Rasmussen Poll: McAuliffe 50, Cuccinelli 33

Terry McAuliffe has a 17-point lead over Ken Cuccinelli in the Virginia governor's race, according to a new poll from Rasmussen. McAuliffe, the Democrat, enjoys his largest lead yet in the race with 50 percent of the vote, while Republican Cuccinelli has 33 percent. The Libertarian candidate, Robert Sarvis, has eight percent support.

KATE WELLINGHAM/GAGE SKIDMORE

The Rasmussen survey of 1,000 likely Virginia voters is the latest to show a significant lead for McAuliffe and comes after the end of the federal government shutdown. The McAuliffe campaign has run ads in Northern Virginia, the populous area of the state surrounding the nation's capital and home to thousands of federal workers, linking Cuccinelli to Republicans like Ted Cruz who helped bring about the shutdown. And at an event in Northern Virginia Monday afternoon, Cuccinelli didn't answer how he would have voted on the legislative deal that ended the stalemate if he were in Congress.

"I don't know whether I would have voted for it," he said.

The Virginia state elections are in two weeks.

Via: Weekly Standard

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Barack Obama’s sinking leadership: half of Americans believe the Founding Fathers would see the US today as a failure

A new Rasmussen poll shows just how disillusioned Americans have become with the direction of their own country, over four and a half years since President Obama took office. According to Rasmussen, barely a third of US voters think the nation’s Founding Fathers would view the United States as a success today. 49 percent think the opposite:

Abraham Lincoln famously declared at Gettysburg that the Founding Fathers "brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." But half of Americans think the Founding Fathers would view the nation they created as a failure today.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 34% of American Adults think that if the Founding Fathers came back today, they would consider the United States a success. Forty-nine percent (49%), however, say the founders of this nation would view what it's become as a failure. Seventeen percent (17%) are not sure.

There is a considerable ideological divide between Republicans and Democrats in how they respond to this question, though even among Democrats just over half deliver a positive answer:

Fifty-one percent (51%) of Democrats think the Founding Fathers would consider the United States a success. Sixty-two percent (62%) of Republicans and 55% of those not affiliated with either major party believe the Founding Fathers would view America as a failure.

Significantly, the Rasmussen survey shows strong distrust of the federal government, whose powers have risen significantly since the Obama administration took office:

One of the key foundational concepts in the Declaration of Independence which Lincoln referred to "four score and seven years ago" is that “governments derive their only just powers from the consent of the governed.” Just 17% of Likely U.S. Voters now think the federal government has that consent.

Via: The Telegraph
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10% Think Race Relations Better Since Obama Elected

Voters think America’s a better place since Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I have a dream” speech 50 years ago this week, but nearly nine-out-of-10 say race relations have gotten worse or remained about the same since the election of the nation’s first black president.

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Likely U.S. Voters think race relations in this country are better today than they were 50 years ago. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 13% think those relations are worse today, while just as many (15%) say race relations are about the same. (To see survey question wording, click here). 

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on August 27-28, 2013 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Via: Rasmussen

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Daily Presidential Tracking Poll Sunday November 4, 2012

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows the race tied with President Obama and Mitt Romney each attracting support from 49% of voters nationwide. One percent (1%) prefers some other candidate, and another one percent (1%) remains undecided. See daily tracking history.

These figures include both those who have already voted and those likely to vote. Obama leads among those who have already voted, while Romney leads among those deemed likely to vote. Thirty-nine percent (39%) of voters are projected to be Democrats and 37% Republicans. Both candidates do well within their own party, while Romney has a nine-point advantage among unaffiliated voters.

One key to the outcome on Election Day will be the racial and ethnic mix of the electorate. In 2008, approximately 74% of voters were white. The Obama campaign has argued that this will fall a couple of percentage points in 2012 with an increase in minority voting. Others have noted the increased enthusiasm among white voters and the decreased enthusiasm among Hispanic voters and suggest that white voters might make up a slightly larger share of the electorate this time around. It is significant because Romney attracts 58% of the white vote, while Obama has a huge lead among non-white voters.

If the white turnout increases on Election Day, it will be very difficult for the president to win. If it decreases, it will be very difficult for him to lose. Rasmussen Reports currently estimates that white turnout will be similar to the 2008 totals. Black voters, however, are far more likely to have voted already than any other segment of the electorate.

Matchup results are updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). 

Just over one-out-of-four Americans (27%) say the upcoming election has negatively affected their personal relationship with a friend or family member.

