Yesterday’s Democratic Senate caucus meeting – combined with Majority Leader Reid’s push on this issue, combined with President Obama’s leadership, combined with a clear demand by the public for action – has given comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation a major boost as we head towards the 4th of July recess. Clearly, at this point, there’s a better path to 60 votes in the U.S. Senate for comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation than ever before. We are that close to making history, let’s make sure we seize this moment!
With all that in mind, a recent national survey by Al Quinlan of Greenburg Quinlan Rosner Research has potentially powerful implications for the 2010 elections, providing yet more evidence that climate legislation – despite a fallacious "mainstream media" narrative arguing otherwise – is actually good politics. The key findings are threefold (note: the document talks about strategy for the Democratic Party, but could apply to Republicans as well):
Small businesses “are among America’s most popular entities,” with an eye-popping 44:1 favorable to unfavorable ratio (“the highest we have ever seen in our polling on any topic”)
Generating support from small business owners, for either political party, is a key to success in the upcoming mid-term elections.
Small business owners strongly agree “that a move to clean energy will help restart the economy and lead to job creation by small businesses.” In fact, according to Greenburg Quinlan, “One of the most surprising findings of the survey is that despite the fact that nearly two thirds of business owners believe it would increase costs for their businesses, a majority still want to move forward on clean energy and climate policy.”
As if that’s not evidence enough that there’s broad support out there for comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation, how about this Benenson Survey Group survey, conducted in late May/early June 2010? The key findings of this poll are:
65% of “likely 2010 voters” believe that “the federal government should invest much more than it currently invests [or] somewhat more than it currently invests.”
63% of “likely 2010 voters” support an energy bill that would “limit pollution, invest in domestic energy sources and encourage companies to use and develop clean energy…in part by charging energy companies for carbon pollution in electricity or fuels like gas.”
Among “undecided voters,” “62% support the bill and just 21% oppose.”
There is also strong evidence from this polling that voters – including independent voters by a 2.5:1 margin – are strongly inclined, by around a 2:1 margin, to be “more likely to re-elect” their Senator if he or she voted for a strong, comprehensive, clean energy and climate bill.
In sum, solid majorities of small businesspeople and the public at large both support comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation. Which is why, once again – as we pointed out yesterday – the “mainstream media” narrative, that voting for limits on carbon pollution is bad politics, is just dead wrong. To the contrary, victory this November could go to the candidates – and the party – that seizes this issue and makes it their own. Ideally, it would be great to see both Republicans and Democrats fighting to be the “greenest” candidate, and not just in terms of how much money they raise.
UPDATE: Add another poll to the list, this one by WSJ-NBC indicating that “Respondents favored comprehensive energy and carbon pollution reduction legislation by 63 percent to 31 percent – a two to one margin.”
The announcement was official today, although is was a badly kept secret the final 24 hours: former goobernor John Kitzhaber will indeed run for a third (non-consecutive) term as Beav-Guv.
And just as quickly, the "listening tour" of potential Dem hopeful Brian Clem has gone on pause:
State Representative Brian Clem of Salem will announce his decision on whether he will run for Governor of Oregon this Thursday, September 3, in Portland. Rep. Clem has been conducting a statewide listening tour as he explores running for Governor, visiting communities across the state, sharing his vision for Oregon's future and hearing from everyday Oregonians how they feel we can best move our state forward.
He'll be dropping word (almost literally) from the third floor terrace of the Ecotrust Building in NW PDX, tomorrow at 10 AM if you like your race withdrawal announcements live and in living color. Is it 100% positive that Clem--who had already dropped some broad hints he wouldn't run if Kitz did--will be retrieving his hat from halfway inside the ring, where it's been while he crisscrossed the state listening? Of course not, but I'll buy you a Voodoo Donut if he stays in the race. I think you'll see the field clear with the exception of Bill Bradbury--who, by the way, also made some news by hiring Jeremy Wright as his campaign manager, albeit before actually formally announcing his run. Timing, schmiming! And finally, if you're starving for benchmark data on which to base the race the rest of the way, Survey USA did a run of favorability tests on various potential candidates, and just released them (h/t Blue O). Count me among those in the camp who find the results interesting, but not terribly instructive yet this far out--except that Alley and Bradbury need to learn how to open a bottle with their fingernails, or something, so they can acquaint themselves with the electorate.
