Karl Rove + New York Times

by | Oct 7, 2010 | News and Updates, Uncategorized

** Update **  The October 7 model in the Manchin (D) vs. Raese (R) WV Senate race has Raese with a 64% probability of winning.  The Sept. 30 model, which I wrote about below had it the other way around.   If you’re a betting man, and you like to bet on the favorites, you’d vote for Raese (if the election were held today, of course).

——

Karl Rove and Company have produced an interesting map of 2010 Senate races.  Rove says that if the election were held today, Democrats will lose 10 seats (down to 49), Republicans will gain six (up to 47) and four toss-ups.

Interested in those four toss-ups, I checked out Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com blog (hosted on the NYT website) run by Nate Silver (great website and great writing).   FiveThirtyEight averages a variety of surveys conducted in House, Senate, and governors races across the country, but they also calculate the likelihood that a particular candidate will win his race*.  For example, Arizona governor Jan Brewer has a 98 percent chance of defeating Terry Goddard (Brewer is up by 15%).  Doesn’t mean Brewer’s certainly going to win by 15%, but it does mean that she’s almost certainly going to win.

So, let’s take a look at the four Senate toss-ups:

Washington:
Patty Murray (D)  is up 50% – 47% over Dino Rossi (R) and has a 74% chance of winning.

Nevada:
Harry Reid (D) and Sharon Angle (R) are statistically tied at 48% each.  However, Angle has a 55% chance of winning.

Illinois:
Alexi Giannoulias (D) and Mark Kirk (R) are about even (Kirk’s up 49%-48%), but Kirk has a 54% chance of winning.

West Virginia:
Joe Manchin (D) is barely beating John Raese (R), 50%-48%, but Manchin’s chances of getting elected are 63% to Raese’s 37%.

What to make of all this?  Today, it looks like the Dems will retain the majority in the U.S. Senate by the slimmest of margins, 51-49.

* What Silver’s chance of winning percentage means:  The chance that each candidate will win based on 100,000 simulations with random variation in the local and national political environment.

We will continue to track these four races and other key races around the country.

Goddard Pushes Major Tax Increase

by | Oct 6, 2010 | News and Updates, Uncategorized

During the 1980’s, Arizona suffered through tax increases under Gov. Bruce Babbitt.  Arizona’s economy also underperformed compared to the national average.  In the 90’s, things changed.  Arizonans elected Fife Symington to be their governor, and between 1993 and 1997 when Symington left office, Arizona’s personal income tax rates dropped about 27 percent.

Arizona’s economy also outperformed the national average during that time period.

Who did Symington defeat in the 1991 runoff election?  Terry Goddard.

Goddard is back, however, as the Democrat nominee for governor, but he doesn’t seemed to have learned his lesson.  Trailing badly in the polls, Goddard is seeking to the be the candidate to be trusted to balance the budget.  How?  For one thing, he wants to rescind the Symington tax cuts.  Yes, the last of which passed 13 years ago.

Not only is it a bit peculiar to rescind tax cuts that happened so long ago, but it’s more than a bit political that Goddard simply ignores the largest tax cut since the 1990’s . . . the one signed by Democrat Gov. Janet Napolitano (and pushed by the AZFEC).  Although fighting tooth and nail, in 2006, Napolitano signed a 10 percent across-the-board personal income tax cut.

So, it’s unclear if Goddard wants to reverse only Symington’s tax cuts or all of the tax cuts since the days of Symington.  Either way, it would be disastrous for Arizona.

That’s the Plan

by | Oct 1, 2010 | News and Updates, Uncategorized

Charlie Crist, who switched from Republican to Independent when Marco Rubio was trouncing him in the polls, said at an editorial board meeting that being down 20 points to Rubio had nothing to do with his change of Party (or long-held positions, apparently).

Next we’ll hear that GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski always wanted to run as a write-in anyway and former GOP Senator Arlen Specter was really always a Democrat who was going to switch parties anyway in order to face — and ultimately lose — a Democratic primary.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPmvMxMIV1w&wpisrc=nl_pmfix