The Rasmussen Reports Electoral College projections now show the president with 237 Electoral Votes and Romney 206. The magic number needed to win the White House is 270. Eight states with 95 Electoral College votes remain Toss-ups: Colorado,   Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio,Virginia and Wisconsin.



Via: Rasmussen Reports

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[VIDEO] GALLUP: ROMNEY UP 52-45% AMONG EARLY VOTERS

***MORE: Obama's Early Vote Advantage Collapses 22-Points Over 2008

Very early on, before this campaign started in earnest, live or die, I publicly cast my lot with Gallup and Rasmussen. As a poll addict going back to 2000, these are the outlets that have always played it straight. It's got nothing to do with politics and everything to do with credibility and not wanting to kid myself. So when an outlet like Gallup tells me Romney is up seven-points, 52-45%, among those who have already voted, that's verybig news.  

Just as Gallup did with their bombshell survey showing that 2012 is looking like a year where Republicans will enjoy a record three-point turnout advantage over Democrats (a ten-point shift from 2008), for whatever reason, they buried the lede with this latest bombshell, as well. When you consider the fact that the CorruptMedia's been talking for weeks about how Obama's crushing Romney in early voting, you would think Gallup proving that Narrative a big fat phony lie would be news. Instead, though, they bury this explosive news at the bottom of a piece headlined: "In U.S., 15% of Registered Voters Have Already Cast Ballots".

Via: Breitbart

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BATTLEGROUND POLL: ROMNEY UP 16 WITH INDEPENDENTS, UP 13 IN ENTHUSIASM

In 2008, President Barack Obama won the independent vote over John McCain by a margin of eight points, 52-44. This morning, a new Battleground Poll has Mitt Romney massacring Obama among indies by a whopping 16 points, 51-35.

That's a 24-point swing among independents since 2008, a group that makes up anywhere from a quarter to a third of voters, and yet Battleground still has Obama in the lead 49-48…?

But if I'm skeptical of those bottom-line numbers, our journalist overlords who have chosen to palace guard instead of question will declare me a "truther."

The Battleground Poll also shows a 13 point enthusiasm gap in Romney's favor. Only 73% of Obama's supporters are "extremely likely" to vote, compared to 86% of Romney's supporters.

But again, don't question Battleground's 49-48% outcome. In fact, don't questionanything anymore -- or the media will question you and mock you as a "truther. " This includes questioning our government about the release of counter-intuitive unemployment statistics very helpful to the president just 30 days out from the election.

Though the media hasn't yet decided it's time for a Romney Comeback Narrative, and probably never will, even if he wins -- there's no question Romney is rebounding in every national and swing state poll.

Nationally, Gallup has it all tied up among registered voters -- with the president dangerously below 50 at 47%. Rasmussen uses the more reliable likely voter screen and has Romney up 49-47%.

In the Real Clear Politics poll of polls,  nationally Romney is only down .09%. A week ago he was down over 4 points.

In Ohio, according to RCP's poll of polls, Obama's Ohio lead has shrunk to three --  Virginiahas Obama only up by 0.3. Florida and Colorado are tied.  

The good news for Romney is that we are now seeing polls from each of these states with the GOP nominee in the lead. The bad news for Obama is that in most of these swing state polls, he is not hitting 50.

Well, actually the worst news for Obama is 85% of the calls made for this new Battleground Poll were made prior to Obama humiliating himself in last week's debate. 

Via: Breitbart

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Chicago Sun-Times: Emperor Obama Has No Clothes

The conventional wisdom is that Wednesday night’s presidential debate is a huge opportunity for Republican nominee Mitt Romney. The emperor-has-no-clothes reality is that the political forum would be meaningless if President Barack Obama could stand on the stage and boast his administration had ushered in an era of low unemployment, surging economic growth, reasonable gas prices and rising prosperity for the American family.

None of that is remotely plausible. The jobless rate has been north of 8 percent for 43 months. Median family income fell more during the Obama recovery than during the recession. Economic growth is slowing: The economy grew at only a 1.3 percent rate in the second quarter, raising fears the nation may be drifting back toward recession.

In addition, Obama’s big foreign-policy accomplishment, the killing of Osama bin Laden, lost some luster in the killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Libya and the assaults on U.S. embassies across the Muslim world. A scandal is brewing over revelations suggesting lax security for Stevens and over the administration’s initial, repeated denials that Stevens was killed in a terrorist attack in what increasingly looks like an effort to protect Obama’s campaign theme that he has degraded al-Qaida. Al-Qaida links to the Benghazi murders are no longer deniable; the terrorist group is a growing menace in the Middle East and North Africa, and al-Qaida in Iraq, all but wiped out by President George W. Bush’s surge, has made a deadly comeback.