The Oregon Center for Public Policy on Tuesday released a poll they had commissioned from Grove Insights, querying Oregonians on their interest in repealing the corporate and wealthy-household tax hikes passed by the Leg earlier this year in order to balance the budget and restore some fairness to the tax code. (As OCPP Exec Director Chuck Sheketoff points out in a follow-on piece at Blue Oregon, restoring SOME fairness doesn't mean the disparity between individual and corporate rates is yet fair, but baby steps...)
On the surface, the numbers are excellent and perhaps even a bit surprising, given the gloom and doom from some about "when" the changes will be repealed, rather than "if." The money (pun intended) question--how would you vote on the repeal if the election were today?--yielded a 2-1 response opposing it, including a near-majority 48% indicating "strong" opposition. The response to repeal the tax measures garnered 26%, with fewer than one in five voters strongly supportive of the repeal.
Those figures match up with preceding questions that attempted to determine whether voters felt it was more important to hold the line on taxes, or fund basic services such as education, health care and public safety. By a 60-35 margin, respondents answered that it was more important to prevent service cuts. And interestingly, while it appeared that taxes per se were not seen as a negative option for helping to balance the budget, sales tax continues to poll dismally in this state, with 53% against--40% solidly so.
And yet, I have a number of questions that make me wonder how solid these results are--not only how well they'll hold up over the next few months before the election, but whether the poll design was robust enough to paint a truly accurate picture of what we might see in January.
A reader reminded me that there is now polling out on our new President and Senator in Oregon to go with regular updates on our current Upper Houser and Goobernor. I'm glad he reminded me, because they've been out for almost three weeks now--and while I'm not denying any existed, I sure can't find any mention of the results as published by Survey USA on March 27th.
Regular LO readers will recognize the formats; they're the same questions repeated generally every month for the Governor and Senate offices in the state, as well as the President. They're not very good for embedding, because the crosstabs are long and the simple pie chart is not interesting. But I'll link them, and you can peruse them to your heart's content.
We'll start with President Obama, who won handily with 57% of the vote in Oregon, not shabby but not among his best states, either (Washington gave him 58% for instance). We'll call his support solid, at least in late March: he currently has a 62% job approval rating, with just 31% dissenting. Two thirds of women approve, as do two thirds of young voters.
Even Republicans in Oregon are relatively hip to Obama; he has a 30% approval rating with self-identified GOPers. Indies are favorable at 56%, but are notably warier than Democrats. Liberals in particular are ga-ga, 97% approve. (As a fairly left liberal I'd have to say boiled into a single answer I'd respond with "approve" as well, but I feel definite sympathy with the 2%--especially on the handling of Wall Street and Bush torture.) Moderates approve at a 65% clip, and his appeal is essentially the same whether you answered in Portland or anywhere else in the state.
So the honeymoon's still on in Oregon for BO; he won the state easily and has retained some new admirers it seems. In the face of a severe state recession it will be interesting to see how long that approval lasts at 60%+ levels.
Kind of a slow news day--or at least I find nothing supremely compelling that I have the time to write up--but I'll share with you a press release from the Oregon AFL-CIO, pointing out that the aggressive campaign waged against Democratic candidates like Jeff Merkley for their support of labor was an utter failure. Groups like the US Chamber of Commerce tried to focus in on Merkley's support for the Employee Free Choice Act, otherwise known as "card-check," but voters weren't biting. From the release:
What did we learn from the results of last week's election? Voters soundly rejected the misleading anti-union corporate campaign opposing the Employee Free Choice Act and overwhelmingly backed candidates, like Jeff Merkley, who support working families.
