Identifying and analyzing emerging trends in campaigns and elections.

Archive for January 7th, 2013|Daily archive page

Former House Members Ready to Serve Again

In Governor, House, Senate on January 7, 2013 at 1:13 pm
Congressman Barney Frank

Congressman Barney Frank

Frank Interested in Serving

Former Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA-4) made a public statement saying he is interested in receiving his state’s interim Senate appointment because he wants to participate in the upcoming fiscal legislative debate. Congress will tackle the debt ceiling issue before the Massachusetts replacement special election is conducted.

Sen. John Kerry (D) will resign his seat upon being confirmed as Secretary of State. Under Massachusetts succession law, Gov. Deval Patrick (D) must appoint an interim senator until the people choose a permanent replacement in a special election. Gov. Patrick has indicated that he is inclined to appoint someone who will not run for the seat. But he may come under intense Continue reading >

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Fiscal Cliff Poll

In Polling on January 7, 2013 at 11:10 am

The Gallup research organization, moving forward after poorly forecasting the 2012 presidential election, released the results of their fiscal cliff agreement study. According to their Jan. 3 question to 1,026 adults as part of their ongoing national issues tracking program, the country is split as to whether it favors the final deal.

By a virtually even 43-45 percent margin, the respondents opposed the agreement but the closeness of the tally was largely due to a huge positive majority from Democrats. The self-identified Dems supported the congressional action by a 67-23 percent spread. In contrast, Republicans opposed the measure 27-65 percent, as did self-described Independents, but in a much closer 39-46 percent split.

Segmenting the numbers from an ideological perspective, liberals favored the settlement legislation 66-27 percent, while conservatives opposed it 28-62 percent. Self-identified moderates favored the plan 52-34 percent, a much greater positive percentage than did the voting Independents.

As has been the pattern ever since Pres. Barack Obama took office, he again polled far better than his rival Republican political leadership. Obama scored a relatively even 46:48 percent favorable to unfavorable ratio in regard to his handling of the fiscal cliff negotiations. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH-8), on the other hand, fared badly registering only 31:50 percent on the favorability index.

The Gallup reporting information did not reveal how the partisan respondents viewed their own party’s leader, but it is a virtual certainty that Democrats had a much better opinion of the President than Republicans held of the Speaker.

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