Folks, polls are fickle things. One PPP poll showing significantly more Democrat turnout than 2008 and 2006 is not a trend. It is shoddy polling. Then another PA polling group comes out and announces “Joe Sestak Has Lead” – even while the results are a statistical tie at best (+/- 5%).

That same hyper-ventilated poll today shows Sestak dropping into a tie! The trend cannot be good, as Toomey jumps overnight!

Pullease. This year is incredibly hard to poll for a variety of reasons. But the general picture is clear – this is not the year of the big, intrusive government Democrat. The race will be tight in PA, but Sestak has a very low probability of winning in two weeks. I doubt he could have kept his old House seat, let alone a statewide seat. The big item here is the huge lead Toomey has with independents, and the large number of undecideds. First one to 49% wins.

In what has to be a ‘last straw’ moment for PUBLIC radio (e.g., our tax dollars hard at work), NPR has fired Juan Williams for being concerned about Muslim terrorists, after our government announced a high threat level from … wait for it … Muslim terrorists:

The move came after Mr. Williams, who is also a Fox News political analyst, appeared on the “The O’Reilly Factor” on Monday. On the show, the host, Bill O’Reilly, asked him to respond to the notion that the United States was facing a “Muslim dilemma.” Mr. O’Reilly said, “The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet.”

Mr. Williams said he concurred with Mr. O’Reilly.

He continued: “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

What Williams (and most of us) does NOT do is threaten these peaceful Muslims, call for their rights to be taken away, or even mock them. He is reacting rationally.

I traveled to Europe very shortly after the 9-11 ban on commercial flying was lifted, and I can tell you we were ALL very nervous. I flew once from Hawaii with a middle eastern guy who looked like he was straight out of a Chuck Norris flick. He and I shared the second row from the cockpit. He spoke in a middle eastern language on his phone just before take off and had me nervous as hell the entire flight to LAX. I later realized he probably was Mossad or something, but he was trained to fight deadly – you can tell these things sometimes.

The point is terrorists terrorize. And when the USA announces Muslim terrorists are in the US to kill, it is only reasonable people begin to look around and see if there is something fishy going on. That is what the government as been asking us to do – keep an alert eye out.

So how is it Juan Willliams can have his job taken from him for not only complying with the government request, but sharing his fears about the attack with others? It is time to pull the plug on PBS and NPR. They have become political correct outhouses instead of a public service. With thousands of channels of radio, opinion, news and information, they have outlived their need.

Addendum: I forgot to add this comment from Juan:

Mr. Williams also made reference to the Pakistani immigrant who pleaded guilty this month to trying to plant a car bomb in Times Square. “He said the war with Muslims, America’s war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts,” Mr. Williams said.

Yep, taking Muslim Terrorist threats serious is a crime in the mad halls of liberal DC. This is just one more October Surprise for the Dems (the other being the judge striking down DADT in a blatant act of legislating from the bench). Scott Brown will tell you two issues propelled him into office: Obamacare and this administrations blind eye to terrorism. Watch this story ripple in ways no one expects to happen.

Tags: Jaun Williams, NPR

We are getting actual data now due to early voting, and it shows a GOP enthusiasm blow out when compared to either proportions of voter registration rolls or proportions of votes in previous elections. The first indication we have of an enormous wave is in PA, where Politico is reporting early voting is swinging heavily towards the GOP:

As of last Friday, 171,860 Republicans had asked for ballots, compared with 155,440 Democrats, giving the GOP a 49 percent to 41 percent lead. Republicans held a 56 percent to 37 percent lead among the close to 66,000 who have already voted.

While historically more Republicans than Democrats vote absentee, Toomey’s campaign is heartened by the early gap.

“It’s beyond anything we’ve historically seen in Pennsylvania. That’s a net 19-point move from the Democratic registration advantage,” said Toomey campaign manager Mark Harris, pointing to the Democrats’ 11-point party registration advantage.

Remember, these are not ‘likely voters’ they are actual voters. The latest PA voter registration data shows the Dem with 51% and the GOP 37%. The early voting numbers are completely flipped from a -14% for the GOP in registration to a +19% in votes! If we look at the exit polls from the last few election in PA we see the Dems have been +7 (2008), +4 (2006) and +2 (2004). Never have they been -19%! Will this gap stay at -19%? I doubt it. But the enthusiasm in PA is quite apparent and strong so far.

