Unless the polling over the last few days in Florida is completely wrong, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has turned back former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s second resurgence. Republican officeholders can now step back off the ledge.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “whirlpool” as “a quickly rotating mass of water in a river or sea into which objects may be drawn, typically caused by the meeting of conflicting currents.” It is also “a turbulent situation from which it is hard to escape.” After three straight wave elections in 2006, 2008, and 2010, strong crosscurrents might be an appropriate way to think about
As President Obama strides to the podium in the House chamber on Tuesday night, he might have a bit more spring in his step than a few weeks ago. The question on his mind, though, is the same as many others have: “What in the hell is going on in the Republican Party?”
The ABC News/Washington Post and CNN/Opinion Research national polls released this week that show Congress’s job-approval rating dropping to record low levels are barely creating a ripple—because the news is not new.
When one party has 23 Senate seats up for grabs and the other party has just 10, the side with more than twice as much exposure starts off with an enormous disadvantage. Nobody envies the predicament that Senate Democrats are in—clinging to a narrow 53-47 majority and defending seven open seats, while Republicans are defending just two.
The Republican presidential race has turned out to be a series of tag-team matches. Different candidates mount challenges to Mitt Romney in different states. This may delay the inevitability of the former Massachusetts governor finally securing the nomination, but these challenges really don’t affect the end of the game.
Unless pollsters are all accidentally calling voters in other state, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is headed toward a fairly big victory in the New Hampshire Republican primary on Tuesday.
Iowa culled the unwieldy herd of Republican presidential contenders but raised some new questions about what will happen next. To use the NCAA basketball tournament analogy, third-place finisher Ron Paul advances to the next round as winner of his own libertarian/isolationist bracket. Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania wins the more conservative bracket, while former Massachusetts Gov.
The Gallup national tracking poll and various public and private polls conducted in Iowa indicate that the bloom is coming off former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s rose, just as it did for Rep. Michele Bachmann, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain before him.
A little less than 11 months from now, Americans will decide whether to renew President Obama’s contract for another four years. Unless an event or a set of circumstances suddenly makes national security the focus, the outcome will ride on the economy and whether a majority of Americans possess sufficient hope that the state of the nation is changing for the better.
Last time I checked, the final Republican presidential primaries were scheduled for June. In fact, my favorite resource for primary and caucus dates, Frontloading HQ, shows California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and North Dakota all slated for June 5. Ohio and Utah are scheduled for June 12 and 26, respectively.
The national and state polls are pretty clear: Newt Gingrich has moved into the top position for the Republican presidential nomination. Other candidates have surged in the past several months, first Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, then Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and, more recently, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain.
Forty years ago, high-end computer and audiotape manufacturer Memorex ran a classic television ad in which jazz great Ella Fitzgerald sings a high note and shatters a wine glass. Then her taped music plays with glass-shattering crystal clarity, and an announcer asks, “Is it live, or is it Memorex?”
It really doesn’t matter if Herman Cain drops his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. In the wake of accusations of marital transgressions, he will not be the conservative alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the primary race.
On Friday at 8:30 a.m., the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the November unemployment figures. Like many other economic statistics and poll numbers, their impact on 2012 may now seem theoretical or hypothetical. But with the general election less than 12 months away, they are becoming more and more relevant.
The unfortunate demise of the congressional super committee wasn’t accompanied by nearly the drama and hand-wringing of this summer’s debt-ceiling disaster, but its passing is more fuel for the fire of public disillusionment and anger toward Washington and Congress. With record-low job-approval numbers, disenchantment with Congress can still intensify.
After three consecutive partisan “wave” elections, the congressional elections next year may be more like “exposure” elections than partisan ones. In 2006 and 2008, many Capitol Hill Republicans got swept out to sea, while most nonincumbent candidates, even if they ever had a chance, were pulled under by the fierce undertow.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the presidential hopeful who has been on the national scene the longest, is finally surging in polls for the GOP nomination. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is still the odds-on favorite to clinch it, but this is quite a comeback for Gingrich, whose candidacy was left for dead last summer after a series of damaging stories.
The 2012 presidential election is less than a year away, but we still can’t be sure what it will be about. Just 19 percent of Americans tell NBC News/Wall Street Journal pollsters that the country is headed in the right direction; 73 percent say it’s on the wrong track.
As the travails of Herman Cain remain front-and-center, this “contest” for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination is becoming boring. Like a formulaic movie, few plot twists are unfamiliar and we all know how it ends.
The general election is now a year away. Soon, the airwaves will be filled with the venomous, negative campaign ads that we’ve all come to know and sometimes loathe. Parents of young children will be reaching for the Disney DVDs, hoping to protect their offspring from seeing those who aspire to elective office assassinate one other’s character.
It certainly wasn’t just me; a lot of analysts got some push-back for being so definitively sure that the 2012 Republican presidential nominee wouldn’t be former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain. As Cain surged in the polls, with many conservatives loving both his message and delivery, many people wondered how we could be so dismissive.
With the 2012 presidential general election just a year away, it’s a good time to look at the national polling and talk about the state of play. Obviously, we have to make allowances for changing circumstances and unexpected events.
Although plenty of political and economic diagnostic indicators are signaling danger for President Obama, this election season still doesn’t have a dominant direction. During the 2006, 2008, and 2010 cycles, the question was how many seats would the victorious party pick up, not which one the political tides would benefit most. But so far for 2012, the weather vanes are just spinning.
One of the occupational hazards of being a political analyst is the tendency to become too dependent on the reams of polling data and economic numbers that come out every week.
