Reply With QuoteYeeeeeeaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!
2000 Election: Gore won by 0.3
Gore 48.5
Bush 48.2
Nader 2.2
online.wsj.com/public/res...print.html
Kerry 50.6
Bush 46.9
Nader 0.8
Yeeeeeeaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!
www.economist.com/researc...id=1527355
Swing states: Iowa
Down on the farm
Aug 12th 2004 | DAVENPORT, DUBUQUE AND IOWA CITY
The Economist
When natural conservatives are disenchanted, it may be bad news for George Bush
FOR most Americans, Herbert Hoover is a hard-hearted president who oversaw a massive economic collapse during the Great Depression. But the forgiving folk of Iowa, where he was born, prefer to think of him as the man who sent food aid to Europe, and they celebrated his 130th birthday last week with fireworks, cake and bands. As Timothy Walch, director of the Hoover presidential library, explains, “People here are very proud of him.”
This year, when Democratic leaders have been drawing unflattering parallels between Hoover and George Bush, how will Iowans react? Neither Mr Bush nor John Kerry is taking anything for granted. Iowa is considered one of the most contested states in the nation. Mr Bush lost to Al Gore in Iowa in 2000 by only 4,000 votes. Both he and Mr Kerry are now campaigning feverishly there: so feverishly that on August 4th they were both in Davenport, tying up the police so thoroughly that three banks were robbed.
The latest poll of Iowa voters, conducted after the Democratic convention and released on August 5th, put Mr Kerry ahead of Mr Bush by 49% to 46%, with a slightly narrower edge in a three-way race including Ralph Nader, the independent. The poll found only 5% of Iowans undecided, suggesting that the party faithful have dug in at both ends of the spectrum. Independents, who make up a large chunk of the electorate, appear evenly divided.
On the surface, Iowa's political winds seem to be blowing Mr Kerry's way. The state has backed a Democrat for president in every election since 1988, after reliably supporting Republicans from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan. Mr Kerry owes a big debt to voters in the Iowa caucuses, who swung behind him at the 11th hour and sent Howard Dean packing. The governor, Tom Vilsack, is a clever, if dull, Democrat who, to many Iowans' surprise, was mooted as Mr Kerry's running-mate for a while. And its junior senator, Tom Harkin, is one of the Senate's most liberal members, campaigning hard both for farm subsidies and against child labour.
Yet there is a rightward pull in Iowa, too. The state's senior senator is Chuck Grassley, a big fan of tax cuts, who is expected to breeze to another term this November. “I don't know if Jesus Christ could take him out,” says Arthur Neu, a former Republican lieutenant-governor. (Many Iowans happily support both these “book-end” senators. After all, both have helped the state, especially its farmers: Mr Harkin backed NAFTA, and Mr Grassley has pushed for farm subsidies.) Four out of five congressmen are Republicans, though the 2001 redistricting, a refreshingly non-political process in Iowa, appeared to help the Democrats. Both houses of the state legislature are also dominated by Republicans, and Iowans tend to be conservative on social issues. Nearly two-thirds of them support the state's ban on gay marriage.
Where are the partisans to be found? The state's western third is rural and has long been Republican, although Democrats hope to do better in the fifth congressional district as the farm economy struggles. Central Iowa is more of a toss-up: moderate Republicans used to do pretty well in Des Moines and Ames, but those cities have gone Democratic in recent years. Iowa City, a university town, votes reliably Democratic in national elections. The state's eastern third, where much of the population is clustered, offers a mixed picture, much like the economy there. Al Gore did well in eastern Iowa in 2000.
Polls show that the economy is uppermost in many Iowans' minds, though their state has suffered less than others. In June the jobless rate was 4.3%, well below the national average and down from 4.5% a year earlier. Companies such as Deere & Co, a big farm-equipment maker, have started hiring again. The corridor between Ames and Des Moines, the state's largest city, has fared even better: as the national jobless rate hit 6.3% a year ago, the rate was only 3.9% in Des Moines, a growing centre for insurance and financial services.
But look closer, and the economic pain is evident. Maytag, a maker of home appliances, is cutting jobs in the state and is moving a big factory in neighbouring Illinois to Mexico. More than 1,500 union members went on strike at Maytag's headquarters in Newton last month. They are worried about cuts in pension benefits, higher medical costs and the possibility that the move to Mexico is part of a long-term shift away from the mid-west.