Secondly, I noted a very nice website for North Carolina this morning, and began to monitor its early voting tallies by party (click to enlarge):

As can be seen the GOP is running about 7-8% above its registration levels. The Dems are holding at their registration levels. Since the GOP supports their candidate at much higher levels than independents do, this is bad news for all Dems in the state. I will continue to track the vote tallies by party and compare it to the voter registration proportions. I will be updating this chart to keep a running pulse on this election.

Now moving to polls instead of votes we get this national data from the latest NBC/WSJ poll, which looks as bad or worse than the latest Gallup generic ballot models:

The new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll came out this morning, and there’s no sugar-coating it: The poll has some very grim results for Democrats. In the 92 most competitive House districts, the GOP’s lead among registered voters is 14 points.

But what may be even worse are the numbers that show how bad the “enthusiasm gap” remains, with less than two weeks until election day.

NBC sends over a partisan breakdown of the two questions designed to measure voter enthusiasm, and the results are striking: The GOP leads Dems by at least 20 points on both of them.

Then there is this stunning poll from NY-22, a D+6 district, via Jim Geraghty:

Maurice Hinchey …………………………………………………………… 43.2%

George Phillips ……………………………………………………………… 43.2%

A while back I estimated this year’s political tsunami could reach as high as D+6, and if it did the Dems would lose over 70 seats. Seems this is not wild speculation.

Tags: Ealry Voting, Enthusiasm, GOP, NC, PA

A new Survey USA poll out shows long term incumbent Boxer in serious trouble. Even in a normal year any incumbent polling below 50% is in trouble, and when polling near or below 45% is typically not going to pull it out (because 55% of the voters have already decided to not vote for the incumbent, they are deciding whether to vote for the challenger, or some small party candidate, or sit home).

Boxer is at 46%, her GOP opponent Fiorina is at 44%. For those who already voted the numbers are Boxer 45%, Fiorina 43%. Is this a done deal then? Possibly, since the GOP voter is much more enthused to get out and vote this cycle. But there is another indicator which looks like deep trouble for Boxer: Independents. These folks are voting for Fiorina 50-35%, and that is a huge difference. The Dems are voting 82-11 for Boxer, the GOP 81-11 for Fiorina, so the result will be based on turnout. But with the Dems fighting both the GOP and the Independents.

And here is the rub. The Survey USA poll has the party mix R-35%, D-42% and Ind-21% (total 98). The latest registration numbers for CA are R-31%, D-44%, Ind-25% (total 99). How is it the GOP and Indies account for 56% 77% of the polled voters and are heavy for Fiorina and still lose to the Dems who are performing 2% below their registration levels??? Something is just not adding up here. [never perform addition on less than one cup of coffee]

Update: Ed Morrissey has another interesting poll on Boxer.

This is the way election sites should be set up in the internet age. This North Carolina Transparency Project has incredible site to quickly review the electoral make up and status for the state. It concisely communicates an incredible wealth of information. All states should be producing something like this.

For example, you can compare voter registration changes over any time frame. One thing that is evident since November 2008 is that voters have left both the Democrat and Republican parties, as can be seen if you look follow this link and look at the top row (totals). If you mouse over the graphs you can see the actual data by group. Since November 2008 the only group to increase in voter registration is independents, all others lost voters.

This page shows the absentee voting status. Using the previous page we know that as of October 2010 the make up of the North Carolina voter pool is D-44.7%, R-31.6% and Ind-23.6%. But the early voting tallies show D- 43.5%, R-38.9% and Ind-17.6%. Clearly the Democrats are voting relative to their general slice of the registered voters. But the GOP is surging (as of now) 7% above their proportion of the registered voter pool. Surprisingly (for now) the independents seem to be the ones slow off the mark. It will be interesting to keep an eye on this state to see how the actual voting is transpiring.

Update: Early voting in NV is showing the same GOP surge – which of course is really bad for the soon-to-be ex-Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Early-voting numbers out of Nevada’s two biggest counties could spell trouble for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in his tough contest against Republican Sharron Angle.

