OK, I have been watching Democrats fall like dominoes all over the place with a distant pleasure. But it is not until you see a big one fall near your home before you actually feel the rumble of that tsunami coming down in your bones:

A dramatic reversal of fortune in Virginia’s 9th Congressional District, where Republican challenger Morgan Griffith appears to have awoken after 3 months of polling at 40% and today, 7 days until votes are counted, vaults into a tie with incumbent Democrat Rick Boucher, who had been sailing to a 16th term.

In a SurveyUSA polling conducted exclusively for WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, it’s Griffith 47%, Boucher 46%, within the survey’s theoretical margin of sampling error. Griffith’s lead may or may not be statistically significant; the contest should be reported as even.

Boucher is one of two Dems I had concluded would survive this wave (the other being Jim Moron Moran). As a long time conservative democrat I just could not see the wave hitting him. Apparently I was wrong. Boucher is right at the 45% death point for incumbents.

Not until this poll did I realize this wave is bloody enormous. It is definitely Hulk time!

The poll that made headlines in PA when it came out by showing a surprise 3% lead for Democrat Joe Sestak is now, less than a week later, showing GOP contender Pat Toomey running away with the race (click to enlarge):

Which, as I noted yesterday, is in line with the early voting trends in PA (heavily tilted towards GOP).

Major Updates Below!

Here is a quick post on the Gallup Generic Ballot numbers just out (click to enlarge). The latest numbers show a slight tightening in the “likely” voter models, but nothing that could save the Democrats at this juncture. Assuming there is still a 2-3% underestimation in the Gallup numbers verses the final results (something Gallup themselves admit happens) the wave is still out there. Add in the GOP lead with independents and lots of Dems will be forced into retirement come next Tuesday. More tomorrow!

Update: As promised, more on the latest Gallup Generic Ballot results. Gallup has decided to provide two ‘likely voter’ turnout models in order to cover the scenario where this year’s election draws more voters than the typical midterm. What this means is we get a range of possible GOP and Democrat performance on the generic ballot within which there is a high probability the November elections could fall.

This expected range is shown in the following diagram, where the solid interior lines represent the high turnout scenario, and the dashed lines show the low turn out scenario. Reality will probably fall between the dashed and solid lines for each party (not accounting for statistical errors, which could expand these ranges even more). Click to enlarge.

Jim Geraghty points out that, while there is some tightening, we are nowhere near the 1994 levels where the Democrats took a historic beating and lost 52 seats.

… in October 1994, the generic ballot split, 47-47.

I took a snapshot of the 1992-1994 Gallup data and it shows something quite interesting:

It’s hard to see the detail, but what is clear is that in good years the GOP simply gains parity with the Dems and never goes above 50% – until this year. This year is different from any other year in Gallup’s long history of polling. That is why so many people are simply awestruck in their inability to determine where this election is heading.

This actually makes perfect sense to anyone who is not a liberal in deep denial. The key differences this year as opposed to 1994 are: (1) a horrific economy and unemployment situation that did not respond to failed government spending, (2) a frightening $3 trillion dollars in debt piled up in 2 short years by failed liberal policies, and (3) the passage of socialist health care which will cost more and provide less, and which will require everyone to lose their current health care (except those in Congress of course).

In 1994 the economy was growing, liberal health care had been defeated and the country was running typical deficits. These differentiating aspects of 2010 mean the backlash heading towards the Dems next week will be much worse than 1994, by a long shot.

Update: Right on queue USA Today/Gallup come out with a poll showing that the enthusiasm gap between the Democrats and the rest of the nation is huge:

Despite across-the-country rallies by President Obama and get-out-the-vote efforts by his allies, only 37% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning registered voters report more enthusiasm than usual about voting, a decline from early in the year.

Meanwhile, 63% of Republicans and Republican-leaning registered voters say they are more enthusiastic than usual, the biggest advantage for either party on this key measure in any midterm election since Gallup began asking the question in 1994.Then, Republicans had a 9-point enthusiasm advantage in a year Democrats lost control of the U.S. House and Senate.

Now, the enthusiasm gap is 26 points.

No question about it – this is going to be a very bad year for the over-reaching, big government, liberal democrats – and a lot of centrist Dems who went along with them.

Update: Put me in the “Hulk” category when it comes to where Jay Cost thinks this election may end up.

While I await the latest Gallup generic ballot bombshell, I have some data to show in PA which looks to squelch the idea of any Democrat surge or tightening of races. It comes from two sources: the Morning Call daily tracking poll and the Early Voting tallies presented by Politico this morning. Everyone may recal the first Morning Call poll came out 5 days ago with much fanfare about shocking results – Dem Joe Sestak was in a 3% lead over Toomey. It seemed a bit far fetched at the time, and as the poll has played out in the last 5 days (not even a week yet) Sestak as lost 8% points and now trails Toomey by 5% (click to enlarge):

I will be keeping an eye on this poll for the rest of this week because if there is a trend here, it is a rapid movement of undecideds to the GOP candidate Toomey. Sestak is frozen in place and Toomey is rising towards that magical 50% mark.