The election results tell us a lot, but now we also have poll data that goes even further. A poll by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, commissioned by the workers' rights advocacy group American Rights at Work, shows that anti-union advertising was among the least important factors in determining voters' choices for U.S. Senate and that voters continue to support making it easier for workers to join unions.
{Comments from ARW head David Bonior, and a link to the poll, below the fold}
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.
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.
I voted no--I get that it's unregulated derivatives markets, with mortgage value being mixed in as parts of other products...I think. But how they came to be peddling something like a quadrillion dollars in value based on 1/30th of that in real assets, I have no idea.
Sometimes the House Republicans save us from a really bad attempt at "bipartisan compromise." I think even with the amendments that apparently made the version they had some agreement on, there seems like an awful lot of fat just to cover bad paper--and even for people who thing strong regulation is necessary, having the government actually own and administer all that economic activity isn't ideal either.
I saw one version of the math that made visual sense, pegging the total amount of bad mortgage debt (beyond a reasonable estimate of the real asset value, like 30%) at no more than 40-50 billion. So what is being covered with the other $650 billion? John McCain's bizarre airdrop onto Capitol Hill to help scuttle a developing deal certainly hurt the image of his campaign, and may have inadvertantly given time for an even stronger bill to reach agreement.
Anyhow, this one is gratuitous I guess--I'm hoping I'm not the only one who is having to take what reporters and pundits at face value on this issue...and doesn't like it. I hate having to assume Lou Dobbs is telling the truth. It's Saturday evening; let's rotate the poll.
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...
One thing that I like about Survey USA is that they are interested in accountability and track record, and make an effort to go back after election contests are over to see how they (and other pollsters) performed.
For the Oregon primary, here's a look at the final poll result for each of four different pollsters, compared to the actual tallies:
Clearly, PPP was right on the money here, with an impressively small gap of just 3 points between expected and actual outcomes. Only PPP was able to forecast an appropriately high number for Obama, but SUSA actually did a better job with Hillary's total. As many observers have indicated, ARG and Suffolk are best ignored; their numbers are terrible predictors.
So like Progressive Insurance, SUSA has compared the pollsters and printed the results even when theirs were not the most accurate. Kudos to them.
One other note: also released during that time was the Hibbitts poll, which had Obama winning by 20% at 55-35. The margin is close, and you could ascribe the undersell of both candidate figures to non-pushed undecideds, so perhaps we'd put this one just ahead of SUSA and behind PPP.
It's Election Day in Oregon, and whether you're a regular reader or a newcomer linking in to follow the state's primary, this is Christmas--real voting! The Presidential race is certainly exciting, but Gordon Smith and the Senate race to replace him have been a primary editorial focus since our founding in 2006, and now here we are ready to pick the person to take him on.
This is definitely the year to do it, so it's been a hugely important decision who that person should be, and in spring of 2007 we formally endorsed Steve Novick for Senate. We haven't diverged from that one bit since, despite the entry of House Speaker Jeff Merkley and subsequent staffing changes. The "Election Pregame" series today is designed to give you a few of the most recent things related to the Senate election--the four most recent polls, the newest videos, turnout statistics and what they imply...so: thanks for coming by! Take a free account if you think you might be round again.
For so long in this race, we had to suffer without decent polling, or use way-too-early general election heats as a stand in for comparing the two major Dem candidates for Senate, Steve Novick and Jeff Merkley. Then when polling finally got going earnestly in January, we discovered why no one was wasting their money all that time before--huge numbers of undecideds, starting at about 70%.. Not only had almost no one heard of the activist with the hook, they didn't know who the Speaker of the House was, either.
Of course, now that we're finally at Election Day there has been more interest and thus more polling--although to a large degree true polling results are STILL hampered by undecided figures approaching 20%.. However, in the last eight days four polls have been done by three different outfits, with two final looks coming yesterday. Let's dive in and see what they tell us, shall we?
