THE 2014 midterms are six months away. It is not to early to start supporting Bold Progressive Democratic candidates, the sooner they gain state wide name recognition the more time they have to get their message out to the voters and to expand their state wide get out the vote campaigns. Here is a video from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee / PCCC in which Sen Elizabeth Warren D MA lays out in very plain English the differences between the Progressive Democratic agenda and gop / tea-bagger agenda (see the Daily Kos piece below), followed by an opportunity to donate to some of the people we need to elect in November. You don't have to donate to all, you don't need to donate at all, and yes, your donation can be what you can afford. Believe me, I have volunteered for political campaigns, and many of the donations are small dollar amounts, but they all add up. So check this out, and see what you can do, and at the least share with others who want to help Bold Progressive Democrats win in November. From the PCCC, +Daily Kos and 538.....
You've got to see what Elizabeth Warren said last night at an event about the Republican vision vs. Progressive values.
These bold progressive candidates for Congress have important primary elections next week. Many face more conservative challengers in heavily Democratic districts -- if they win their primaries, they'll go into the general election with major momentum!
Watch Elizabeth Warren here. And donate $3 to her allies on the ballot in important primaries next week.
Mike Honda grew up in a
Japanese-American internment camp. Now, he is one of the boldest
progressives in Congress, fighting alongside Alan Grayson for the little
guy.
Eloise Gomez Reyes is the
daughter of immigrants and grew up working on an onion farm. Now, she's
running for Congress to expand Social Security, hold Wall Street
accountable, and fight for common-sense immigration reform.
Michael Eggman is a
beekeeper and farmer who is running in a top-targeted race by both
political parties. He supports expanding Social Security, creating jobs,
and (as a beekeeper) wants to address the growing climate crisis.
Bonnie Watson Coleman has
spent her life as an outspoken fighter for the poor and powerless. As
Majority Leader of the New Jersey Assembly, she helped pass a
millionaire’s tax, prison reform, and education bills into law. She’s
ready to keep fighting in Congress.
Pat Murphy has fought for
progressive legislation throughout his career. As Iowa’s Speaker of the
House, he led the fight to raise the minimum wage and ushered in
universal pre-K. A prairie populist, he’ll take the fight to Capitol
Hill.
Dr. Lee Rogers is running
for Congress in California's 25th District against two right-wing
Republicans -- one of whom shamelessly touted his NRA record and agenda
in a robocall just hours after the recent shootings. Dr. Rogers supports
Medicare access for all and letting the government negotiate lower
prescription drug prices.
Watch Elizabeth Warren here. And donate $3 to her allies on the ballot in important primaries next week.Thanks for being a bold progressive.
-- Keith Rouda, PCCC organizer
P.S. Will you make calls for these progressives from home? Our technology respects your time -- no answering machines! Click here to see a list of candidates and shifts.
Thu May 29, 2014 at 09:52 AM PDT
Someone finally polled the & 1% — And it's not pretty
On May 22, The Campaign for America's Future gave a conference on The
New Populist Majority. The keynote speaker was Elizabeth Warren. The
conference confronted the meme that the US is a "center-right" country.
Most interesting to me was the fact that they obtained poll results from "the 1%." Typically, "upper income" in polling is considered "over $250K/yr" or even "over $150K/yr." Such people are rich compared to most, but they do not have enough money to buy elections with their spare change.
The poll results for this comparison came from the Russell Sage Foundation. "Elites" are defined as at or near "the 1%" in wealth with an average income of $1M/yr or more. The perspectives of this group are compared to responses from other polls such as Pew and Gallup.
The poll results are below the squiggle.
Most interesting to me was the fact that they obtained poll results from "the 1%." Typically, "upper income" in polling is considered "over $250K/yr" or even "over $150K/yr." Such people are rich compared to most, but they do not have enough money to buy elections with their spare change.
The poll results for this comparison came from the Russell Sage Foundation. "Elites" are defined as at or near "the 1%" in wealth with an average income of $1M/yr or more. The perspectives of this group are compared to responses from other polls such as Pew and Gallup.
The poll results are below the squiggle.
OurFuture.org, Derek Pugh: Memorandum: The American Majority is a Populist Majority
OurFuture.org: The New Populism Conference, May 22, 2014 http://bit.ly/... Program Schedule & Access to Report, 12p [Scribd]
OurFuture.org, Elizabeth Warren: The New Populism Is A Fight For America’s Values http://bit.ly/...
OurFuture.org, Robert Reich: The 6 Principles of the New Populism (and the Establishment’s Nightmare) http://bit.ly/...
OurFuture.org, Robert Borosage: What Is The New Populism? http://bit.ly/... [w video]
OurFuture.org: The New Populism: Overview [pdf] http://bit.ly/... 4p
OurFuture.org, Robert Borosage: Report: The New Populism: A Movement & Agenda to Transform America's Economy & Politics http://bit.ly/
OurFuture.org, Derek Pugh: Memorandum: The American Majority is a Populist Majority http://bit.ly/... ➔ Survey Results
Originally posted to Auriandra on Thu May 29, 2014 at 09:52 AM PDT.