This ties in nicely with one of the updates I have waiting on the early voting analysis I presented this morning. At the above mentioned Politico link we find data on the PA early voter partisan mix and how this compares to ‘registered voters’ in PA. (Note: Politico listed the 2006 and 2008 voter registration levels, which I added to my 2010 registration data). I still argue that a good showing by any party in early voting relative to their registration levels should indicate an energized segment of the electorate:

This graph indicates a blow out in the making in PA. The GOP has an overwhelming lead in early voting – a clear sign of enthusiasm. The GOP are way above their registered voter percentage. Note: this does not mean the GOP is gaining lots of votes or this pattern will hold through November 2nd, as explained by the man running an early voting site. However, when you see this kind of lopsided intent in what is clearly a pivotal election year, there is more than normal voting patterns at play.

When you look at the two independent data points (a tracking poll and early voting statistics) you cannot help but conclude there is a wave out in the electorate – the same one that washed up in 2009 in NJ & VA, and in Jan in MA.

Well, we hit a major milestone this evening when the Strata-Sphere hosted its 5 millionth visitor. I humbly thank all you great and kind folks who stop by and partake in my rants and raves each day. And I also want to thank those who have donated to the site this month, it came at a very critical time for us. And what a great time in history to celebrate this milestone, now just over one week away from what could be a once in a century election! Thanks for sharing this moment in history with us.

I wanted to really ascertain which party was more motivated to vote (or more successful in the GOTV) using a common measurement that avoids turnout model speculation. In my mind, if a party is outperforming its 2010 registered-voter percentage, then it is has to be enjoying a edge in voter enthusiasm. Even more importantly, if partisans are supposedly ‘coming home’ to their party (voting 95% party line), then it is important to see who has the edge in actual voters voting, and how the GOP leaning independents can stack up in these battles. This post looks at 2010 registered voters verses 2010 early voters, and draws some interesting conclusions.

From this site we find the latest and greatest early voting tallies. What I am looking for are partisan tallies, which are provided in only a few states. I selected 7 states with partisan numbers I could locate here (or elsewhere) and began to look at the percentage of the vote to date by party, compared to the percentage of registered voters by party. All registered voter numbers are for 2010.

In 6 out of the 7 states the GOP has a clear advantage in exceeding their registration levels in actual voters voting. Also fairly common in the results is the fact GOP and Dem GOTV efforts tend to reduce the percentage of voters coming from the independents or smaller parties. However, when you add the GOP and “Other” affiliation numbers you quickly see how GOP leaning independents can move toss up states into GOP tilting ones. I have developed a simple test to measure how combined GOP and “other” voters can impact the overall vote tallies.

So let’s begin in no particular order (except I leave the lone state with a dem lead for last). First up is North Carolina, because I think it has one of the best election tracking sites out there. It does not appear to be state run site, but it sure is the best model for all future election sites. Here is the graph we produced comparing the vote through 10/22/10 with the NC registered voter statistics (click all graphs to enlarge):
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Tags: Early Voters, GOP Enthusiasm Gap, Registered Voters

The ‘home town” of our young and inexperienced president is becoming a perfect example of what this election cycle is all about. The early voting trends in the larger Chicago area are indicating a horrible election for Democrats across the nation:

Let’s look at early voting, for instance, and the fact that for the first time since its inception, the suburbs are surpassing the city in turnout. In some cases, the ratio is 3-1.

Ah, those pesky, scared, clingy suburbs – the heart and soul of the Tea Party movement. Middle class, independent, self responsible, normally upwardly mobile suburbs are rising up. The Silent Majority, Slumbering Giant has been awoken.

And yet, the signs are worrisome. Though midterm elections always show a drop in voter participation from the preceding presidential election, there are 40,000 fewer registered black voters now than in the 2006 midterm.

And though the historic presidential run of Barack Obama registered new voters of all races and ethnicities in droves, producing a spike of 190,000 voters in 2008 in Chicago, that gain has nearly been erased in the current canvass. There are today almost 160,000 fewer voters than two years ago. For whatever reason — the highly mobile young may have moved, the elderly may have died — they’re gone now.

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With Downstate voters expected to turn out for Republicans, and suburban women the wild card in this election, Democrats have got to deliver their base in Chicago or Quinn and Giannoulias are cooked.

Running 3-1 behind would seem to indicate they are already cooked, on the way to fried, toasted and incinerated.

