Apr. 25

Senate map with polls Previous report Next report News: Updated Apr. 25 Both beat McCain ≥ 5% McCain beats both ≥ 5% Obama > Clinton by ≥ 5% Obama > Clinton by < 5% Clinton > Obama by < 5% Clinton > Obama by ≥ 5%   In brown states, Obama does better than Clinton against McCain. In pink states Clinton does better. Sometimes this means: does not lose as badly But white centers are statistical ties.

Many interest groups rate representatives on how they vote. Well-known groups that issue such ratings include Americans for Democratic Action (a progressive group) and the American Conservative Union (a conservative group). In the table below, we give the ratings of seven such groups and the mean value for each representative. However, the ratings are not completely independent. Usually representatives who get a good rating from the ADA get a bad rating from the ACU and vice versa. If we used four progressive groups and four conservative groups, every representative would probably get a score of 50%--not very interesting. To avoid this problem, we have only used (relatively) progressive groups. If you are a progressive, a representative with a high score is a good representative (supports everything progressive). If you are a conservative, a representative with a low score is a good representative (opposes everything progressive). In this way the differences between the representatives stand out clearly. The table below is sorted on mean rating. Additional ratings from other interest groups can be found at www.vote-smart.org.

The seven groups used in this study are:

The data is available for download in .csv format so you can slice and dice the data as you wish. The ratings are for 2007. For Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), some of his votes were made as a House member before he was appointed to the Senate.

Thanks to Ramy Rahal for collecting the data.

The data for the conservative interest groups is here.

A new primary poll in Indiana shows it to be a statistical tie. Indiana is part of ye-olde-rust-belt, so it should vote like Ohio and Pennsylvania, but with a couple of footnotes. First, northwestern Indiana is really suburban Chicago and gets Chicago TV, so Obama is well known in that part of Indiana. Second, the state has a lot of typical Midwestern farm towns. Third, unlike Pennsylvania which is basically a blue state and Ohio which is a swing state, Indiana is a red state. Obama has done relatively well in other red states, but he certainly can't count on that here and both candidates will be fighting tooth and nail for this state. Hoosiers are not accustomed to being the center of attention, but this looks like their 15 minutes of fame.

The polling results for all primaries and caucuses are available as a Web page and in .csv format.

Here are the delegate totals from various news sources rounded to integers (Democrats Abroad has 22 delegates, each with 1/2 vote). The sources differ because in most caucus states, no delegates to the national conventions have been chosen yet, just delegates to the district, county, or state convention so there is some guesswork involved. Furthermore, some of the unpledged delegates are elected at state conventions in May or June. Finally, the PLEOs (Party Leaders and Elected Officials) sometimes waver and may tell different reporters slightly different stories that they interpret differently.

Delegates

Needed to win: 2024

Here is another source for delegate totals.

WWW www.electoral-vote.com