In Reno’s Washoe County and Las Vegas’s Clark County, Republican turnout was disproportionately high over the first three voting days, according to local election officials. The two counties together make up 86 percent of the state’s voter population.

Some 47 percent of early voters in the bellwether Washoe County so far have been Republicans, while 40 percent have been Democrats, according to the Washoe County Registrar. Nearly 11,000 people had voted in Washoe over the first three days of early voting, which began Saturday.

Voter registration in the county is evenly split, 39 percent to 39 percent. The disproportionate turnout is a concrete indication of the Republican enthusiasm that is expected to portend a nationwide GOP wave.

So, why are the polls tightening as the votes show an intensity gap favoring the GOP? It could be those fed up with government and jazzed up to throw the Dems out are not responding to pollsters. Or it could be biased turnout models as we may have seen in the recent PA Senate poll by PPP (though, be careful here – PPP accurately picked up the Murkowski and O’Donnell upsets by loosening up their likley voter filters). Who knows.

Or maybe these massive wave elections are those 2% cases the pollsters assume with a 95% confidence are not happening!

Tags: Absentee Voting, North Carolina

Lot’s of head shaking going on with PPP’s ‘unique’ senate poll in PA. PPP has Sestak jumping to a one point lead over Toomey, after months of trailing. However, Jim Geraghty noted a very strange turnout model in the late PPP poll, with Dems out performing their 2008 turnout by a whopping 4%! In 2008 the exit polls showed D-44, R-37 and I-18. PPP thinks it sees 2010 being D-48, R-41 and I-11

In this year’s PA absentee ballot requests, however, the ACTUAL numbers are D-41, R-49 and I-10. It would seem the absentee ballot request numbers tell a different potential outcome. Very different.

You throw one down and vote ’em out, 98 Democrat seats on the wall!

With two weeks remaining until Election Day, the political map has expanded to put Democrats on the run across the country – with 99 Democratic-held House seats now in play, according to a POLITICO analysis, and Republicans well in reach of retaking the House.

It’s a dramatic departure from the outlook one year ago – and a broader landscape than even just prior to the summer congressional recess. As recently as early September, many Republicans were hesitant to talk about winning a majority for fear of overreaching.

Today, however, the non-partisan Cook Political Report predicts a GOP net gain of at least 40 House seats, with 90 Democratic seats in total rated as competitive or likely Republican.

Better yet:

Signs, Signs, everywhere there’s signs
Chasing down the liberals, busting up their minds
Mountains ‘o debt, Tea Party rants – How’d they miss the signs?

Goodbye Speaker Pelosi, and good riddance.

Update: Great beer drinking minds think alike!

Signals, signals, signals. There are so many red flashing lights for the Democrats this cycle it is hard to keep track of them all. What I find the most interesting is the struggle to predict the voter turnout, and thus assess the accuracy of all the polls out there. Even more humorous are those analysts who are predicting down to the fraction of a seat, with uncertainty bars that run in the tens of seats (you know who you are!).

Pollsters have to rely in historic data to obtain their high confidence levels. But statistics demands that we respect the rogue data point (or in this case rogue year), where we have the exception and not the rule. When I see pollsters going back to the historical record to validate their assumptions and predictions I find it extraordinary these statisticians don’t see all the signs this election is completely breaking from history. There is no precision to fractions of a seat or a few percentage points. And there is no equal distribution either (+/- 5%), given the wind at the GOP’s back.

As I noted yesterday, the real question is who is fired up to vote? And I have a sense that it is the independents that will be making the big wave this cycle. Typically one side is fired up and the independents tilt one way. But this year the grass roots Tea Party (which has been a co opted to some degree by conservatives) sprung out of the center-right region of the electorate. Fiscally conservative (low spending, low taxes) with a libertarian streak (limited government) that has a heavy dose of pro-military sense (strong defense, win the wars), these people were the ones who came out to the 2009 Tea Party rallies (I attended one in person in DC).

While they lean conservative, the Tea Party masses are really the Reagan coalition 30 years later. It is still a very centrist group, pulling in a heavy dose of left of center people who are rejecting the mindless liberal policies (and their subsequent disasters) forced through by Reid, Pelosi and Obama. I think the GOP has an edge over the Dems, but I think the thrust will come from a surge in independents.

