers much longer, we’re both going to blow a gasket. Rather than hoping neoconservatives won’t steal this country, we want to help Obama and Biden stop them from it, and roll back the trickle-down fleecing, the environmental pillaging and the preemptive war-making that has already occurred.
We hope this journal will give you an up-close and personal look at the campaign from the trenches of a hotly contested state that may decide the election. In 104 years–with only three exceptions–no one has won the White House without winning Ohio’s electoral votes.
So, we’ll now throw everything we have into Ohio to try to restore the best instincts of the country we grew up in. If, god forbid, Obama should lose, at least we’ll have a good answer when our granddaughters ask us, “Pop-Pops and Nana, what did you do in the table stakes election of 2008?”
If I had to guess I'd say this is a bit of a boilerplate job--insert the name of the state and the accurate number of job losses--but in lieu of an actual visit by Barack Obama during the fall campaign, we may have to settle for template remarks like these from the candidate, as released by the Obama for Oregon team:
This week, we learned that more than 8,600 Oregon jobs have been lost this year - including another 7,400 just last month. Only someone as out of touch as my opponent could say that 'the fundamentals of the economy are strong' at a time when so many families are struggling.
Amid the greatest economic crisis of our time, we desperately need to change the way Washington and Wall Street work so that middle class families aren't left to fend for themselves while CEOs get tax breaks and golden parachutes. We can't afford four more years of the Bush-McCain economic policies that led our economy into this mess - we need to change direction and start putting America's jobs and America's workers first.
Boilerplate or not, at least one campaign understands they don't call it a "popular college," and is tailoring messaging at the state level. Smart. And what's he plan to do about the problem?
Today, Barack Obama met with his top economic advisors in Florida to discuss his plan to stabilize the financial system and turn the economy around. They will finalize Obama's plan to call for the passage of a Homeowner and Financial Support Act that would establish a more stable and permanent solution to the crisis.
Oregon Senator Gordon Smith is in dangerous territory again, virtually tied with Jeff Merkley, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of voters in the state.
The incumbent Republican holds a statistically insignificant 46% to 45% lead over Merkley. The race is now the closest it’s been since regular tracking began in February.
Just one month ago, Smith had an eight-point lead but still received under 50% support from voters. Any incumbent senator who polls under 50% is considered vulnerable. In July, Merkley was ahead 43% to 41%.
This month, Smith earns support from 84% of Oregon Republicans, while Merkley earns the vote from 76% of Democrats. The challenger leads 46% to 42% among unaffiliated voters in the Beaver State.
While Smith leads 49% to 44% among men, the race is essentially tied among women, among whom Merkley has a 45% to 44% edge.
I was ready to ding the Merkley campaign for calling a 1-point Smith lead a "dead heat," since a dead heat is literally a tied race--but shame on Rasmussen for using the phrase first, in their subheadline of the story. They're supposed to be polling pros, for heaven's sake!
This is obviously good news, that essentially confirms what Merkley's internal polling showed--the race will be tight when ballots go out in a month. There are some unsettling periperhals here; while Smith's approvals are indeed pretty sour, they're still nominally better than Merkley's, and more negative views about Smith are having little effect on the percentage of Republicans who are backing him. Similarly, I'm worried that independents went into the toilet for Smith according to the latest SUSA polling, but Ras only gives Merkley a four-point margin in that group. People don't like Gordo much at the moment, but the transferrance of affections onto Merkley as a result is so far fairly weak. Yet and still, they have to be awfully happy with this poll in Jeff's camp, and confirming of DANGER DANGER! in Smith's. Perhaps the next ad will be about how Merkley swats flies with much more gusto than is necessary to simply shoo it away...
On October 14, 2008, the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign hosted a forum in Portland on "The Future of Trade." Co-sponsored by the First Unitarian Church's Economic Justice Action Group, the forum featured a panel discussion, testimonials from displaced workers and a response from political candidates. Here is video from the event.
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