Feb. 02

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News from the Votemaster

Happy Groundhog day, everyone!

Here is today's batch of polls:

Here is what the Feb. 5 races look like. The most recent (January) poll is always included. If other polls were taken within a week of it, all of them are averaged, weighted equally. A "+" in the pollster column indicates multiple polls were used.

Democrats

Republicans

Here is a run down of the megabuckage as of the end of 2007. The last column is the net amount as of Dec. 31 (cash on hand minus outstanding debts). Clinton and Obama are running about even in fundraising, but he is spending it faster than she. Each one has raised twice as much as anyone else (Romney's total is hugely inflated because he loaned his campaign $35 million of his own money, something it is not likely to pay back). Ron Paul is the most frugal candidate: he has no debts. In case you are REALLY into this kind of stuff, Mike Gravel outraised Alan Keyes by more than 50%, $380,000 to $290,000. If you have a child or grandchild who asks you "Can I be President when I grow up?" The answer is: "Yes, but first you have to raise $100 million just to get through the year before the election." For the full story, see Open Secrets.

While Clinton and Obama had plenty of money in the bank at the end of last year, their burn rates have been horrific. Obama raised another $32 million in January. Clinton has not announced her January haul yet.

Many prominent conservatives, including Ann Coulter, James Dobson, Rush Limbaugh, and Pat Toomey, have a visceral hatred of John McCain, which is going to be a big problem if he is the nominee (see also here and here). All of them hate Hillary Clinton, too, and probably could learn to hate Barack Obama if he is their opponent. One of the arguments that Republicans have been making about why they will win this year is how Hillary Clinton will unite their party like never before. Unless John McCain divides it like never before. Which hate is stronger? In any event, there is likely to be a lot of hate this year.

The U.S. economy lost 17,000 jobs in January. While the formal definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth in GDP, something economists understand, for most people, having to worry about losing your job is a better indicator and tends to push people towards the Democrats. A recession in an election year will focus everyone's attention on which party can be better trusted to fix the economy. John McCain has (perhaps foolishly) said he doesn't know much about the economy. He may come to regret that. His great strength is national security and to the extent that gets put on the back burner while people are worrying about their jobs, it hurts him. If there is another terrorist attack, people will look to him for strength.

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

CNN is keeping track of the delegates for the Democrats and for the Republicans. Note that other sources may differ because CNN is trying to count the PLEOs (Party Leaders and Elected Officials) and other unpledged delegates. When different reporters call a PLEO and hear "Well, I like Hillary, but Barack has his charms too" they may score it differently. Here is CNN's count:

Delegates

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