The BBC rounds up the final polls and explains why polling a “yes” or “no” question is not as easy as it seems.
Carl Bialik: “For the election junkies who want to watch results as they come in, I’ve put together a guide to how early Friday morning could unfold: when the 32 local councils can be expected to report their constituents’ vote counts, what percentage of the electorate each area represents, and which way voters from each area can be expected to lean.”
“I have to say that after the events I’ve been facing over the past few days, assassination would be a welcome release.”
— British Prime Minister David Cameron, quoted by National Review.
Mother Jones: “A milestone passed in late August: According to the Center for Responsive Politics, dark-money groups–nonprofits created under the 501(c)(4) and (c)(6) sections of the US tax code–had by then surpassed $50 million on elections. These groups, unlike political action committees and candidates’ campaigns, do not have to disclose their donors. So some of the key players looking to sway election results remain in the shadows. This was a new record and seven times the amount of dark money spent by the same point on House and Senate elections in 2010. And this week, dark-money spending for the 2014 cycle reached $63 million–just shy of the $69 million in dark money spent during the entire 2008 presidential election.”
“Every politician knows that campaign season begins in earnest after Labor Day. If recent history is any guide, there is sure to be an unprecedented last-minute blitz of dark-money spending.”
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Kyle Kondik: “There are all sorts of reasons why you shouldn’t, unless in the next seven weeks one side or the other — probably the Republicans — starts opening up a clear lead in enough races to give them a clear majority. If neither side does, control of the Senate could remain up in the air — for a while.”
Karl Rove: “The president’s job approval numbers are lousy, no Democrat in a competitive Senate race polls regularly above 50%, GOP enthusiasm is high, and independents are trending Republican. The midterm environment is terrible for Democrats–yet each passing day provides evidence as to why a GOP Senate majority is still in doubt.”
Matt Bai: “If you missed Mark Sanford’s tortured, meandering Facebook post about his various relationship and family troubles last weekend, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. The Republican Party’s Lord Byron apparently thought better of it and decided to take the post down.”
“Maybe Sanford’s sons impressed upon him that he had become the single most embarrassing parent in America. Or maybe Sanford suddenly realized that he wasn’t actually 15 and was under no compulsion to vent his conflicted emotions on social media… Or perhaps Sanford took down the post because it occurred to him, too late, that his digital soliloquy constituted a thoroughly reckless act — not just for himself or for his family, but also for all of Washington, where the last thing any of us really needed was to further erode the boundary between private lives and political careers.”
A new Quinnipiac poll in Colorado finds Cory Gardner (R) leading Sen. Mark Udall (D) by eight points in the U.S. Senate race among likely voters, 48% to 40%.
The New York Times excerpts Matt Bai’s forthcoming must-read book, All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid.
“The Hart episode is almost universally remembered as a tale of classic hubris. A Kennedy-like figure on a fast track to the presidency defies the media to find anything nonexemplary in his personal life, even as he carries on an affair with a woman half his age and poses for pictures with her, and naturally he gets caught and humiliated. How could he not have known this would happen? How could such a smart guy have been that stupid?”
“Things have gotten really out of whack, folks.”
— Vice President Joe Biden, quoted by The Hill.
Monica Wehby’s (R) U.S. Senate campaign “acknowledged problems with plagiarism in some of her issue documents and removed them from her website,” the Oregonian reports.
“Her campaign blamed a former staffer, and it was clear from the context that Wehby and her aides were referring to her former campaign manager, Charlie Pearce, who is now running Dennis Richardson’s campaign for governor.”
“An unusually large number of campaigns this year have turned to chicken-suited men–and they’re mostly men–to distract opponents, steal press attention and, occasionally, make a point,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Chicken men have played a role in Senate contests in Iowa and Minnesota. They have clucked at Democrats running for governor in Wisconsin and Florida for declining primary debates and at the Republican running for lieutenant governor in Nevada… Behind the fowl play: Chickens make good copy, drawing attention to candidates who often are underfunded and looking for free media coverage.”
A new New York Times/CBS News Poll finds that for the first time in his presidency, more Americans disapprove of President Obama’s handling of terrorism than approve of it.
“With midterm elections approaching, Americans’ fears about a terrorist attack on United States soil are on the rise, and the public is questioning Mr. Obama’s strategy for combating the militant organization calling itself the Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Most respondents say the president has no clear plan for confronting the group, and that he has not been tough enough in dealing with it.”
“Emails sent by liberal activists and obtained by The Hill reveal significant dissatisfaction with Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016.”
“The critical messages about the former first lady show that she has a long way to go to assuage skepticism from influential voices on the left. The Hill reviewed hundreds of emails from a progressive members only Google group called the ‘Gamechanger Salon,’ a forum where nearly 1,500 activists, strategists and journalists debate issues and craft messaging campaigns.”
DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz “is in a behind-the-scenes struggle with the White House, congressional Democrats and Washington insiders who have lost confidence in her as both a unifying leader and reliable party spokesperson at a time when they need her most,” Politico reports.
“Long-simmering doubts about her have reached a peak after two recent public flubs: criticizing the White House’s handling of the border crisis and comparing the tea party to wife beaters.”
“The U.S. military campaign against Islamic militants in Syria is being designed to allow President Obama to exert a high degree of personal control over the campaign, going so far as to require that the military obtain presidential sign-off for any strike in Syrian territory,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The requirement for the Syrian strikes will be far more stringent than those in Iraq, at least at first, to assure the Syrian air campaign remains strictly limited, in an attempt to mitigate the threat that the U.S. could be dragged more deeply into the conflict, according to the U.S. officials.”
Nate Silver, founder and editor of FiveThirtyEight, joined us on the Political Wire podcast for a discussion of his very latest 2014 midterm election forecast.
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A new Denno Research poll in Michigan finds that Gary Peters (D) had a solid lead over Terri Lynn Land (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 45% to 38%.
In the race for governor, Mark Shauer (D) edges Gov. Rick Snyder (R), 43% to 40%.
Large portions of an economic plan released by Oregon Senate candidate Monica Wehby (R) “appear to be heavily plagiarized from multiple sources, including one section that copies word-for-word from a plan put out” by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), BuzzFeed reports.
“Likewise, portions of Wehby’s plan also copy sections nearly-verbatim from the economic growth plan of a 2012 congressional candidate named Gary DeLong and a survey from Karl Rove’s group, Crossroads.”
Earlier, it was reported that Wehby’s health care plan was also lifted from Crossroads.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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