News from the Votemaster

Please Take This Quick Survey

Given that this is a Website about polls, it seems appropriate to have one here, even if it is not a random sample. Actually, it is a bit more of a readership survey than a real poll, but still. We had 961,000 visitors yesterday; getting some general demographic information on the readership would be nice. Results will be posted in a few days. One quick note: The first question is for U.S. citizens only. The second is for noncitizens only. The rest are for everyone. For each question click on the appropriate circle. Be sure to click on "Submit Survey" at the end. The whole thing shouldn't take more than a minute. Thanks.

McCain Tackles Obama on "Spread the Wealth"

The McCain campaign apparently has a new theme this week: attacking Obama for wanting to "spread the wealth." But it is not clear what that really means. Many Republicans have bitterly opposed the federal income tax since the 16th amendment was passed in 1913. Is McCain going to repeal the federal income tax? If so, how does he plan to finance the government? Or does he mean that the difference between the top rate of 39.6% under Bill Clinton and the top rate of 36% under George Bush is the difference between communism and capitalism? The purpose of the progressive federal income tax is to spread the wealth. That Democrats have supported a progressive income tax for decades is hardly news. Does McCain want to keep the tax but make it a flat tax (a la Steve Forbes)? No word on this. It seems this is just another desperate attempt to attack Obama rather than being a serious policy proposal for tax reform and it comes awfully late in the game. If McCain wanted to run on a platform of a flat tax, he certainly has had the opportunity, but until now he didn't bring up the subject.

Rift Within the McCain Campaign Widens

More reports are surfacing of serious rifts within the McCain campaign, something that is generally not helpful during the final week of any campaign. Sarah Palin feels she has been mistreated and is about to be made a scapegoat for the impending Republican disaster. Her friends in the campaign feel that if she had been left free to campaign as she saw fit, she would have done far better. She would undoubtedly have been a rip-roaring conservative, bashing Obama, liberals, blue states, Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, gays, gun-control freaks, environmentalists, and the whole nine yards, full bore with no restraints. Probably the only group the left coddles that might have been spared are unwed teenage mothers. But every time she got off message, her handlers told her to cut it out. If McCain loses, she will be free to speak her mind starting November 5th and she will probably start a cataclysmic battle for the soul of the Republican party.

Stevens is Convicted

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), the longest-serving Republican senator in history, was convicted on seven counts of lying on his Senate disclosure forms to try to hide illegal gifts he received from an oil services company executive. He could serve up to 5 years in federal prison on each count, but that is unlikely. What is likely is that his Democratic opponent, Anchorage mayor Mark Begich, will be elected senator next week in a landslide. What a way to go. With Stevens now a convicted felon, Rep. Don Young (R-AK) under investigation for corruption, and Gov. Sarah Palin guilty of ethics violations in the troopergate case according to a report issue to a special investigator, people are going to start getting the impression that something is rotten in the state of Denmark--er, make that the state of Alaska. The DSCC has stopped pouring money into this race. Probably a sign Chairman Chuck Schumer thinks Stevens is a dead man walking. President Bush has not commented on whether he will pardon Stevens. Gov. Sarah Palin reacted but her reaction was basically that she was for good government. She didn't say if she agreed with the verdict or even if she would vote for Stevens next week.

If Stevens is reelected anyway, then expelled from the Senate in January, a vacancy will be created and there will be a special election. No doubt Sarah Palin will be very tempted to run and would surely win. This would inject her into national politics in a big way very fast. But the chance of Stevens being reelected next week is small.

Republican National Committee is Advertising in Montana

The RNC is running ads costing $300,000 to $400,000 in Montana. Normally Republicans take Montana for granted and neither candidate shows up there. However, this year polls have shown that the state is a tossup and apparently the RNC is taking no chances. But having to spend money, even a small amount, on a state that should be a no brainer means that it is worried about it.

CQ Politics Lists All Ratings Changes

CQ Politics has produced a list of all its ratings changes for the Senate and House over the past year. It has been a tumultuous year and many ratings have changed. The list is reproduced below in table form. The vast majority of the changes favor the Democrats. A year ago it looked like the Republicans might recover from their catastrophic defeat in 2006. Now it looks like the 2008 wave will exceed the 2006 one. The lines that are blue indicate ratings changes toward the Democrats. The red lines indicate changes toward the Republicans. In CQ Politics notation, "Safe" means you can bet on it, "Favored" means the candidate losing would be a huge upset, "Leans" means it is more likely that the candidate wins, but the reverse is plausible. Names in parentheses are retiring. The state and district names are all clickable. For a second opinion, be sure to check out our Senate page and House page as well.

As an aside, in the House, everything is pretty much a straight up-or-down vote. Filibusters, holds, and all that Senate stuff doesn't exist there. If a bill to change the colors in the American flag comes up all it needs is 218 votes to pass. Nevertheless, it matters if the Democrats have 220 seats or 270 seats. Many Democrats come from red districts (see the table we had on Oct. 24). People in these districts tend to be against abortion, against gun control, against gay rights, and--importantly--against big business. If Nancy Pelosi has 270 Democrats in the House, when a difficult vote comes up, she can give dispensation to 50 of them to vote against the bill and still have it pass. Which 50 get permission to oppose the party line would vary from bill to bill, but it provides some cover to the members in 2010. With only 220 Democrats, she has less wiggle room: a handful of defections could be fatal.

Obama Continues to Lead Nationally. The average is 6.3%.

His lead is completely stable, changing a point or two every day due to sampling error. It is noteworthy that the last time McCain led in any national poll was Sept. 25. Thus for over a month, Obama has led in every single one of the 49 national polls. Here is today's collection.

Today's Polls

One week to go! The polls are coming in fast and furious. We have 25 presidential polls today, listed below. A brief summary is as follows. McCain will presumably win his home state of Arizona, but it won't be a blow out. If Obama decided to campaign there, it could be quite close. Colorado remains leaning toward Obama, Florida, too. Needless to say, if Obama wins these two states, he's in. Missouri and North Carolina are too close to call. Ohio continues to lean toward Obama and so does Virginia.

McCain has his work cut out for him this week. Will we see the incredible resurrection of Rev. Jeremiah Wright? McCain himself is supposedly against this although most of his base is pleading with him to bring out the big guns. He may have good reasons for this though. It's old news and Palin has an equally wacky preacher who Obama may bring up and that might get more coverage. Also, Todd Palin belonged to a political party that wants Alaska to secede from the United States. With Palin talking about the "pro-America" parts of the country, McCain probably doesn't want a national discussion this week about whether Alaska is one of those parts. So he may have a implicit understanding with Obama about keeping it a bit civil this week. Who knows? But McCain needs to do something dramatic this week.

We also have seven Senate polls. The only one of note is in Oregon, where state representative Jeff Merkley (D) seems poised to defeat Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR). This is a key race in the Democrats drive to a 60-seat (filibuster-proof) Senate.

We also have six House polls. All of them are about as expected.