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Senate

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News from the Votemaster

Wendy Long Wins New York Republican Senatorial Primary

Tea party supporter Wendy Long won the New York state Republican senatorial primary yesterday and will face incumbent Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) in November. Upon winning she said "Kirsten Gillibrand said she wants more women in politics. Tonight we are here to grant her wish." Long and Gillbrand have some points in common. Both are graduates of Dartmouth College, both worked for large New York City law firms, and both have young children. But politically they could not be further apart. Gillibrand was a moderate conservative when she represented a rural district around Albany in the House but has since moved sharply to the left. She has a 70% rating from the Americans for Democratic Action, 90% from ACLU, and 8% from the American Conservative Union.

Gillibrand is the protege of the powerful Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and like Schumer, a prodigious fund raiser. She was appointed to the Senate when Hillary Clinton resigned to become Secretary of State in 2009, but won a special election in 2010 by 28%. Long, in contrast, has never held elective office before and the chances of a tea party candidate winning in very blue New York are about the same as a socialist winning in Oklahoma.

Also noteworthy in New York is that embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) won his primary.

John Roberts' Big Moment?

Politico has a piece on Chief Justice John Roberts' possible role in the ACA decision to be handed down tomorrow. While nobody outside the Court knows how he voted, the essence of the argument is that this case is likely to define his legacy and he will probably write the opinion himself. The big question is whether he wants a 5-4 decision striking down the entire law, which many people will see as entirely political. He certainly has other options, including supporting the law or striking only the mandate, which will force Congress to either revisit the law or watch the entire health insurance system collapse as no insurance company is going to stomach a provision requiring them to take anyone who shows up absent the 30 million new customers the law provides.

It is not even clear what the conservative position here is. While many conservative pundits have railed against it, big business (i.e., the insurance companies) like the law since it gives them 30 million new customers. They really don't care whether the customers are paying the premiums themselves or the government is doing it, as long as somebody pays them on time. So a decision to strike down the mandate or the entire law goes against what big business wants--not something conservatives usually do. But remember, nobody besides the justices and their clerks (well, maybe a couple of secretaries and the printer) know what they are going to decide. All the folks reading the tea leaves are just guessing. Anything is possible, even a 5-4 decision striking down the entire law.

Speculation about Romney's Veep Choices

Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia has a nice summary of the people Romney is likely to consider for Veep. The piece also has a chart listing each potential Veep's strength's and weaknesses. The favorites, in descending order, are Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, Sen. John Thune (R-SD), Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). Sabato's thesis is that Romney wants a boring candidate who won't overshadow him and won't make any mistakes. Our take is that Portman, Pawlenty, and Thune make the cut, but the others (and Sabato's second tier) are not sufficiently well vetted on the national stage and would be too much of a gamble.

Tipping Point Page Changed

The tipping point page (reachable from the fifth menu item to the left of the map), has been changed. What the column labeled "Obama EVs" shows, is how deep into red territory Obama has to go to get 270 electoral votes. The column labeled "Romney EVs" should be read from the bottom upwards and shows how far into blue territory Romney has to go to get 270. At first it appeared that the tipping-point state was the same for both of them, but it turns out there are situations where that is not true. Consequently, the page has been changed to show little hand icons separately for each of them. Often they will be on the same state, but not always.

New Data Pages Available

Some people have asked for a page containing the current score for each state in .csv format to be able to use it as input for programs and shell scripts. It was always available, but with a different name each day. For example, the file www.electoral-vote.com/evp2012/Pres/Data/PHP-Jun27.csv contains where we stand today., with the PHP-Jun26.csv file in the same directory containing yesterday's data, and so on. To make it easier for automated scripts to fetch the data without having to compute the five-character date string, the current presidential polls henceforth will always be available on www.electoral-vote.com/evp2012/pres_data.csv.

The Senate poll daily snapshots have names like www.electoral-vote.com/evp2012/Senate/Data/PHP-Jun27.csv but today's data is also available at www.electoral-vote.com/evp2012/senate_data.csv for the benefit of people who want a stable URL from which to fetch the data.

Today's Presidential Polls

There were several polls from We Ask America today whose results seemed so out of line with other polls that it warranted more examination. For the presidency in Virginia, it had Romney +5%, when the most recent five polls had Obama up +3%, +5%, +4%, and +7%, with even Rasmussen showing it to be a tie. For the Virginia Senate race, We Ask America had George Allen up over Tim Kaine by +9%. The most recent five polls there have Kaine up by +2%, +1%, +6%, 0%, and +1%, respectively. Now things can change although nothing special has happened in Virginia lately. Kaine didn't invoke any zoo animals or anything like that. Now consider this story, admittedly from a left-of-center source, but there is no reason to doubt the specific facts it gives. It appears that We Ask America has deep ties to the Illinois Manufacturers' Association and the Republican Party.

It would be wonderful if all pollsters were completely honest and neutral, but we know from past experience this is not always the case. In 2009, Nate Silver found strong evidence that Strategic Vision was making up the numbers because they were not statistically random. He also raised serious issues about Research 2000, which was then working for Daily Kos, which dropped and sued it. None of this is to say that We Ask America is making up numbers, but the combination of numbers that are so far out of line with other pollsters combined with deep ties to the Republican Party, is very suspicious. For this reason, I am now regarding We Ask America as a partisan pollster. All We Ask America polls have been removed from the database.

There is nothing wrong with a pollster being partisan. Many pollsters are proud to say things like: "We have helped elect 52 Republicans to public office." That is good advertising. The problem with We Ask American is that it appears to be stealth partisan and the numbers look awfully fishy.

State	Obama	Romney	Start	End	Pollster
North Carolina	44%	47%	Jun 25	Jun 25	Rasmussen
Ohio	47%	44%	Jun 21	Jun 24	PPP
Oregon	50%	42%	Jun 21	Jun 24	PPP
Virginia	49%	42%	May 16	Jun 15	Old Dominion Univ.

Today's Senate Polls

State	Democrat	D %	Republican	R %	I	I %	Start	End	Pollster
Massachusetts	Elizabeth Warren	46%	Scott Brown	46%			Jun 22	Jun 24	PPP