From the last Jolt of the week:
Republicans Have Yet to Meet Their Match
I love this headline from the pollsters at Pew: “Ground War More Intense Than 2006, Early Voting More Prevalent; Democrats Stirring But Are No Match for Energized Republicans.” It sounds like a movie line: “Your puny Stirring Democrats are no match for my Energized Republicans! Now witness the power of this fully operational Tea Party!”
The numbers are pretty much as good as Republicans could hope for: “The Republicans’ advantage in 2010 is largely being driven by a swing in preferences among independent voters. Currently, likely independent voters favor the Republican candidate by 19 points (49% Republican vs. 30% Democrat). In November 2006, Democrats held a seven-point lead among likely independent voters . . . Anti-incumbent sentiment has remained high all year, and is substantially greater than in 2006, 2002 and 1998 and on par with levels in 1994 . . . Republicans hold a 12-point edge among likely voters in the most competitive districts in the nation, and have a bigger lead in safe Republican districts (27 points) than Democrats have in safe Democratic districts (10 points).”
Moe Lane observes, “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that Pew was just having its little joke by making sure that its latest report on the midterms had a URL of http://people-press.org/report/666/. If it did, then Pew would be well on its way to winning the contest of being The Coolest Research Center EVER – but it’s much more likely that this was just an accident. A very, very hysterical accident.”