{ah, but not before I make you jump below the fold!}
It's Election Day in Oregon, and whether you're a regular reader or a newcomer linking in to follow the state's primary, this is Christmas--real voting! The Presidential race is certainly exciting, but Gordon Smith and the Senate race to replace him have been a primary editorial focus since our founding in 2006, and now here we are ready to pick the person to take him on.
This is definitely the year to do it, so it's been a hugely important decision who that person should be, and in spring of 2007 we formally endorsed Steve Novick for Senate. We haven't diverged from that one bit since, despite the entry of House Speaker Jeff Merkley and subsequent staffing changes. The "Election Pregame" series today is designed to give you a few of the most recent things related to the Senate election--the four most recent polls, the newest videos, turnout statistics and what they imply...so: thanks for coming by! Take a free account if you think you might be round again.
Two pretty great little videos came over yesterday, for different reasons. The best quick take on yesterday's SUSA/KATU poll that showed Novick with a strong surge of +10 in a week is the news report for it done by the station. Forthwith!
As presumed, Survey USA has just released their final Senate polling for the Oregon primary. Results in parentheses are from the 5/12 survey, followed by the 5/1 result)
Novick 37 (27, 30)
Merkley 34 (31, 28)
Neville 7 (8, 11)
Undecided 17
Well, because the gap is just 3 points, we still have a...mathematical tie (how many times have we said that in this race the last two months??). However, while the previous two surveys showed no definitive movement by either candidate, in this poll Novick surges 10 points from his previous position, vaulting past Merkley, who was +3 from last time.
In other Oregon races done in this poll, Kurt Schrader looks comfortably ahead of Steve Marks in a OR-5 Dem primary race I wish had gone on a lot longer; on the Republican side, has Kevin Mannix's BabyGate ploy worked? Erickson has gone from eight points ahead to four points behind. Both Mannix's +5 and Erickson's -7 appear real.
More as I get it/get to it....
...if anyone has the SUSA link, please post in comments; I'm typing by phone...
Man, you would not BELIEVE how angry I am at myself this morning. Last night around 8pm, I got a call from a pollster, and it quickly became evident that it was an Oregon Senate primary poll. So did I immediately get up and retrieve my phone recorder device? No, I sat there like a dumbass on the phone and tried to figure out who was doing the polling.
At first I thought it was Novick's, because the positive "informing" the caller started off with was his pitch almost verbatim from the Kitzhaber ad. But then I realized that certainly this late, Steve's campaign is highly unlikely to be doing any polling (and they did nothing to dissuade me otherwise for this story). And my best guess is actually that this was what's known as a tracking poll, a rolling survey done over several days not with the intent of capturing a point in time analysis, but following the impact of daily events on the race. And like skyscraper BlogAds, tracking polls cost big-boy money, money that Novick doesn't have (and if he did, he'd be putting more TV points on the board, not buying a poll).
Soon enough after saying a nice thing or two about each candidate, it became clear who was doing the work--and I've since traced the phone number, in the 702 area code, as matching the origin point of calls being made on Merkley's behalf in the past, using the same language to describe it.
There was nothing new in the attacks; Merkley was still working hard on the Obama/Hillary/Bono angle (well, he didn't do Bono in this one), running through the pull quotes in his customary contextless way. Again, like an idiot I started jawing with the helpless interviewer, when I should have been recording the questions, but you know how they went: "Steve Novick called Obama a fraud, and said there's nothing to like about Obama. Would this make you more likely or less likely to support Steve Novick in the primary election?"
But I suspect, as this was a tracking poll, that the smear job was just a bonus for me. What they were REALLY interested in was to see what the effect of the Kitzhaber commercial was--which was why the positive informing round was tied explicitly to what was IN the Kitzhaber ad. They want to see if it's effective at all.