Gallup released its third installment of its generic ballot results with two likely voter models (click to enlarge).

The numbers are still staggering. In a good GOP year they typically tie the Dems. This year they are running between 11-17% ahead. Even with ‘registered voters‘ the GOP is by 5%! Unlike past years, the huge gap favoring the GOP is still holding (the last link shows how the GOP faded coming down the stretch – except in 2006, where it was the Dems who did the fading).

I don’t think the independents are going to drop off or change their minds this year. I think this election cycle was baked in with September’s unemployment numbers, and it turned to concrete when we learned Obama has added $3 trillion dollars to our national debt in two short years.

I have been on the lookout for independent data confirming my suspicion this wave is coming out of the independents. In Florida I discovered this little blurb comparing the 2008 and 2010 voter mix:

According to the Associated Press, Florida voter registration is down slightly from two years ago, but the ranks of independent voters have grown since then. Figures released by the Division of Elections on Monday show Florida has 11,217,384 voters registered for the Nov. 2 election. That’s 20,250 fewer than in 2008.

Of the total, 2,186,246 registered without party affiliation. That is 83,127 more than in 2008.

Both major parties lost registration, but Democrats still top Republicans by about 4.6 million to 4 million.

This is exactly the phenomena I detected in Elk County, NV and their absentee ballot numbers. There the Dem absentee vote numbers grew 7% and the GOP 11% since 2008. But the independents grew by 24%! Here in FL the Dems and GOP both lost ground in number of registered voters, only the independents grew. Using the rough numbers above for FL it shows independents grew roughly 4%, and would represent 20% of the voter pool. That kind of voter registration surge is an indication if serious intent to vote come November 2nd.

And it is also clear independents are going for the GOP by +20% in nearly all generic ballot polls out. Either way, the Dems are going to be swamped by the GOP and Independent voters – not to mention the unknown number of Democrats who will be defecting in the voting booth.

It would seem few Democrats are going to be safe this November, given some of the incumbents we now see on the ropes. Take CA-47 as a prime example:

Van Tran is tied with Loretta Sanchez on the ballot test. Fully 39% of likely voters say they are supporting Van Tran, while 39% are backing Sanchez and 5% siding with Ceci Iglesias (17% undecided). Moreover, Tran’s definite support level is higher than that of Congresswoman Sanchez (30% definitely voting for Tran – 28% definitely voting for Sanchez).

…

Van Tran has a commanding 22-point lead over Sanchez (52% – 30%) among voters who say they are “extremely interested” in the upcoming elections

According to the RCP details for CA-47, Sanchez has won with 60%, 62% and 70% of the vote in the last three election cycles. Cook rates this a D+4 PVI district. If Sanchez loses in two weeks she will be one of scores upon scores of newly retired Democrats who will have been sent packing by the voters. Amazing!

In my previous post on the ‘most likely of voters‘ (those who requested absentee ballots and only have to submit them to transition to a ‘true voter‘ status) should not be underestimated or dismissed out of hand. The data from Nevada indicates a high probability that most pollsters are way off in their predictions for this election cycle. This is due to the turnout models being stuck on past election patterns, as opposed to what may be actually happening this year. In that post we saw a great set of data from Elko County, NV where they compared 2008 absentee ballot data to the 2010 data. The key aspect of this early voter data is the party affiliation details provided. If Elko is a microcosm of national trends (and there is no reason to suspect it is not), then it indicates an election like nothing we have seen before.

Here is the summary chart showing the increase in voter interest in 2010 over the massive presidential election year of 2008 (click to enlarge).

What is interesting about the data is how ALL party affiliations show a significant increase in absentee ballots in 2010. Overall there has been a 13% increase in absentee voting this cycle, which would indicate a high turn out cycle. But this is NOT just a typical increase in absentee ballot usage. As the chart shows the increase is not uniform across party affiliation. (note: the three groups shown represent 95% of the absentee ballots, the remaining 5% being scattered across smaller parties ranging from left to right)

The well advertised enthusiasm gap between Democrats and the GOP is clear in the data – Dems are up 7% in 2010, but the GOP is up 11%. However, the real surprise (to me) was the 24% increase in the enthusiasm of independents, and that is why the polls are probably not accurately measuring the wave of anger out in the nation.

