Pollster.com

I hope Conlin gets the nomination. He looks like the best person to knock him off.

It is pathetic that Grassley has higher approval than Obama, especially in a state Obama did so well in. C'mon Iowans, don't resort to the failed ideas of the past! You liked Obama in 2008 in the primary, and he may not be perfect but the lesser of evils.

I think after Grassley's performance at the town hall, when Psyho Grandma called Obama the anti-christ, and really thought he was going to tell elderly people that it is time to consider pulling the plug.

Grassley more or less agreed with her. It was sickening to see a statesman sink to that level. At least John Mccain had the decency to tell that crazy lady in Minnesota at the election rally who thought Obama was a Arab terrorist that "obama is a good family man and isn't like that at all, but I just disagree with his ideas".

These tactics of identifying with the fringe will eventually come back to haunt these politicians. Hopefully the same people who helped obama win by 15 points in Iowa can help bring this state back to it's senses.

Conlin is a woman

obama didn't win Iowa by 15 points did he? i thought that was one of the states polling better than it actually turned out for Obama.

@Farleftandproud:

1. Conlin is a she, not a he.

2. I'm not sure if you should be pulling for her, considering your screenname - Conlin is not exactly on the left of nowadays Democrat Party. In any case, I'm afraid it's immaterial - even though Conlin is by far the Dem who is best positioned to make the race competitive (money to run a statewide campaign + name recognition + decent popularity), her chances of winning the general election are negligible, considering Grassley's strong favs.

3. Obama is not running against Grassley. But if he were, I doubt very much he'd win.

i was just thinking, several stalwarts of Congress have been leaving Congress lately either through illness (Kennedy), public opinion (Dodd), and maybe Specter and McCain (primary challenges). Maybe whoever challenges Grassley needs to focus on his long term incumbency. Not to mention the death panel comment. In 2008, I thought Burr and Grassley would be in serious trouble in 2010. However, things changed significantly for Reps and both are doing better than expected. However, the challenger still needs to focus on change again. Use the incumbency to your favor. It seems people aren't too happy with any of the long-timers.

Burr is in a more traditionally conservative state and one where turnout in off year elections isn't as good. Iowa has a pretty active group of progressives.

Obama won Iowa more like 9. I had Iowa mixed up with Nevada. That was the state he won by 15.

I will usually vote for the most progressive of candidates, however I want the one who is most electable to win. I will strongly support a moderate Democrat unless they do things that really piss me off like Blanche Lincoln and Senator Nelson.

I'm starting to feel sorry for you, FarLeft. You really don't understand the sentiment of the country, do you? You are in that minority of 20% that loves Obama and hates all things Republican. There are twice as many people who feel just the opposite as you do.

Grassley is a weasel and had the tea party become stronger sooner, he would be out in the primary this year. He is considered a wishy-washy pseudo-rino by most conservatives. He ranks at about the same level as Graham. He'll do but he is not consistently conservative.

Looks pretty likely that this is another governorship that will flip from blue to red. Has there been any analysis of how much trouble the democrats are in at the state level with governors and legislature? That could make a huge difference in redistricting due to the 2010 census. How red is the country going to be at a state level?

This is pretty good for Conlin, actually. She's picked up 4% from where she was against an entrenched incumbent. Also, this is a Ras early stage poll, where his house effect is probably worth a good 3%; that brings Grassley down around 50%, perhaps.

OK, Conlin won't win unless there's some kind of seismic political change but these numbers don't show the kind of dominance I'd expect from Grassley, at least in the early stages, when his popularity and name recognition should have him in the high 50s at least.

If Grassley makes a big gaffe or if the economic climate starts to brighten more quickly we may see Grassley's numbers at or below 50%; Conlin may make him sweat a little, at least.

Of more global significance, these and a few other recent numbers I've been seeing may signal a slight movement back towards Democrats. Ras had Repubs up 10 in the generic ballot; that's now down to 7 (it was 6 last week).

tjampel:
Also, this is a Ras early stage poll, where his house effect is probably worth a good 3%; that brings Grassley down around 50%, perhaps.

OK, Conlin won't win unless there's some kind of seismic political change but these numbers don't show the kind of dominance I'd expect from Grassley, at least in the early stages, when his popularity and name recognition should have him in the high 50s at least.