So you can add "continuing to put bullshit filth into Oregon voter's minds under the guise of polling" to the list of political crimes Merkley insists on committing. It really has been a hard and steep fall for Merkley's credibility, and I have to say I wanted to believe he was actually a good guy, but these are shitbag tactics--how do you pull shitbag tactics over and over, and not end up tarred as a shitbag?
Steve and his campaign have pledged to remain positive the rest of the way, which I think is smart. But being fully independent of the campaign, I'm under no compunction. Merkley, you are being a shitbag. Stop it, if you know how. Lose with class, for heaven's sake.
This latest pollin the Oregon Senate race went into the field rather quietly by KATU/SUSA, apparently--the word was just internal calling, that I'd heard. And it went in quick, just 3 days in the field at the start of this week. But machines never sleep, and the results for both President and Senate went up today.
The Presidential race remains static, Obama -2 and Clinton +2. That's how stable it is, that Obama has hit his curb appeal nadir and is still brushing the dust off his shoulder. The movement is well within the error, although it's very possible there is a slight hardening against Obama. Two things that stick out are a shortage of women compared to the way the primaries have beem coming out across the country; and the 18-34 vote that seems to underestimatie their likely share as well. The previous poll gave the latter group 21% of the sample, compared to 15% now. The experience of other states, plus high Democratic registration and high registration by the Obama campaign, suggests larger groups of young people will actually cast ballots. Among them, he wins handily.
And in the Senate...
The Merkley Mortgage Money (well, the money spent before that, but that phrasing's not as colorful) appears to have taken advantage of a largely dead TV airspace and brought their numbers to near parity, or parity within the margin at 3.9% (4/4 results):
Novick 30 (23)
Merkley 28 (11)
Neville 8 (12)
You'll notice a rather big jump for Jeff Merkley there. Novick has made solid gains from the undecided and peelaway from the other four candidates, but Merkley definitely swallowed up the lion's share of those groups--amounting to an additional 14% of the electorate from last time--between the beginning of the month and the end of it.
We know the pollster is reputable and has a strong relative accuracy record, so unlike others we shall not impugn the legitimacy of a poll based on how favorable it is to one's own interest. You can see where gaps in the sample are, that don't look like primaries elsewhere, but I don't see the numbers as all that unrealistic. I think Novick maintaining a slight lead looks about right internally speaking, but externally I think it's missing the influence of two groups that stand to greatly impact both races.
Perhaps you've seen the numbers coming from SUSA's poll commissioned by KATU and presented on their newscasts last night--Barack Obama is currently polling 10 points ahead among likely Democratic primary voters, 52-42 vs Hillary Clinton. That's not unexpected, although some Obama partisans may have been hoping for s slightly stronger showing. Both campaigns got their field units going this week (Obama faster and in greater numbers), but he's got a favorable electorate to work with.
Far more interesting from anyone's view, however, has to be the Senate response polled from the same sample as the Presidential race. Just under 600 self-described Democratic Party registrants statewide, who were deemed likely voters by SUSA's screening process, selected from all six candidates on the ballot. KATU held the exclusive and thus the results lagged behind the Presidential numbers, but they came out and they were what few might have expected:
Novick 23
Neville 12
Merkley 11
Loera 6
Obrist 5
Goberman 3
Unk/Other 40
Well now.
{more, including crosstabs and methodology type talk}
Well, it's certainly going to be an exciting Democratic Primary here in Oregon, with a number of statewide races up for grabs, and of course the election of delegates for the Presidential nomination. Folks in Oregon are certainly pumped, and it's causing a flood of new Democratic registrants that are not reciprocated on the other side--here's the activity just over a ten day period in March, around the time Obama was rumored to be--and then turned out to be--coming to Oregon:
Non-affiliated to Democrat: 1,137 Republican to Democrat: 743 Pacific Green to Democrat: 92 Other to Democrat: 85 Republican to Non-affiliated: 66 Non-affiliated to Republican: 65 Democrat to Republican: 60
Jiminy Christmas! Just on Dem-GOP switches, the Democrats were a net +683 in 10 days--and they picked up about 17 times as many non-affiliated voters, a net advantage of 1,072 voters. That's over 1,700 additional votes across the state for Democratic candidates...in TEN DAYS. Looking at the larger picture, the Republican votes may turn out to be spoilers for Hillary Clinton--but it seems unlikely the horde of independents have the same plan.