In Elko County, NV – where the GOP represents ~56% of the voters, the Dems are ~24% and independents ~15% – this will not impact how the voters will vote in 2010. This surge of independent voters is only going to give the GOP a bigger edge, since independents run +20% towards the GOP in all the major polls put out across the country (as seen in this chart by Jay Cost at the Weekly Standard).

So in Elko County, the voters will be just a lot redder as the GOP and Independents combine to swamp the already outnumbered Democrats. Where this is important is in state-wide races and swing districts were the independents are more on par with the Democrats and the GOP. In a theoretical race where each of the three groups are at parity (all at 33.3%) in 2008, I have computed the impact of a wave that follows the parameters of Elko County – i.e., Dems up 7%, GOP up 11% and Indies up 24%. The resultant turnout model is shown in the following chart:

What can happen in a swing race if the wave is really strong with independents is crystal clear. While increasing their turnout by 7% over 2008, the Dems still lose 2% overall. The GOP increases their turnout by 11% over 2008, but also lose ground in the overall numbers by 1%. This is all due to the fact the surge by independents dwarfs both the GOP and Democrat increases. This wave is so large the Independents grow their numbers by 24% and take the lion’s share of the overall vote, coming in at 36.3% – an increase of 3%!

Since the GOP and Democrats can pretty much guarantee their base by 95-5%, it is that +20% advantage for the GOP with independents that makes all the difference in actual outcome. Bottom line: even if the Dems can motivate their base to 2008 levels, it won’t help them.

The real question is how big an edge do the Dems require from 2008 to win with this kind of surge in GOP and independent voters in 2010? Where is their safe ground under these conditions?

To do this we compute what lead in Dem support in 2008 would offset the combined surge in the other two categories in 2010 using the above turnout model. There are numerous scenarios that can end with the Dems just barely beating the GOP in this theoretical model, one of them being a 2008 mix of 40D-30R-30I. That means if Dems +10 are over the GOP in 2008, they would then be safe in 2010 for this model, assuming the kind of independent/GOP tsunami we see in Elko County absentee ballots. These D+10 2008 races would barely win in 2010. A D+9 2008 race would barely lose in 2010. This indicates that a D+9 2008 ranking seems to be where the 2010 tsunami can reach.

That makes sense, given the nearly 100 house seats the professional prognosticators have in play, and why the GOP is still on the verge of taking the senate. This centrist wave is very critical in state wide races, where there is near parity across the three main political affiliations. Few states are D+9, which explains why WV, WI, CA, WA, CT and DE are in play. That also explains why 2010 is very different than previous cycles.

It is extremely rare for the force of an election to come out of the non-partisan center. This is what happened in NJ and VA in 2009, and in MA in 2010 when Scott Brown won Kennedy’s seat. It is why most pollsters are struggling to get a handle on what is happening. Who in their right mind would boost the independents over the party stalwarts?? But that is clearly what is happening in Elko County, NV. And I would argue it is happening across the nation.

Update: Some additional must reads to compliment this data. First, a new poll showing how Obama’s left of center coalition is crumbling:

Nearly two years after putting Obama in the White House, one-quarter of those who voted for the Democrat are defecting to the GOP or considering voting against the party in power this fall. Just half of them say they definitely will show up Nov. 2, according to an Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll released two weeks before Obama’s first midterm elections.

This is really bad news for the dems, because it seems Obama and the liberals in Congress did motivate the voters – to come out and reject their liberal agenda. Second, a post by Sean Trende at RCP highlighting one of the main reasons I keep saying 2010 is not like 1994 – it is much worse:

But this is a different kind of election than 1994, entirely. When my lay friends ask about this election, I explain that it is like seeing Haley’s Comet; you’ll usually only get to see it once in your lifetime. The economy is sluggish, the President has pursued an ambitious, controversial agenda, and the party is badly overexposed, with numerous first- and second- term Democrats occupying districts that had been sending Republicans to Congress for decades.

Trende notes all that vaunted preparation by the Dems to avoid another 1994 were misplaced and did not address the forces at work this cycle. Like a centrist wave rising up instead of a partisan one.

Tags: 2010 election, Centrist Wave, Pollsters, Turnout Models