Good Witch, Bad Witch. Red Witch, Blue Witch.

What I want to know about Christine O'Donnell is this: is she a good witch or a bad witch? Likewise I want to know if Chris Coons is a good bearded Marxist or a bad one. File this one under silliest Senate campaign.

It does look as though the Buckley Rule would have been the wiser rule for Delaware Republicans to follow. O'Donnell is behind by double digits in two polls. Still, I wouldn't count her out as quickly as a lot of people have. We have seen too many Republicans come from far behind to dead even or comfortably ahead this year. Delaware is an odd blue wonder, but it is not on another planet.

Two recent polls have the Democrats ahead by one generic point. Has there been a shift? Maybe, but Gallup has been bouncing violently between big Republican leads and dead even for weeks, shifts no other poll has found. Sandwiched between the two is Rasmussen, which has a much larger sample and uses a likely voter model. He has the Republicans up by 10.

Meanwhile we have some rather astonishing polls from a couple of Senate races. In West Virginia, Rasmussen has Governor Joe Manchin up seven over Republican John Raese. But the Democratic outfit PPP has Raese up by three. What to think? If Raese really is ahead or tied, that's big news. The Democrats figured they had this one in the bag. One thing that throws me off is that John Raese looks disturbingly like Patrick Leahy.

We now have two polls showing big leads for Ron Johnson over Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. The Daily KOS/PPP has Johnson ahead by a whopping eleven points. Rasmussen shows him ahead by a paltry seven points. No doubt intrepid reader Donald will post to explain how this is meaningless, but to me it looks like Feingold is in big trouble. Ron Johnson, I am happy to report, doesn't look like Pat Leahy.

One good sign for Democrats is that their fundraising committees took in more money in August than their Republican counterparts. A bad sign is that both the DCCC and the RCCC are spending most of their money on districts held by Democrats. From Jay Cost at the Weekly Standard:

Hotline OnCall is reporting that more than a third of the DCCC's "Red To Blue" program, originally intended to highlight top pickup opportunities, is now touting Democrats running for Democratic-held seats. At this rate, they'll have to rename it the "Blue, Please Stay Blue" program.

Another example of map reading from the Washington Post's Michael Gerson, with the ominous title "Blue Strongholds Becoming Democratic Graveyards":

Just two years ago, both Democrats and Republicans suspected that Ohio was becoming another Illinois -- a realigned Democratic stronghold. Ohio independents had become alienated from Republicans over both spending and ethics. Democrats took control of key state government offices and added a million registered voters. Barack Obama won the state handily in 2008. Even in the spring of this year, Ohio lagged behind national Republican momentum, with Portman and his Democratic opponent, Lee Fisher, locked in a tight race.

But Republican gains are now greater in Ohio than elsewhere in the country. The Quinnipiac poll produced the single-most startling figure of the midterm election so far: 65 percent of Ohio's likely independent voters now disapprove of Obama's job performance -- a 2-1 rejection. Obama has lost the center of the electorate in the center of America.

There is reason for both parties to worry about this. If Ohio can switch so rapidly from a disaster area to a land of opportunity for Republicans, it can switch back just as rapidly. But Democrats have to worry right now.

Consider the current situation of the battleground states. Ohio and Florida, where the 2004 and 2000 elections were decided, look very good for Republicans. Charlie Crist's game of bait and switch has, as I expected, come a cropper. Crist is bleeding support in both directions, and Marko Rubio is up big. Still, it has to be worrisome for Democrats that their candidate is coming in third.

Two other states that loomed big in recent Presidential elections, Virginia and Pennsylvania, are looking very good for the GOP.

I am not making predictions here. That is the job of my Election Shaman, and right now he is predicting a volcano. Not a metaphorical volcano, but a real one. Until he comes out of his trance, all I'll say is that this still looks a lot like a wave election. I'm not a good witch or a bad one.

Comments

[MrsB]

She's not a witch at all! We don't claim her, or want her. The tea party can keep that mess for themselves.

[Bill Fleming]

Double bubble, toil and trouble.
What we get for releasing the
lip-sticked hounds on the heath.

[duggersd]

I think Christine O'Donnell makes a great point that her detractors cannot come up with reasons to vote against her (and it is against her) because of what she supports, but instead on things bases on such things as her religion. Mrs. B, you do not like her or want her. Why? She would favor keeping the Bush Tax Cuts intact. Are you against that? She would vote in favor of dismantling the Health Care Fiasco. Are you against that? As an independent, I have to say when she speaks she makes a lot more sense than her Marxist (by his own admission) opponent.
The TEA Party is a force to be reckoned with. They are migrating to the Republican column, but if the Republicans take them for granted the way the Democrats have taken African-Americans for granted, they will not have the majority for long.