It seems the big October surprise, meant to influence this year’s US elections, comes from traitorous foreigners who (a) got their hands on 100’s of thousands of classified military documents and (b) dumped them on the public 12 days before a pivotal election.

The whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks today released a trove of classified reports that it said documented at least 109,000 deaths in the Iraq war, more than the United States previously has acknowledged, as well as what it described as cases of torture and other abuses by Iraqi and coalition forces.

Sadly for the wimpy left, this news is not all that Earth shattering. Sadam Hussein has millions of Arab and Persian Muslim deaths on his hands. He killed about 100,000 a year over his bloody reign. And most of the deaths since the US invasion of Iraq were not a result of US actions, but of blood thirsty al Qaeda associates playing to the liberal western media. Most Iraqis died at the hands of Islamo Fascists trying to get headlines with grotesque and spectacular mass killings. Because the liberals in the West are willing to cry for defeat and retreat at the drop of a hat, the Islamo Fascists went on a killing spree that made the sands of Iraq run red. If the left in the West showed even modest solidarity with their governments, the terrorists would not find mass murder a viable political option.

But what is also clearly intended here is a blatant attempt to influence our elections from outside our country. And I have a very simple answer for that – we ignore this for two weeks and deal with it after the upcoming election. As an American I really am repulsed by foreign influence on our decisions. As these liberals whine and complain about US influence disrupting (usually corrupt and deadly) foreign governments, their duplicitous conclusion is to effect our elections from outside. Not going to happen – we don’t need to respond to these mess before the election, no one could process the meaning of all this data in two weeks. So we ignore this outside attempt to manipulate us and we deal with our election decisions before dealing with whatever this traitorous effort to risk the lives and sacrifices of our military.

While the GOP still has the enthusiasm advantage, the Dem’s GOTV apparatus is also in full gear. Even with the GOTV gearing up, beating the GOP enthusiasm (more like angry rejection in this cycle) is hard to overcome. Emotion does not outperform process. It is the difference between running a play but failing to ‘win the line’ and running a play that blows open a game. You can go through the motions, but the energy level counts in determining the results.

Pew says it well in their latest bad news for the Dems:

The new survey does show some signs of the Democrats awakening. A growing number of Democratic voters say they have given a lot of thought to the coming elections and more say they have been closely following campaign news. However, Republican engagement continues at record levels, dwarfing even improved Democratic showings on these indicators.

…

When the current survey is narrowed to those most likely to vote, the GOP holds a double-digit advantage – 50% to 40%. In early September, Republicans held a seven-point lead among likely voters (50% to 43%).

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Second, while the parties’ voter mobilization efforts are well underway at this stage of the campaign, there is no indication that Democrats are making more headway on these efforts than are Republicans.

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The Republicans’ advantage in 2010 is largely being driven by a swing in preferences among independent voters. Currently, likely independent voters favor the Republican candidate by 19 points (49% Republican vs. 30% Democrat). In November 2006, Democrats held a seven-point lead among likely independent voters.

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Republicans hold a 12-point edge among likely voters in the most competitive districts in the nation, and have a bigger lead in safe Republican districts (27 points) than Democrats have in safe Democratic districts (10 points).

Geraghty get’s the best line of the day:

It sounds like a movie line: “Your puny Stirring Democrats are no match for my Energized Republicans! Now witness the power of this fully operational Tea Party!”

Well, Obama did say the Empire was striking back! So its the Darth Sidius verses the Wiley E Coyote Party is it? Fine with me.

There has been some lose reporting from the lame-stream media (as usual) on early voting. CBS is out saying the Dems are leading in early voting.

While it’s impossible to tell for whom people are voting, Democrats so far are casting ballots at a faster clip than Republicans in Iowa, Maryland, North Carolina and Nevada’s heavily Democratic Clark County, which supplied two-thirds of the state’s voters in 2008.

Not true actually. Let’s check the data for NC. Here is the first four days of early voting in NC – where the Dems have an edge in the number of ballots (97,647 – 84,324), but they are not ‘leading’ in enthusiasm. The GOP is voting well above their registered voter percentage, while the Dems are voting right at theirs, as this running tally shows (click to enlarge):

The GOP is clearly more energized, they are voting 8% above their registered voter percentage. Moreover, since the GOP holds a lead with the Independents, the combination of GOP and Independent voters is 38.2+17.5 = 55.7%, which is clearly more than the Dems 44.3%. This is not isolated to NC. I also dug up some data from Colorado, which provided a one time tally of partisan early voting. Here is the comparison to the registered voter percentages in that state (click to enlarge).

Colorado shows a similar pattern to NC. Here the GOP early voting is well ahead of the Dems (+5%) and their registration level (+6%). But once you combine GOP and Independent voters there is no contest (63-37%). As Pew noted, resistance is futile (oops, now we have the Borg analogies).