Perhaps the trickiest part of the economy for Mr Bush is the farms. Iowa has more than 97,000 of them. But the state that leads the nation in corn, soyabean, pork and egg production is seeing changes in its rural sector too: large agri-businesses are driving family farmers out of the pork business, leaving many unable to survive on grain farming alone. Increasingly, rural Iowans work farms part-time, commuting to jobs in the cities during the week, or throw in the towel completely. The farm population fell by 85,000 in the 1990s. Crop prices may be up, but farmers say the world market has not been kind to them.
This is bad news for Republicans, who rely on rural votes. Whether it is good news for Democrats is harder to tell. Yet Iowans, because of those caucuses, have had more chance to see Mr Kerry up close than other Americans have; they seemed to like what they saw last winter, and he must hope they still do.
You do realize you're the only one interested in this "poll theme" you have going, right? Well, maybe Nbadanallah -- and that's only if the polls show Kerry leading.
So, I guess it's just you.
Stop the madness!
**** it, man. I'm here to talk politics. This is a presidential election. How is it decided? That's right. Electoral College. How are votes determined in said College? That's right. By whoever wins the popular vote in each state.
Now you of all posters should be the last to criticize anyone else for starting too many threads.
But, you're not talking...you're posting polls that are bumping the political conversation off the front page.
I mean, it's a good idea but, not at the expense of the rest of the discourse taking place in the forum.
Well then post in the threads you want to post in. Again, I am setting the ing threads up today. After then I will update them as needed with new poll results.
Damn, what's the point in having a political forum if you aren't going to look at what is going on in the states that will likely determine the next president?
I agree with TD.
If there are active political discussions, they won't fall off the front page because of ten new topics.
At least the polls are something from a respected source, and are more interesting and informative than the "Bush is a right wing nutjob/Kerry's a liberal weiner" back and forth most threads degenerate into.
Iowa is up for grabs
www.strategicvision.biz/p...l/iowa.htm
Sep. 17
801 LV
MoE 3.0
Bush 48
Kerry 47
Undecided 5
Bush 48
Kerry 46
Nader 2
Undecided 4
Keep the faith!"Iowa is up for grabs"
That's the first time Bush has been ahead in an Iowa poll in quite some time.
www.realcities.com/mld/kr...tstory.jsp
Sep. 14-16
626 RV
MoE +/-4.0
Bush 48
Kerry 42
Nader 2
Other/Undecided 8
biz.yahoo.com/prnews/0409...054_1.html
Sep. 16-19
631 LV
MoE +/-5.0
Bush 50
Kerry 44
Nader 2
ZogbyJohn Kerry holds the lead in the state of Iowa, according to a poll by Zogby Interactive published in the Wall Street Journal Online. 50.3 per cent of respondents would vote for the Democratic nominee in the 2004 United States presidential election, while 47.3 per cent would support Republican in bent George W. Bush.
Independent candidate Ralph Nader garners the backing of 0.7 per cent of respondents. The election is scheduled for Nov. 2.
Support for Kerry remained stable since early September, while backing for Bush increased by 0.4 per cent. In mid-August, the Democrat held a seven per cent lead over the Republican.
Democrat Al Gore won Iowa’s seven electoral votes in the 2000 election, defeating Bush by just over 4,000 ballots. The last Republican to carry the state was Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Rasmussen
9/10-9/23
400 Likely Voters
5.0 Margin of Error
Bush 48
Kerry 45
Nadar
UofM HHI
9/27-10/3
599 Likely Voters
4.0 Margin Of Error
Bush 46
Kerry 47
Nader 4
Kerry has a slim lead, but it looks like Iowa voters are disgusted by both candidates, but will they stick with Nader?
Harstead Strategy**
10/3-10/4
717 Registered Voters
3.7 Margin Of Error
Bush 46
Kerry 43
Nader 03
Looks like more register voters like W than likely voters.
Yet another mixed bag in Iowa
American Research Group
10/10-10/12
600 LV
4.0 MOE
Bush 47
Kerry 47
Nadar 02
---
Chicago Tribune
10/8-10/11
500 LV
4.4 MOE
Bush 47
Kerry 45
Nadar 01
Survey USA
10/18-10/20
690 LV
3.8 MOE
Bush 51
Kerry 45
Nader 01
---
Mason-Dixon
10/15-10/18
625 LV
4.0 MOE
Bush 49
Kerry 43
Nader 01
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