[Bill Fleming]

Interesting supplementary article here:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/assessing-the-g-o-p-and-the-tea-party/

[duggersd]

Yes, an interesting article. As a former Republican, I am waiting to see if the Republicans do what they are elected to do. In 1994 the Republicans had a wave. They did not come into power because voters were voting against the Democrats. They came in because people could hardly wait to pull the lever for them. They liked the Contract with America.
Unfortunately Republicans lost their way in the 2000's. The Democrats came into power not because of their ideas but because they were not Republicans (much like the 1970's). This election is part voting against the Democrats and part voting for conservative principles. Republicans are supposed to have a big announcement that will articulate their agenda. Hopefully this will be less lame than the target they call a logo. I believe if the Republicans offer a conservative agenda they will do very well. If all they do is say they are not Democrats, they will do well.
I believe if Republicans do not push their conservative agenda they will suffer in 2012. It would not surprise me to see some form of the TEA party form a third party and the Republican party eventually becoming absorbed by the Democrat party. I for one am tired of voting for the lesser of two evils.

[Donald Pay]

Wisconsin, like most battleground states, is a state where the poll results depend on the filter. Deciding who is a "likely voter" is not easy. Among registered voters, Feingold leads in most polls. I wouldn't call it an enthusiasm deficit among Democrats, so much as a traditional tendency for non-Presidential elections to have turnout that's down 5-10 percent. The drop off in turnout usually occurs in minority and student precincts, which tend to vote Democratic. In short, if turnout is high in minority and student precincts, Feingold wins. If turnout is normal for a non-Presidential election, Feingold loses. That's why Obama is visiting--to drive turnout. It's clear the Republicans know this, too, as they have started to crank up their illegal voter caging activities.

[duggersd]

Do I see Donald backtracking a bit here? Previously it was no way would Ron Johnson win. Now it is if people who normally don't vote and if illegal voters do vote then Feingold wins, otherwise Johnson wins.
Two separate polls, one by DailyKos, showing Johnson ahead. At least Rasmussen has it in single digits. Which one do you give more credence to?

[Donald Pay]

No backtracking. I think the Republican Party-Americans For Prosperity-Tea Party illegal voter caging efforts are going to boomerang and drive turnout up. Higher turnout is bad news for Republicans. That's why they are spending Koch's millions trying to discourage voting here in student and minority neighborhoods. There are new reports of this fascist conspiracy targeting student dorm voting sites. All this is going to do is driving up the student turnout. Thanks to Koch Industries and their subsidiary political operatives in the Republican Party the fascists will assure a Feingold win.

[duggersd]

Keep rationalizing. You are probably right that Feingold gets the illegal vote. Good luck with that.

[Donald Pay]

Illegal votes? Ha. Over ten years Republican federal District Attorneys and state Attorneys General have found ten or eleven cases of "voter fraud." That's one vote per year. This year Republicans aren't even trying to make the case that they are trying to stop virtually non-existent voter fraud. It's all a fascist tactic to depress turnout.

[Stan Gibilisco]

We're all either fascists or communists now.

[duggersd]

Keep rationalizing Donald. A couple of weeks ago you said Ron Johnson cannot win. Now polls, one of them DailyKos, are telling us perhaps Johnson wins and wins by a significant margin. Your only hope is people who do not normally vote. Then there are these phantom repressing votes by Republicans. And it is all fascists, etc. By the way, perhaps you can explain what part of the business complex is fascist. I think if you want to look at true fascism, you need to look at the current administration. An example would be what they are doing to the health insurance industry. It will be interesting to see what happens in a few weeks.

[KB]

Great thread and thanks to all. Regarding the Feingold/Johnson race, I agree with Donald that voter filters in polls can matter. But they matter only when the election is tight. We have three polls now that put Feingold down by and average of eight points. Yes, if various Democratic blocs come out in sufficient numbers, and if independents break the way they did in recent elections, then Feingold might survive. That would make Wisconsin an anomaly this year, and if it was really an anomaly, Feingold wouldn't be eight points in the hole. Sorry, Donald, Feingold is toast.

[KB]

Great thread and thanks to all. Regarding the Feingold/Johnson race, I agree with Donald that voter filters in polls can matter. But they matter only when the election is tight. We have three polls now that put Feingold down by and average of eight points. Yes, if various Democratic blocs come out in sufficient numbers, and if independents break the way they did in recent elections, then Feingold might survive. That would make Wisconsin an anomaly this year, and if it was really an anomaly, Feingold wouldn't be eight points in the hole. Sorry, Donald, Feingold is toast.