Such developments may explain a new Rasmussen Reports poll finding that only 29 percent of likely voters believe the United States is stronger than it was four years ago and 49 percent say it’s weaker.

Still, the overriding issue remains the economy generally — and specifically, jobs — unrestrained government spending, the deficit, energy prices and development and the miserable state of family pocketbooks.

Obama’s defense, as proclaimed by Bill Clinton in his Democratic convention speech, is that the economic collapse was just too big for Obama or any president to handle in one term. Obama has seized this theme, claiming Washington can’t be changed from the inside.

Via: Chicago Sun-Times

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Have Polls Always Underestimated The GOP Vote?

Knowing that exit polling has historically overestimated the Democratic vote and knowing how much the final regular polling in the 1980 race understated Ronald Reagan’s support compared to Jimmy Carter, it is worth looking at what the final poll results said in other presidential election years.

The facts show a similar trend in a pro-Democratic direction almost uniformly. Historically speaking, pollsters have underestimated how many people would vote for the Republican presidential candidate:

Writing at National Review, reporter Jim Geraghty quotes an anonymous pollster who provides a helpful review of past polling data:

In 1992, Gallup’s final poll had Clinton winning by 12 percentage points, he won by 5.6 percentage points. In late October 1992, Pew had Clinton up 10.

In 1996, some reputable pollsters had Clinton winning by 18 percentage points late, and Pew had Clinton up by 19 in November; on Election Day, he won by 8.5 percentage points… In 2004, pollsters were spread out, but most underestimated Bush’s margin. (2000 may have been a unique set of circumstances with the last-minute DUI revelation dropping Bush’s performance lower than his standing in the final polls; alternatively, some may argue that the Osama bin Laden tape the Friday before the election in 2004 altered the dynamic in those final days.) In 2008, Marist had Obama up 9, as did  CBS/New York Times and Washington Post/ABC News, while Reuters and Gallup both had Obama up 11.

Now, if this was just random chance of mistakes, you would see pollsters being wrong in both directions and by about the same margin in each direction at the same rate – sometimes overestimating how well the Democrats do some years, sometimes overestimating how well the Republicans do. But the problem seems pretty systemic – sometimes underestimating the GOP by a little, sometimes by a lot.

In 2004, the final telephone surveys mostly favored George W. Bush against John Kerry but the exit polls clearly did not. As usual, they overstated the Democrat vote (see our earlier report on reasons for this) which led many Democrats to expect that Kerry would win the popular vote and the presidency. When that did not happen, it triggered a widespread belief among hardcore Democrats that Republicans had somehow managed to “steal” the election in several different states, particularly in Ohio.

Via: Newsbusters

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MEDIA POLLS: THE NEWEST NEGATIVE CAMPAIGN AD

Over the years, I've generally had little patience when partisans make the "polls are wrong" argument. I've usually found it to be the last refuge of campaigns which were clearly struggling. Sure, individual polls can be wrong, and some can occasionally produce a crazy outlier, but a collective average of polling produces a roughly accurate snapshot of the state of a race. This year, however, is different. The overwhelming majority of media polling this election employ such absurd assumptions about turnout this November that they not only misrepresent the presidential race, they are actively distorting it. I also believe it is intentional. 

In 2008, the electorate that elected Barack Obama was 39% Democrat, 32% GOP and 29% Independent. This is what we call a D+7 electorate. Obama defeated McCain by 7 points, the same margin. In 2004, the electorate was 37% Democrat, 37% Republican, and 26% Independent, in other words D/R +0. Bush defeated John Kerry by 3 points nationally. 

Yet, virtually every big media poll is based on a model in which Democrats equal or increase their share of the electorate over 2008. Beyond simple common sense, there are many reasons this won't happen. The Dem vote in '08 was the largest in decades. It came after fatigue of eight years of GOP control, two unpopular wars, a charming Democrat candidate who was the Chauncy Gardner of politics, a vessel who could hold everyone's personal dreams and hopes for a politician. It was a perfect storm for Democrats. 

None of the factors driving Democrat turnout in '08 exist today. Recent polls from AP, Politico and the daily tracking polls from Rasmussen and Gallup, all of which assume relatively lower Democrat turnout in November, show the race essentially tied. Only those polls showing an electorate with equal or greater numbers of Democrats show Obama with any sizable lead. 

Yet, it's these polls that are driving the political narrative. Every day the media launches a number of stories about Romney's "struggling" campaign. They cite anonymous GOP sources who wring their hands that the campaign is losing ground. The only real evidence of this, however, are the polls which heavily over-sample Democrat voters. Without these skewed polls, the media's narrative would be untenable. 

