Breaking Bad: The mid-term elections
source: http://www.economist.com/node/16541619?story_id=16541619
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A nice indication of how close a race it is comes from a study by Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University. He calculated last month that the Republicans are on track to win 42 House seats currently held by Democrats and lose just three of their own seats. That would give them a net gain of 39, which by coincidence is exactly how many they need to gain control. Nancy Pelosi would then have to surrender the speaker’s gavel she won in 2006 to the Republicans’ John Boehner, who would preside over a majority of 218 to 217—tiny, but enough to make life wretched for the Obama White House.
Pew Research Center on July 1st found that 56% of Republican voters were more enthusiastic about voting this year, the highest proportion since the Republican triumph of 1994. More Republicans than Democrats (64% to 50%) say they are playing close attention to election news.
True, the same poll found that under-30s favored the Democrats by a wide margin (57% to 32%), but only half of these were absolutely certain to vote.
Among over-50s, on the other hand, the Republicans enjoy an 52% to 41% lead, but about eight of ten of these older voters said they were absolutely certain to vote.
http://www.economist.com/node/16541619?story_id=16541619
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Here's a key quote from the article:
"In battleground districts 64% of voters think the country is going in the wrong direction against 27% who think it is on the right track (for the nation as a whole, the percentages are 59% and 34% respectively); nearly half of the voters in the vulnerable Democratic districts identify themselves as conservatives rather than liberals or moderates; and only 40% of voters in these districts approve of Mr Obama’s job performance.
Needless to say, opinions of Mr Obama vary a good deal by color, class and region. Blacks still support him strongly.
But Henry Olsen of the American Enterprise Institute points out that many battleground districts are in less urban areas full of white blue-collar voters with fewer years of education than the average."These " white blue collar workers with fewer years of education" were the crucial voters in the "election" and "re-election" of George W. Bush. The American Enterprise Institute and Fox News are counting on those particular folks.
Ah, the uninformed voter, the very disaster of democratic governance that Jefferson warned about; wheeeeeee,... the people!..
Do you think folks in the US will be that dumb again?
Well, let's wait and see.... - 1 year ago
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