Of more global significance, these and a few other recent numbers I've been seeing may signal a slight movement back towards Democrats. Ras had Repubs up 10 in the generic ballot; that's now down to 7 (it was 6 last week).

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Sometimes when I think no one can outdo FLAP in bullheaded partisan hackery, I forget there are always competitors in this free market. Christ, read the stuff you Democrats post. It's freaking insane. Grassley is going to lose because he's not in the high 50s? Heck, why stop at 3% Ras house effect, since you're making numbers up, make it 10%! Grassley is within MOE of Conlin! Alert OFA for this stunning good news!

Where are the resident Right Wingers and their calls for term limits for career politicians like Grassley?

Oh right. That "term" only applies to Democrats.

Hypocrites all.

@ethano:

I'm one of those "right wingers", I want term limits, and I'd love to see Grassley thrown out on his butt.

I go even further than the wishy-washy term limits thrown about. I would like to see a "once and you're out" term limit. Eliminate incumbents altogether. 8 year terms for Senators and 4 year terms for Congressman. And nope - once you've served as either a senator or a congressman - you can never run for either of those positions again.

What kind of "left winger" are you? Do you support Robert Byrd who is about 167 years old and has held his senate seat since the civil war?

Westwood,

It is really funny to hear the desperation of the spin. "Rasmussen polls are so bad they are meaningless. Oops, wait a minute. Rasmussen just showed that the democrat moved up less than the margin of error. Rasmussen polls are now the best thing we have ever seen and are showing an overwhelming victory for the democrats in November. Wait a minute. The Rasmussen poll showed what? Oh well, Rasmussen polls are so bad they are meaningless."

What is meaningless is a swing of 4 points one way or the other between polls for a Senator done 6 months before the election.

But since Rasmussen is currently accepted, it is interesting to note that 70% of the people identify the republicans as the party most labeled by commentators as "the party of no" but only 36% think that is a bad thing. Maybe the democrats want to think about finding a new label.

You might also want to note that 56% of Iowans want the health care monstrosity repealed - 43% strongly favor it. Only 39% oppose repeal. Where is that burst of public support that was supposed to be here by now?

Do you think it is a coincidence that only 39% want the healthcare bill kept and the best a democrat can do against Grassley is 40%?

Do you still think that if the economy shows signs of improvement that people will forget all about this healthcare bill they hate and vote for a democrat?

Westwoodnc Westwoodnc:

I'm not sounding any alert abut Grassley. Ras is reporting that his numbers are worse than they were a month ago and Conlin's are 4% higher.

I expect Conlin to lose. I said that in my post. I also expected Grassley to be doing better against her at this point in time in a Ras poll.

Ras does have a house effect, according to Nate Silver AND others. If you disagree you need to explain why his polls average 3 points to the right of the average of other non-partisan polls.

Ras does NOT have a house effect when election time comes around. Ras is one of the best polls if not the best for getting it right.

Nate Silver is an unapologetic liberal and looks for house effect in Rasmussen and ignores the 6 point house effect for CNN, the 6 point house effect for ABC, the 7 point house effect for CBS, and the 8 point house effect for IPSOS.

Yes, this poll shows movement from the last ras poll 6 weeks ago. But, Grassley's very favorable to very unfavorable ratings went from 9 points positive to 11 points positive whereas Conlin's went down from negative 7 to negative 10. That tells me there is some statistical noise in this poll and a swing within the margin of error doesn't show much of anything.

But, if the next poll shows another swing toward Conlin, then it might look like a trend. Right now, it looks like noise.

There are definetely more than 20 percent of Americans who agree with me, and besides, Obama is still nationally more popular than any other president out there. Again I don't intend to be popular, and I wasn't popular when I opposed Iraq from the begginning. I was a 20 percent minority than. The GOP's policies failed us for many years and if this wasn't so they wouldn't have lost by huge majorities.

The GOP continues to offer no new ideas no solutions, and they want to fillubuster any kind of reform there is including financial reform. No matter what does happen in November
I predict that the most progressive 20 percent including Nation Magizine has had a very accurate record in predicting the Iraq fiasco, and Bush's failed policies with tax cuts. Nostradamus was oppressed for his ideas in his time too and has predicted a lot of things to come true.

