PA: PPP: Sestak +1

[sg0508]

GOP blowing another one like only the party does?  We shall see.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

GOP blowing another one like only the party does?  We shall see.

How is the GOP blowing this? The GOP has a stellar candidate here. You can't deny that about Pat Toomey. PA is a difficult state to win.


Do you think Specter would have survived a general election? I don't. Republicans were sick of him, and as it turned out, so were the Democrats. Toomey has been far stronger then Specter would have been had he been the nominee. Just because you don't like the candidate, doesn't mean the "GOP blew it" if he loses.

You have got to come to terms with the new alignment. This is not the 1920's anymore. The NE is the Dem base region now. We have our base region in the South and plains. The Midwest, and Southwest are the swing regions. In the 1920's the GOP was based in the NE and Upper Midwest with the West being the Swing region, and the South complete locked down by the dems. These shifts occur.

This is the history of partisan elections in the US. The GOP can make inroads in the NE. This year and last proved we can still win NJ, and Massachusetts. When the GOP focuses on fiscal conservative and puts social issues on the back burner (without abandoning them) the GOP suddently is prepared to run up huge margins in MI, and PA Governor elections, won a Senate seat in Massachusetts and a Governorship in New Jersey. We lead in this Senate race (by three to four points barring further polls), Illinois was prepared to be a solid GOP win had Kirk not had issues (Did the GOP blow that one if we lose it?) and we still might win it inspite of that. CA is off limits because of Demographics largely but we came very close. You need to get off this pessimistic routine. Candidates win, candidates lose. NH-02 could be held by the Dems, we nominated a moderate Republican which I really like by the way, but he had a scandal or something (Did the GOP blow that one?).

[Keystone Phil]

I assume we'll have a stream of polls here now and they'll show a narrowing race but I don't think Toomey will have lost the lead.

[Keystone Phil]

And just as I say that...

Sestak up three - http://www.mcall.com/news/local/elections/mc-pa-senate-race-20101019,0,4463394.story?trbdc

Trash uni, right?  

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm trying not to get excited...

Remember that Sestak has made a similar come from behind victory already.

[Keystone Phil]

Remember that Sestak has made a similar come from behind victory already.

Are you saying that makes another comeback unlikely?

[Nichlemn]

Nate on 538 says this poll in his model only increases Sestak's winning probability to 10% (though he says he would personally bet on it being higher).

[Meeker]

Are we going to enter the tracking poll into the database everyday?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Remember that Sestak has made a similar come from behind victory already.

Are you saying that makes another comeback unlikely?

No, just that that's another reason to not rule him out.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Well if there is one thing that Toomey is great with, its staying on message, if that's what he needs to do. 


What did I say about PA having the most interesting and important elections.

[Eraserhead]

Even though almost everyone here knows this, it's worth mentioning: if Sestak beat Toomey, the Republicans will not take control of the US Senate in this election. Period.

[mypalfish]

senatus
senatus
47 minutes ago
Muhlenberg/Morning Call poll shows Sestak up 3, 44-41

[sg0508]

The Republicans had better find a way to compete in the blue states or they're not winning anything anytime soon on a national level.  When the democrats cleaned up in 06/08, they won everywhere, except the deep south.

The GOP has no clue how to compete.  Rather, they try to shove round pegs into square holes like idiots with candidates that are incongruent to the social, political and economic environments of the states they're in. 

It's retarded.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The Republicans had better find a way to compete in the blue states or they're not winning anything anytime soon on a national level.  When the democrats cleaned up in 06/08, they won everywhere, except the deep south.

The GOP has no clue how to compete.  Rather, they try to shove round pegs into square holes like idiots with candidates that are incongruent to the social, political and economic environments of the states they're in. 

It's retarded.

How are we not "competative"?

What is your definition of competative?


We are competative in over 40 states if you look at Governors and Senators.

We are ahead in both WI, ILL Senate seats, We are prepared to sweep both the upper midwest and Southwest Governorships (save CO), OR is toss-up, ME is a toss-up. MA is going back and forth between polling.

There has never been an instance where all 50 states were routinely competative. Were it so, then 2006, and 2008 would have been far worse. You also learned the wrong lesson from 2006. 50%-60% of the reason for the loss in 2006 was Iraq, another 30% was corruption. Picking bad, or unappealing candidates was less then 10% of the cause. In 2008, you had the war which was still unpopular but not as much a drag as it was in 2006, lingering anger at the GOP over scandals and a bad economy, and a "transformative" Dem candidate and yet McCain still got 46%-47% of the popular vote, and was ahead prior to the economic crisis.

There is no widespread issue of Republicans being unelectable or unappealing. Any such instances are in specific races like Delaware and Colorado where a poor candidate was nominated. There is a problem with the Republican brand but moderation won't solve that problem as it is primarly because the base of the GOP despises the party for being so incompetent and for betraying them on so many issues at all one under the Bush administration. You can't ignore or deny this problem. And you can't just scream "nominate better candidates" you have to understand why it occurs. Untill moderates can learn to understand, accept, and deal with this problem they will get thrashed in primaries and quite frankly considering they are so out of touch with reality, they frankly deserve it. Why has there been no attempt by Social moderates to take advantage of the Tea Party making spending the dominant issue and putting abortion, gays, guns on the back burner? This was the moderate GOPer's last opportunity to appeal to the base, and frankly they blew it.

[Keystone Phil]

PPP said Corbett is only up 48% to 46%. Enough said. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

PPP said Corbett is only up 48% to 46%. Enough said. 

That confirms the internals of this poll are too far off. That makes me thing Toomey is up between three and four with proper internals.

What this illustrates is that, we have no idea how the internals will be on that most important of polls, the actuall election. We manipulate the poll to represent our best guess of what it will be, but it still just that.

If what we are hearing in both NC and NV are true and the trend continues of GOP dominance in early vote, I think its fair to say that GOP turnout will be far above normal on election day. Its harder to extrapolate to PA since they don't have early vote. Ironically this may be the one year, the GOP would have benefitted from having it in PA. If the above scenario is the case, I think Toomey still has a great chance.