Independents are the critical, deciding factor in American politics. Unaffiliated with either party, they are the voters candidates need to build a national coalition. The candidate who wins Independents wins the election. George W. Bush drew even with Independents against
At the start of the general election campaign, the Obama camp gamed out its strategy assuming that states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan were safe states. There were no plans to spend resources in these states nor send surrogates
Richard Carmona is running for the U.S. Senate in Arizona. He is a trauma surgeon and former U.S. Surgeon General. For better or worse, he has been a fixture in Arizona health care for decades. As I noted last week,
Montana Democrat Senator Jon Tester is locked in a tight reelection battle with GOP Congressman Dennis Rehberg. It has long been seen as one of the more competitive Senate races in the country, and potentially pivotal to determining control of
Earlier today, my colleague, Tony Lee, reported on a new poll from Oregon showing Obama up just six points over Mitt Romney. Surprisingly, Obama’s support was only 47%, well below the 50% threshold deemed safe for incumbents. To say that
Over the past several days, my colleague Joel Pollak and I have noted that the ground seemed to be shifting in deep blue Minnesota. Although no Republican presidential candidate has won the state since 1972, there were signs that the
Rasmussen released its latest survey of battleground Ohio this morning. The poll finds Romney surging into his first-ever lead in the Buckeye state. He now leads President Obama by two points among likely voters, 50-48. Importantly, Romney’s support has crossed
A massive and historic storm is barreling towards the beltway this weekend. The entire DC-NYC axis, headquarters of the left media complex, will suffer the effects of three storm-fronts, converging at the same time. Evacuations may be ordered, but it
Today, the Obama campaign announced that, with the threat of the approaching Hurricane Sandy, Dr. Jill Biden was canceling scheduled events in Pennsylvania. But, they slipped something far more intriguing into their statement. The campaign reported that Vice-President Joe Biden
The last time Minnesota cast its electoral votes for a Republican running for President was 1972. Even Ronald Reagan failed to win the state in both back-to-back landslide elections. It has elected Republicans to the occasional state-wide office, but for
Earlier today, the Romney campaign announced it was buying ad time in Minnesota. Since the state has never been considered a swing state, lefty pundits immediately dismissed the buy as a bluff. Romney, they scoffed, was simply trying to create
The palace guard media were on tenterhooks Wednesday, waiting for a promised “bombshell” announcement about Barack Obama from Donald Trump. Shortly after noon, Trump released a video message, promising to donate $5 million to charity if Obama released his college
This morning, Gallup released a bombshell survey of likely voters this November. It wasn’t a horse race poll, i.e. which candidate is ahead, but rather a look at the underlying demographics that will make up the electorate this November. They
In 2008, Obama won all of this year’s battleground states, often by substantial margins. In 2008 he held commanding leads in the RealClearPolitics average of polls in each of the swing states. His average standing in the polls was above
So, women don’t, in fact, vote with their “lady-parts.” After months of Democrats pounding Republicans over their alleged “war on women,” and tens of millions of dollars in ads appealing to women on contraceptives and abortion, the “gender gap” is
Aside from the economy, the biggest issue on voters’ minds this year is federal spending and the deficit. Voters across the political spectrum understand that the federal government can’t keep racking up charges on future generations’ credit cards. Which makes
It really must be panic time for the media. Time magazine is out with a new poll of Ohio, showing Obama with a 5-point lead over Romney, 49-44. That’s about where polling showed the race a couple weeks ago, with
The presidential debates this month not only allowed Mitt Romney to break through the caricature of him painted by Obama and the media, they breathed life into the GOP base. At the end of the summer conventions, Democrat voters expressed
Democrat Congressman Jerry McNerney was elected to Congress in the Democrat wave year of 2006. Prior to serving in Congress, representing California’s Central Valley, he was an engineer working in the energy field. He was also an aspiring novelist. His
President Obama went into last night’s debate with a pocketful of zingers intended to fire up his base voters. He hovered over the debate table, eager for any opportunity to unleash practiced attack lines against Mitt Romney. He was very
The first swing state to move off the battlefield this year was North Carolina. Last week, RealClearPolitics moved it from “toss up” to “lean Romney.” Romney has built up consistent, significant leads in the Tarheel state, and Obama hasn’t campaigned
Charles Callaghan is a registered voter and resident of Florida. He was born in the US and has always been a US citizen. So you can imagine his surprise when he received a letter, purportedly from his county’s election office,
Last week, the Politico Battleground poll showed Obama with a 1-point lead over Romney. It was consistent with their polling throughout the campaign season, with Obama clinging to a small, but steady, lead over Romney. Today’s Politico poll, though, taken
Today’s tracking poll from Gallup confirms that Romney has opened a consistent, and significant, lead in the race against President Obama. After dipping a point yesterday, the poll finds Romney again leading Obama by 7 points among likely voters, 52-45.