Via: Breitbart

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Good News For Romney: Poll Finds Majority Of Americans Still Want Obamacare Repealed…

As we get further removed from a Republican convention that, at least in prime time (and apart from Paul Ryan), didn’t emphasize the importance of repealing Obamacare, and a Democratic convention at which President Obama was praised for spearheading Obamacare’s passage regardless of the considerable difficulties he faced (namely, the opposition of the vast majority of the American people), Americans’ attitudes toward repeal now seem to have reverted back to what they’ve been across the better part of the past two-and-a-half years. This is good news for the Romney campaign.

The latest polling from Rasmussen Reports shows that, by a margin of 10 percentage points (53 to 43 percent), likely voters support the repeal of Obamacare.  By a margin of 11 points (52 to 41 percent), independents support repeal. 

By overwhelming margins, Americans think Obamacare would increase, rather than decrease, health costs (52 to 20 percent); reduce, rather than improve, the quality of care (46 to 22 percent); and raise, rather than lower, deficit spending (51 to 16 percent).

It’s hard to imagine any president being reelected when his signature legislation is this unpopular and is so widely predicted to cause such harm — and Rasmussen (like most pollsters) didn’t even ask Americans about Obamacare’s likely effect on their liberty.

Via: Weekly Standard

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Job creators to Obama: Not this time

As the Democrats leave Charlotte, N.C., after rallying behind President Obama, they face an uphill battle. Americans are concerned about jobs, entitlements and the growing federal deficit — the three things that Obama and the Democrats don’t want to talk about. But they must if they’re going to have any chance of keeping the White House.

Democrats surely can’t take much comfort from the national and battleground state polls that show a close race. Americans are only starting to pay attention to the campaign, and their natural instinct is to support the candidate they know (Obama) over the candidate they’re just learning about (Romney). But one group of voters has been paying attention for quite some time and that should concern all Democrats.

I’m talking about job creators — the entrepreneurs, CEOs and other business owners whom President Obama mostly ignores, when he’s not criticizing them. Two recent polls of this group should be sending waves of panic through the president’s re-election team. For instance, an August 20 Rasmussen poll found that Romney leads Obama by 20 points among entrepreneurs (56 percent to 36 percent). Another poll from Manta, released on August 24, shows that 61 percent of small business owners support Romney, compared to just 26 percent who support Obama.

At least among this group, there is no contest: America’s job creators support Mitt Romney by overwhelming margins. This comports with my own informal survey of business leaders in consumer electronics and other industries. I have yet to meet a CEO who supports the president’s re-election. Indeed, in an August 8 column I wrote for Forbes, I asked if there were among my readers any business owners who support Obama. I wasn’t just trying to make a political point: I was completely serious. I want to hear the argument for why job creators should vote for Obama. I repeated this challenge on national television in August.

Via: The Daily Caller

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Poll: Number of Americans Who Consider Themselves Republicans Hits Record High…

After falling for two straight months, the number of Americans who consider themselves Republicans jumped nearly three points in August.

During August, 37.6% of Americans considered themselves Republicans. That’s up from 34.9% in July  and 35.4% in June. It’s also the largest number of Republicans ever recorded by Rasmussen Report since monthly tracking began in November 2002. The previous peak for the GOP was 37.3% in September 2004. See History of Party Trends.

Via: Rasmussen Reports

Rasmussen: Voters Say Ryan More Qualified To Be President Than Biden

A new poll shows voters giving Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) a slight edge when asked which VP candidate is better qualified to serve as president. 

The new survey from conservative-leaning outlet Rasmussen shows that 42 percent say the House Budget Chairman and Mitt Romney running mate would be more qualified to be commander-in-chief. Forty percent pick Vice President Joe Biden, with 18 percent undecided. 

Ryan’s two-point edge, however, is within the poll’s 3-percent margin of error.

The survey comes after a difficult week for the vice president.

On Tuesday, he told a racially mixed audience at a campaign rally in Virginia that Republican policies toward Wall Street would "put y'all back in chains," a comment that brought swift condemnation from Republicans. 

The Obama campaign defended Biden and said that his remark was taken out of context.

Yet the latest in a series of gaffes from the vice president, led to media speculation that he might be forced off the ticket, despite the Obama administration’s repeated statements that Biden would run with the president in 2012.

On Thursday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Republicans were trying to "distract attention" and said Obama had no intention of getting rid of Biden as his running mate. 

Via: The Hill

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