Also republished by ClassWarfare Newsletter: WallStreet VS Working Class Global Occupy movement.
Early Senate Polls Have Plenty to Tell Us About November
Republican Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell is fighting for his political life — or is he? The Senate minority leader is nearly tied in the polls with Democratic opponent Alison Lundergan Grimes. But President Obama’s approval in Kentucky is in the low 30s,
suggesting the Democratic brand is so unpopular that McConnell could be
fine by the time votes are cast. These competing indicators have led to
myriad predictions from political analysts. The Cook Political Report rates the race as tossup, the Rothenberg Political Report puts it in the leaning Republican column, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball goes one step further at likely Republican. My colleague Nate Silver’s forecast, meanwhile, says McConnell has a 75 percent chance to win.
Kentucky isn’t the only state with a disparity between what
the polls are telling us and the state’s opinion of Democrats. Dems’
other possible Senate pickup opportunity, according to the polls, is in Georgia, a state that didn’t treat Obama kindly in 2012. The polls are also close in Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina, despite Mitt Romney’s success there in the last presidential election.
More than six months from the midterm elections, current
polling and past precedent are competing for our trust. I analyzed which
measure is more indicative come November, and it turns out that polls
are a more robust metric even though their numbers are still sparse and
there’s still so much time remaining before the election. That’s not to
say that a president’s approval rating is useless: It can help refine
early polls to make them more accurate. This year, when we factor in
both, it doesn’t look promising for Democrats in Alaska, Arkansas,
Kentucky or Louisiana.
For my analysis, I took a RealClearPolitics-style average of all the polls1 for 107 races since 2006.2 Separately, for comparison, I collected the president’s approval rating in the matching states in the first half of the year.3
Once that was all in place, I produced this chart, which shows that early4 polls do a pretty good job of forecasting the final vote margin.
The average error between the early polls and the final results was 6.4 points.5 For comparison, in the 2012 Senate race, polls taken in the final month before the election still had an average error of 4.8 points.6
Overall, the president’s party’s candidate won 83 percent of the time
he or she led in the early poll average and lost 88 percent of the time
when he or she trailed.
A president’s approval rating isn’t as strongly tied to the
ultimate result. There is a link — just a weaker one. Note how much
more scattered the data points are in the chart below compared to in the
chart above.7
But even though polls are better predictors than
presidential approval, the latter still has plenty of information to
offer. When I combined early horse-race polls and presidential approval,
the median error in early-cycle predictions dropped to 4.0 points.8 That’s nearly two points lower than using the polls alone, and the average error dropped about a point to 5.6 points.
The fact that presidential approval ratings do matter in
addition to early horse-race polling should worry some Democrats in
2014. Right now, I estimate Obama’s approval rating is somewhere between
30 percent and 33 percent in Alaska, Arkansas and Kentucky.9 In Louisiana, I estimate it to be in the high 30s.
To give you an idea of how the data suggests Obama is going to hurt these candidates, I pulled probabilistic 2014 projections10 from a model that looks at both the polls11
and Obama’s approval rating and one that looks at only the polls. The
table below shows the Democratic candidate’s chance of winning. (The
states included have had at least one poll taken in 2014.)
Using polls and approval ratings, the current close races
in Alaska, Arkansas and Kentucky are estimated to favor Republicans.
(For instance the model gives McConnell a 73 percent chance to win,
which is quite close to Nate’s estimate.) In Louisiana, Obama’s rating
hurts Democratic Senate candidate Mary Landrieu, but the current polling
average this year already had her projected to lose. In Georgia and
North Carolina, Obama’s approval rating is high enough that it doesn’t
hurt the Democrats too much. Democrats Gary Peters in Michigan and Al
Franken in Minnesota are likely helped a bit by President Obama.
Overall, this simple model puts Democratic losses in the Senate at 6.8
seats, just off the FiveThirtyEight Senate forecast of 5.8 seats, which takes into account other factors including fundraising totals and candidate ideology.
Still, it’s important to emphasize that we’re talking about
early numbers. Twenty of the 107 races from 2006 to 2012 in our model
have errors of 10 points or greater, even when controlling for both
approval and early polls. Ohio Republican Rob Portman beat Democrat Lee
Fisher by nearly 17.4 points in 2010, even though early polls were close
and Obama’s approval wasn’t bad early in the year. The same goes for
Republican Roy Blunt in Missouri in 2010.
So Mitch McConnell’s close
race in Kentucky this year is not just about polls, it’s about Obama’s
approval rating, too. Conversely, even if Obama’s approval rating is
holding Democrats back in the midterms, remember that statewide polls
are usually the more predictive metric. Smart political forecasts
incorporate both.
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