@GARY WAGNER:

I agree with you regarding noise v trend. It's too early to declare one...yet. I fully expect Grassley to win. His favorables are still sky high.

Just because Nate is a Dem (a middle of the road one IMO) doesn't mean he is incorrect in stating that Ras a house effect. And just because many other outfits have one too (yeah...even bigger ones, perhaps) doesn't mean we shouldn't pay attention to the one in front of our nose. We're trying to understand how things actually stand in a particular election, not pretend that a bunch of numbers is either self-existent trash because it comes from one polling firm and pure gold because it comes from another.

A house effect, as pointed out by Nate, doesn't necessarily mean that that pollster is wrong; it means that the pollster tends to consistently diverge from them mean. Maybe Ras's secret sauce for determining likely voters and who to call in a state has the best seasoning. I tend to think that, far out from an election likely voter screens are mainly wishful thinking. And...I DO think Scott has a personal agenda. He never lets it show around election time but I'm not so sure if that's the case when he and others might be trying to draft a Tommy Thompson or Dino Rossi into a race.

As Nate has stated, Ras may be the very best polling outfit on election day. That doesn't mean that they lack a house effect. Nate has previously published lists of polls with house effects. Yes, there are others; Kos has a clear house effect as well;.

The goal should be to get Grassley's margin of victory under 10 points. Upsetting Grassley is can be the equivlant of when pigs fly. The sad thing is that had Grassley been up for re-election in 2008 he probably would have been unseated.

Farleftandproud:
Obama is still nationally more popular than any other president out there.

===

Maybe
just maybe
because there's only one president out there. You know?

@GARY WAGNER, the libs that comment here are in an absolutely different universe 6.7 billion of us live in. The fact that they are compelled, nay, CONVINCED! that in the face of total wipeout in this particular poll is somehow spun as Good News (TM). Celebrate if you're winning, or hell, tied, but good lord avoid it when the opposite is happening.

Nate Silver is a midget joker. His 'house effect' analysis has to be the biggest joke in statistics this year. He 'proved' Ras's 'house effect' by comparing it to the average of several left-wing polling outfits with incredibly large Dem 'house effect'. It has no basis on what is accurate. It's like declaring Britney Spears a saint...when compared to Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian.

Obama has more national favorability at the moment than any other current politician or candidate at a National level. That is what I meant.

I stand corrected.

Westwood here's my general analysis in terms of which polls are right and wrong.
Ras leans right
Dkos leans left
SUSA and PPP are right on target
QU, Suffolk, and Mason-Dixon tend to be the ones who show bizarre outliers.

For a huge admirer of Obama who has inspired me and has taken on so many vast issues at one of America's most chaotic periods ever. It has made me a huge fan of him. FDR and JFK were landmark presidencies, but they were around before I was born.

I am still fairly young and the only president from my party I remember well was Bill Clinton, and even though he wasn't a bad president, and has been outstanding as a former president, he did some things that almost cost him his career.

I can remember 20 long years of Republican adminstrations where I wasn't on the president's side and in my eyes, didn't work for America. Reagan and Bush 1 did some good things on foreign policy and handled their job well, but I had ideological differences with them.

The die hard Obama fans have to be the ones to continue to keep the momentum going in 2010. This is not a time for democratic leaners to stay home, it is more important than ever!

Although it was not what they were polling, this is not an early poll in relation to the party primaries. I believe the IA primary is June 8. I have no idea when they might start early polling and don't care enough to look it up. I do not recall seeing any primary polls for the IA senate races. One would think Grassley should feel pretty good that the Dem closest to him is also the one with the largest UNfavorable numbers.

I am also one who supports term limits and yes I really means for Dems and Reps. The idea behind term limits is not to change the party in power. You would expect liberal states and/or districts to elect another liberal more often than not, and the same for conservatives. What term limits would do is bring in a steady supply of outside-the-beltway ideas. Too many politicians go to DC and after a time are transformed into elitist who think they know what it good for their constituents regardless if those constituents agree or not.

