As I’ve not been shy about saying, I have an emotional attachment to the California Senate race. I live here, I’ve always lived here, and in fact Democrat Barbara Boxer was first elected to the Senate when I was first beginning to follow politics, back when I was 14 years old. So I knew the television ad campaigns would make or break the race for | Read More »
I still have the Washington Senate race as one of the four closest, despite Republican Dino Rossi taking a decent lead over Democrat Patty Murray in recent polling. This is why: both candidates have been capable of rattling off good polls, and one new result at any time can come out in favor of either candidate.
Tech at night will be brief tonight. It was my mother’s birthday last month, but I couldn’t buy her what I intended because I had several bills coming due at once. So, she got her iPad tonight. I’m taking suggestions for an iPad Sudoku game that’s as good as working on paper with a pencil. She’s adamant that nothing on the iPad will beat that, | Read More »
One goal’s already been hit, but they’re raising the bar. Retire Boxer. My latest projection has this a competitive race, right on the second tier roughly. She’s running ads on television statewide and she’s fighting hard. This is an expensive state and she could use the help. The NRSC is also putting money in, so we’re not alone in helping out. Remember: national Democrats were | Read More »
We now enter week two of The Hill’s series of district by district polls in pre-selected close races. Week one had some good results for Republicans and week two seems to say much of the same.
Later today I will find out what my Senate projection says are the four closest Senate races are, but for now, here are what I think those four currently are, and the latest polling on each: Illinois between Democrat Alexi Giannoulias and Republican Mark Kirk, Nevada between Republican Sharron Angle and Democrat Harry Reid, Washington between Democrat Patty Murray and Republican Dino Rossi, and West | Read More »
Carly Fiorina is still fighting hard against No Ma’am Boxer, and it’s good to see. I like this one, it’s short and it’s simple. It takes extra work to cut your typical online ad down to a 30 second (minus BCRA requirement) slam, and done well it matters:
The Chris Bowers pagerank scam using a linking scheme driven by recruited websites is still in the works, but Google has not delisted Daily Kos. Interesting bit of bias there, huh? And all I need say about Net Neutrality this week, and the urgent need for legislation to stop the runaway FCC, was said by Seton Motley at the Washington Examiner.
Yes, yes, I can hear the groans from here already, but when I see two polls one day apart from each other that give diametrically opposite results in the Florida Governor’s race, I get worried. Republican Rick Scott had similarly erratic polling in his primary race which finished close with 3% final difference, so as his polling against Democrat Alex Sink is swingy, I worry | Read More »
If there’s one thing Google guards closely, it’s the secrets of its search service. Despite praising the virtues for the customer of transparency online, Google’s anything but transparent. Take a look at their webmaster guidelines, which in part explain how to avoid the Google Death Penalty. But one thing that is clear is that linking schemes, particularly those using shadow websites, are forbidden. So the | Read More »
Catch future episodes of The Needle for a special discussion of Tech at Night and my other project, UnlikelyVoter.com. Be warned, though, The Needle is a bit rowdier than RedState. I’ve said it in this space before, and I’ll keep saying because the Lame Duck session is coming: Republicans need to get out in front on Net Neutrality and we need to do it quickly. | Read More »
Good evening. We have a great deal of new polling that’s flooded in. Much of it is interesting too, so rather than pick and choose which polls I’ll cover in depth and which I will omit, instead I’ll give a quick look at all the good ones. We’ve got Senate races in Nevada, Connecticut, West Virginia, Ohio, New York, Missouri, and Delaware, plus races for | Read More »
I’ve given up on polling of individual House districts. Even if we see more than one poll of a given race, it’s usually all from the same pollster for the same client, a local newspaper or media alliance. These polls are erratic and without multiple sources to verify the figures, it’s hard to draw value from them. So even though I’ll stick with the wide | Read More »
Apologies for missing the last two Tech at Nights. But unlike the paid staff of the well-funded Free Press, every word I’ve ever written here on technical issues has been on my own time, for free, because I care about the issues. And when work overwhelms me, as it did last week as a huge deadline approached, something had to give. And what gave was | Read More »
So Newsweek put out a new Generic Ballot. The magazine’s polling had drawn notice before in my House projection reports (this week’s edition coming later today), but this new one just seems completely out of line: Democrats +5 among Registered Voters. That filtering is expected to lean to the left after the 2008 anomaly, but this is ridiculous.
Scientific polling, based on the laws of probability and the compounding of likelihoods, is a mathematical activity. It’s all about the numbers. Without the numbers no poll has meaning. That’s why I highlight key facts like Margins of Error. Your typical internal poll release is very low on numbers and instead is a one page memo. Those releases can be based on sound polling practices, | Read More »
Back when Democrat Patty Murray got several good polls all at once, taking nearly double digit leads over Republican Dino Rossi in the Washington Senate race, I didn’t think it was a fundamental shift of public opinion. I called it a “good week,” and when her leads dropped, I said the race was returning to a tie. The new Rasmussen suggests I was right and | Read More »
Wisconsin is traditionally the most Progressive state in America. Progressives win there. Progressives have long won there. Progressives have won there even in years when they lost in much of America. Wisconsin even went in for the La Follette-founded Progressive Party, making it a highly successful third party within the state for about a decade. So I’m just at a loss for words as to | Read More »
Do you want to beat Harry Reid, and on top of that elect a true TEA party candidate to the United States Senate? We’re capable of doing that in Nevada. Sharron Angle has withstood so much pressure both before and after the primary, so many bad polls that have been underestimating her from day one, and she’s come out of it all keeping the race | Read More »
Update: Waxman is now using Republican opposition to this bill to claim the FCC should now implement the worst case of Internet regulation. Republicans need to get behind a reasonable compromise and we need to commit to outlawing Title II reclassification. The FCC going on its own would do incalculable damage to the industry going forward. Action is needed sooner, not later. If you take | Read More »
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