Markos Moulitsas, who’s apparently on SurveyUSA‘s subscriber list, has posted nine SUSA state general election head-to-head polls testing Hillary Clnton against Giuliani, Thompson and Romney. Six are from states that Bush carried in 2004 (AL, KY, VA, OH, MO, and NM), three from the West Coast blue states (CA, OR, WA).
In the red states, HRC leads Guiliani everywhere but in MO and AL; leads Thompson in all but AL; and leads Romney in all six. The Kentucky numbers (HRC up 5 over Rudy; up 7 over Thompson; up 12 over Romney) are especially amazing, since Bush carried the state by 20%. Less surprisingly, she enjoys double-digit leads over all the GOPers in the three west coast states.
None of the polls are up on SUSA’s web site, and we also don’t know at this point if they tested other Democrats. But since a lot of the primary jostling has been about allegations that this or that candidate is stronger or weaker in red and purple states, it will be most interesting to see some real data on where they stand. The best guess now is that HRC’s strong showings reflect solid Democratic gains since 2004.
One comment on “Red States Turning Purple?”
Thomas More on
“The best guess now is that HRC’s strong showings reflect solid Democratic gains since 2004.”
I would say its due to HRC. The Democratic party hasn’t made any particular gains yet. The change so far is due more to Republican mismanagement.
This year’s big media narrative has been the confirmation saga of Neera Tanden, Biden’s nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget. At New York I wrote about how over-heated the talk surrounding Tanden has become.
Okay, folks, this is getting ridiculous. When a vote in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the nomination of Neera Tanden was postponed earlier this week, you would have thought it presented an existential threat to the Biden presidency. “Scrutiny over Tanden’s selection has continued to build as the story over her uneven reception on Capitol Hill stretched through the week,” said one Washington Post story. Politico Playbook suggested that if Tanden didn’t recover, the brouhaha “has the potential to be what Biden might call a BFD.” There’sbeen all sorts of unintentionally funny speculation about whether the White House is playing some sort of “three-dimensional chess” in its handling of the confirmation, disguising a nefarious plan B or C.
Perhaps it reflects the law of supply and demand, which requires the inflation of any bit of trouble for Biden into a crisis. After all, his Cabinet nominees have been approved by the Senate with a minimum of 56 votes; the second-lowest level of support was 64 votes. One nominee who was the subject of all sorts of initial shrieking, Tom Vilsack, was confirmed with 92 Senate votes. Meanwhile, Congress is on track to approve the largest package of legislation moved by any president since at least the Reagan budget of 1981, with a lot of the work on it being conducted quietly in both chambers. Maybe if the bill hits some sort of roadblock, or if Republican fury at HHS nominee Xavier Becerra (whose confirmation has predictably become the big fundraising and mobilization vehicle for the GOP’s very loud anti-abortion constituency) reaches a certain decibel level, Tanden can get out of the spotlight for a bit.
But what’s really unfair — and beyond that, surreal — is the extent to which this confirmation is being treated as more important than all the others combined, or indeed, as a make-or-break moment for a presidency that has barely begun. It’s not. If Tanden cannot get confirmed, the Biden administration won’t miss a beat, and I am reasonably sure she will still have a distinguished future in public affairs (though perhaps one without much of a social-media presence). And if she is confirmed, we’ll all forget about the brouhaha and begin focusing on how she does the job, which she is, by all accounts, qualified to perform.
“The best guess now is that HRC’s strong showings reflect solid Democratic gains since 2004.”
I would say its due to HRC. The Democratic party hasn’t made any particular gains yet. The change so far is due more to Republican mismanagement.