Once you get used to tossing around billions and trillions like it is monopoly money it is time to go. Your common sense has left you.

No, lets have another Southern Republican leadership poll.

Obama Favorable 36& Unfavorable %64 percent LV
Pelosi 22 percent favorable 88 percent unfavorable.

Dick Cheney 55 percent favorable, 40 percent unfavorable

Rubio 56 Crist 38 percent Meek 3% Joe Schmo 1 %

Lets try PA

Toomey 64% Specter 36%
Toomey 55% Sestak 40 % the Tea party candidate
5%

Well I at least have to have a sense of humor about things. Otherwise we would go crazy.

I am somewhat divided on term limits. It would be best if it was 3 terms. It would be good for the party that is likely to take back seats if their senator was retiring, but if their party was in trouble and there were no other viable candidates that would be tough.

For instance, if Patty Murray or Feingold couldn't run it would be bad for the Democrats. They are still fairly young.

In cases of others like Sen Byrd or Strom Thurmond, it probably would have been a good thing to not run again.

Iowa is an Obama state, when he visited last week, 1000s of people came out to see him. Even though not as many as the 92K who came out to listen to him speak at Michigan University over the weekend.

However, there is a difference between job approval and being liked. Obama is still liked by majority of Americans, which helps keep his negative job approval down nationally, but he has yet to show any concrete policy that impacts avrg Americans. Health care was passed and Financial Reform will pass as well, but it has yet to reach mainstream working families.

Farleftandproud:
I can remember 20 long years of Republican adminstrations where I wasn't on the president's side and in my eyes, didn't work for America.

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You're too much of a hack. Of course, a libtard won't like Republicans. Are there any other stunning insights that you'd like to share from us from an outhouse in Burlington?

Westwood, you are entitled to your opinions. I wouldn't call a fan of Reagan a conservatard. They just have a different ideology. If you read what I wrote, I never said I don't like Republicans, I just said I don't agree with their ideology.

I won't make an issue about the outhouse in Burlington comment because I have said a lot of opinions about certain parts of the country myself.

Besides, I didn't say a lot of good things about Bill Clinton either, considering he had bad publicity his first two years with Genifer Flowers, Jim Guy tucker and the AK bunch and Whitewater, to huge foreign policy blunders in Somalia and Haiti.

Obama walked into a a country with 9 percent unemployment, 2 wars, a huge national debt that had once been a surplus, and some beliieving he is an Arab or not born in America.

Farleftandproud:
Obama walked into a a country with 9 percent unemployment, 2 wars, a huge national debt that had once been a surplus, and some beliieving he is an Arab or not born in America.

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See, this is why sometimes I think you're a Karl Rove plant. You slyly undermine Obama by supporting him with insane stuff. Obama "walked into" a 6.8 unemployment rate which is now 9.7%, two wars which he has expanded, a huge national debt which he has grown, and wtf is the last one?

By January, when President Obama took office, the U.S. unemployment rate was 7.6 percent. I was 1.4 points off and westwood was .8 off.
It was worse than I thought.

If you go to Gallup though, the number of those who think the economy is getting better is slowing improving and the other outliers aren't great but have gradually improved.

Farleft your comment about a southern leadership made me laugh out loud. Oh those southern conservatives never learn.

Farleftandproud

AK is Alaska.

Billy Bob came by his bad publicity the old fashioned way. He earned it.

GARY WAGNER, you are something else.

"I'm starting to feel sorry for you, FarLeft. You really don't understand the sentiment of the country, do you? You are in that minority of 20% that loves Obama and hates all things Republican. There are twice as many people who feel just the opposite as you do."

Only 20% of Americans like Obama and dislike Republicans? Where do you get this stuff?

"Grassley is a weasel and had the tea party become stronger sooner, he would be out in the primary this year. He is considered a wishy-washy pseudo-rino by most conservatives. He ranks at about the same level as Graham. He'll do but he is not consistently conservative."

The fact that you don't consider Graham and Grassley to be conservatives is scary. It's sad that fringe dwellers like you refuse to accept any candidate that even dares to acknowledge that their side maybe, just maybe, might not be right all the time. There are plenty of these types of people on both sides, and rest assured, you are thoroughly ruining political discourse in this country.