A walk through the RealClearPolitics average of polls is an exploration of parallel universes. This morning, the overall RCP average shows a tied race between Obama and Romney. While this itself is an ominous sign for Obama’s chances at reelection,
A new WSJ/NBC poll, released this morning, finds Romney surging in the final weeks of the campaign. He and Obama are tied at 47%. Previous polling by WSJ/NBC showed Obama with a steady 3-5 point lead in the presidential race.
The Romney campaign reached another milestone this afternoon. For the first time in the campaign, Romney now leads in RealClearPolitic’s electoral map. Previously, Obama had a 10-vote edge, but RCP has now moved North Carolina from toss-up to “lean Romney.”
If you want to get a good sense of state of a campaign, look for areas that were once considered safe for a candidate which become competitive. In the final weeks of the 2008 campaign, Obama gained ground in “safe”
Last week, Joe Biden gave his best impression of an Irish brawler in the vice-presidential debate. Acting as if it were a vaudeville act, he chortled, guffawed, laughed and sighed his way through the encounter. Democrats and the media, who
The last Marquette University poll of Wisconsin was conducted the last week of September, prior to the first presidential debate. It found Obama with a comfortable 11-point lead among likely voters, 53-42. Among the broader universe of registered voters, Obama
Andrew Sullivan, you’ll be reassured, is “bloody elated” over Obama’s performance in last night’s debate. Democrats and the media across the country breathed a collective sigh of relief as the President brought a much more combative and energetic performance than
The pressure is on Barack Obama to score a convincing knock-out against Mitt Romney in tonight’s second presidential debate. His disastrous performance in the first debate gave Romney an opportunity to reintroduce himself to voters. Romney seized it and has
Remember all that happy talk from the media last month that Obama had the election in the bag and debates wouldn’t really make a difference? In the real world, Romney trounced Obama in their first debate and has been gaining
Obama grabbed lots of headlines earlier this month when the campaign announced that, combined with the DNC, it had raised a staggering $181 million in September. It almost matched their fundraising haul from July and August combined. Questions immediately arose
On Friday, Politico reported that the Obama campaign was planning to revisit the issue of Romney’s tax returns. For ten days, since the first debate, the Obama campaign had been shedding its poll advantage. Revisiting this old issue was their
This morning, Washington Post & ABC released their latest poll of the presidential race. Naturally, they find Obama leading Romney by 3 points, 49-46. This is similar to their last poll, which found Obama leading by 2, 49-47. Similar, but very,
In the wake of Barack Obama’s disastrous debate performance, and clear signs that Mitt Romney is gaining momentum in the final weeks of the campaign, the media this morning are seizing on a new poll showing Obama up 2 percent
Earlier today, I conjectured that the Obama campaign may be out of attack lines to use against Mitt Romney. After Obama’s disastrous debate on October 3rd, it was remarkable that his campaign didn’t try to launch any new attacks or
On October 3rd, Mitt Romney gave an epic performance at the first presidential debate in Denver. According to Gallup, Americans, by a 52-point margin–the most ever recorded–said Romney won the debate against Obama. In the aftermath, Romney has taken a