In Maine we see a similar pattern with the GOP outperforming their historical early voting levels. The Force is strong on the right this year.

Given the fact these numbers are holding steady over many days of early voting, I don’t buy this Democrat surge stuff we are seeing in the polls. No pollster should ignore this data when tuning their turn out models. The enthusiasm gap is real. When you see pollsters moving Dems wildly and unexpectedly ahead in PA when nothing has happened to change the mood of the voters, it is clear there is some wishful analysis going on.

Let’s leave this post with Jay Cost’s predictions, where he is estimating a 62 House seat and 8 Senate seat pick up for the GOP. I want to get a few more data points on PA, but I will come out with my estimates probably before next Tuesday, and I suspect they will be more bullish than Jay’s.

A few outlier polls and everyone thinks the dynamic sent in motion over the past two years of arrogant DC liberals running amok has just disappeared in one week. Very fanciful, if not fictional. Data is meant to be integrated and balanced, not over reacted to at each data point. This is how we get such inane conclusions as human driven climate warming – by way of wild extrapolations.

There is lots of data and indicators out there. Very few are showing hope for the Dems. Those that do are internally incoherent, like when you see a poll were Independents and the GOP have huge support for the GOP, but the smaller sample of Democrats add up to a Dem lead. Fails elementary addition.

Here is one great synopsis of why the Dems will not be celebrating come November 3rd. It focuses on swing districts, but remember most state-wide races resemble swing districts more than any other kind of district, because no one party has a lock and the middle decides which party will win – not the partisans. Some juicy tidbits:

The President’s overall approval rating in toss-up Congressional districts is toxic. Quite simply, he is killing Democrats in these districts. A bi-partisan NPR poll released this week has the President’s approval rating in “toss-up” Congressional districts at 41%. His disapproval was a stunningly high 55%.

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Voter perception of Obama’s handling of key issues is abysmal. A recent Newsweek poll showed that 56% disapprove of the President’s handling of the economy and 58% disapprove of his handling of the federal budget deficit.

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Private campaign polls that we have seen in four key swing states show opposition to the health care reform law among likely voters at 57%-65%. In these states the new health care law is nuclear material.

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One measure of this that hasn’t gotten a lot of media attention is the raw numbers of primary voters. According to an analysis by American University’s Center for the Study of the American Electorate, Republican turnout in primaries through August has exceeded Democratic turnout by four million voters (17,182,893 to 12,963,925).

This HuffPo piece is a rare breath of cold reality in this morass of hyperventilating. The 2nd indicator is some data from those polls by The Hill, showing why the Democrats are not surging:

The Hill 2010 Midterm Election Poll found that 61 percent of likely independent voters in 10 battleground House districts — a critical swing demographic — think the leadership under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is more liberal than they are.

And these voters know what it means to let Reid and Pelosi survive November and team up with Obama to further damage their nation. The combination of GOP and Independent voters is too much for the Dems to hold back. Then there is this from The Hill polls:

In 10 competitive House districts, 41 percent of likely voters say Obama has brought change for the worse, and 30 percent say he has made no difference.

71% think Obama’s change was either bad or impotent. Think these people are ready to let the Dems keep blowing $1.5 trillion dollars a year on risky, failed schemes?

How about the current list of House seats in play – anyone think the fact that 91 of the 99 seats in trouble in the House are Democrat is a sign of good things to come for the Dems? Think you can lose half your house seats in a state and still win the state wide races?

The only answer from the dems is arrogantly belittling the voters. These knuckleheads plan a high profile ‘make fun of the rubes’ rally on the Washington Mall this weekend. This is sure to ratchet up the anger from those same dumb voters ready to throw the losers out.

Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart have tapped into the Democratic Party’s ironic, scornful mood.

In doing so, they’ve also brought to light some of the party’s most self-destructive tendencies, the elitism and condescension that Bill Clinton sought to purge in the 1990s, when he matched a progressive agenda with the persona of a likeable “Bubba” to win two terms.

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And President Obama himself has given his blessing to the election-eve irony-fest on the Mall, planning to appear on Stewart’s show in advance of the rally and plugging it in a recent appearance in Ohio, suggesting that Stewart’s point was to rally a silent, “sane” majority.

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Waging battle over the Politics of Dumbness may not be smart for Democrats.

“The Washington elite isn’t just blind to the wave, it is fueling the wave of anti-elite resentment,” said the Republican consultant Alex Castellanos. “Laughing at the tea party proves their point — Washington doesn’t listen to people outside the Beltway.”

What better reason to get out and vote than to show those DC elites they are nowhere near as smart as they wish they were. Let me see, how smart is it to blow $3 trillion dollars, not fix the economy and get a major party wiped out in the process. Pure genius! Wiley E Coyote genius.