It would seem much of the excitement is attributable to folks registering in order to vote for Obama, although no doubt many are interested in a good race and have made a choice to be part of the contest, rather than a previously abiding preference for one candidate or the other. They are participating because they feel a sense of history. Whatever the reason, there will be a flood of new ballots in the Democratic primary leading up to May 20th. (They go out late April-early May).
This is of crucial relevance both to the state and national Democratic party, and the candidates running for office on the Democratic ticket underneath the Presidential pick. Senate, Secretary of State, and several legislative primaries will all happen on the same ballot--including what amounts to the general election for AG--and those races will see spillover.
The extent and character of Obama's potential coattails is of paramount curiosity to people like John Kroger and Steve Novick, I wager. Perhaps more importantly, the work of finding potential new Democratic voters for the general becomes a matter of checking the primary rolls. If they're not going to vote Democratic in May, they're probably not gonna do it in November--but if a serious chunk of them DO come back, the Republican Party will see deep and unexpected losses.
All of which kind of makes it a shame that before the votes are counted, the nominee will be definitively presumed and declared, Oregon's delegates once again a superfluous formality, adding to the winner's already decisive lead with little fanfare.
Time to check back in with our friends at Survey USA, who do a monthly look at the approval ratings of state figures (goobernors and senertors, specifically) and produce a very nice 2-year trendline complete with a mess of interactive crosstabs. If I wanted reliably up to date sentiment on any particular Senator or Governor, SUSA is the first place I look.
With that fellative introduction out of the way, here's the requisite mention of Ron Wyden: 61 up, 30 down. Well liked, broadly so statewide, relatively young guy, safe safe safe. Way to go, Ron. They love ya in Bend and Baker, Tualatin and Umpqua. CoosCannonYachatsPrineGrande!
And then we have Gordon Smith, incumbent Republican, relinquishing the Jr. Sen's Immunity Idol for a third try at the Hot 100. His opponent? No idea, although one guy has mo. (!) But for any challenger to win, there must be some level of discontent with the incumbent brewing fr any upset to be possible (and surely ANY unseating of an incumbent sans live boy or dead girl is an upset these days). So it's important to see where approval is in order to judge whether he's take-downable. {this month's look, below}
The main news cycle on this story has generally passed, but in truth it only came out just Thursday, and with such unusual results there are some extra things to think about. A Riley poll creates mixed reactions whenever one is released; his stature is somewhat below those of Hibbitts and Survey USA. (Oregon's lack of a state survey house is a real shame; a place that can set the tone for professional polling like The Field Poll does in California would be a grat asset). But while there are opinions about his sampling model--a very tight screen on likely voters and relatively low respondent counts that result in wider margins for error--he is consistent in his methodology and does follow good protocol. His release is up front about the relevant methodologies, another good sign.
The raw facts are these: 201 likely Democratic voters based on regular prior voting, asked:
There are also a number of Democratic candidates who have announced their intentions to run for a seat in the US Senate in 2008. If
the election were being decided today, which candidate would most likely get your vote?
I'm going to read a list, stop me when I get to your candidate.
Here's how they responded:
Steve Novick 12%
Jeff Merkley 9%
Roger Obrist 3%
Pavel Goberman 2%
Candy Neville 1%
David Lorea 0%
If you ask me (and implictly, you did by reading this far), three candidates ought to be delighted with this, all for different reasons, and three ought to be feeling punched in the gut.
{analysis below the fold}
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