By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 26th at 02:20 AM  | 

In an example of lucky timing, the GSA scandal proved why Darrell Issa’s DATA act was needed. Transparency in government allows for oversight. So the bill passed the House by voice vote. I first floated a while back the idea that this sudden, strident CISPA opposition was roote d in a desire to distract the public from the much stronger and more dangerous Lieberman-Collins bill | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 10th at 12:30 AM  | 

Monday night, as promised, we still have some catch up work to do. So let’s start with those Amazon Taxes, those Internet sales taxes of dubious Constitutionality. Colorado’s got tossed in federal court and Illinois’s didn’t raise any money. Obeying the Constitution counts, folks. Pass a true interstate compact through the Congress first. Also as promised, there’s the matter of the Next Generation Television Marketplace | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 3rd at 03:30 AM  | 

Curse Firefox. I’m getting to this much later tonight than I would have, thanks to a stinking Firefox 3.6 rendering bug, plus Firefox’s refusal to make it easy to work around Firefox rendering bugs. Microsoft Internet Explorer makes that easy with conditional comments. Firefox has no such feature, pretending it’s always right. Which is fine, except when Firefox 4 and Firefox 3.6 render the same | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 12th at 07:01 PM  | 

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 »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 6th at 08:00 PM  | 

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 »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  October 1st at 04:00 PM  | 

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 »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 29th at 12:30 PM  | 

The Illinois Senate race keeps going back and forth. Republican Mark Kirk led a while, then Democrat Alexi Giannoulias took it back, but now having won three consecutive polls including PPP’s latest, it seems that Kirk is definitely on top again. It’s so close though that the polling of third party candidates is a serious issue. It may not matter in the end, though.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 8th at 10:00 AM  | 

During the California Senate primary, my major criticisms of Carly Fiorina were that she had no public track record to back her on the issues, and that as a novice campaigner she was liable to make mistakes and lose a winnable race. During the race I didn’t quite give her the Tom Campbell treatment, but I gave Chuck DeVore all the support I could. During | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 17th at 02:00 PM  | 

From Unlikely Voter: I theorized before that Pat Quinn would drag down Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois, with a rout for Governor having reverse coattails for Senate, and now Public Policy Polling seems to show the effects I predicted. A bad candidate for governor in a negative wave year is a terrible situation for a party to have, but that’s the Democrats in Illinois today.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 12th at 02:00 PM  | 

From Unlikely Voter: The Illinois Senate race is already set to be an ugly war, only distinguished from France 1916 by the lack of chemical warfare. Both candidates are hated and have baggage that is not going to go away. Either one can win, though, judging by the polling I’ve seen. But if Republicans rally around a surging Bill Brady while Pat Quinn polls as | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 11th at 03:00 PM  | 

From Unlikely Voter: In an open and credited aping of the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner House battleground polls, Public Opinion Strategies has conducted a massive Senate battleground poll. Politico has for us the summary and 150 pages of gory, numerical details. I’m going to see what sense I can make of it.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 18th at 03:11 PM  | 

Elections in Nevada give the voter the choice to vote for “None of These” candidates listed. Every poll I see of the Illinois Senate race suggests to me that if Illinois put that option on the ballot, None of These would win. The next bit of evidence for the pile: PPP’s latest poll of the race.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 11th at 01:02 PM  | 

I know some pollsters have rushed out to take a look at the primary states immediately after Tuesday’s elections, but we all know that those polls tend to have varying unity bounces. Rick Perry’s took a while in fact. So I’ll let those races simmer a bit and instead look at Illinois today, as Rasmussen polled the Governor and Senate races.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  May 28th at 02:31 PM  | 

At RedState we’ve hammered for a long time the idea that your local politics matter. We also give plenty of attention to federal elections for the House, the Senate, and of course the President. But governors matter, too. The next governor of South Carolina will affect us all. As will Georgia’s, Ohio’s, and Oregon’s. It doesn’t matter where you live. These Governors, as well as | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  April 30th at 06:42 PM  | 

Rasmussen released two new polls today. The Illinois and Delaware Senate races would seem to have little in common, but they do share a common element: they are being held for the seats vacated by Barack Obama and Joe Biden after their victory in November 2008. Are voters inclined to send more Democrats to the Senate to work with them?