NOVEMBER 4, 2014 47,861

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(Overlays by F.B. Noodleman)

*  Special thanks to "Google Images", "www.gallup.com",

"Politico" and "The Washington Post"

PREPARING  FOR

ELECTION  DAY  2014

BLOG  POST
by Felicity Blaze Noodleman
Los Angeles, CA
10.24.14

Election Day in 2014 is on Tuesday, the 4th of November.  In the United States, Election Day for federal offices occurs on the Tuesday following the first Monday of November.  Just a few words from us here at the "Noodleman Group" prior to the midterm elections.  Beware however; the birds are angry for several reasons.  So why is it that the birds are so angry? It seems that those Pigs in Washington have been eating their eggs again!  That's enough to make any bird crazy.  Unhappy about Government and also because "Turkey Day" is this month!

As we are checking our Google sources for election news we are a little confused about some of the stories we're seeing.  Who's up and down.  Dem.'s or Rep.'s.  It really looks like every one running for elected office is trying to "put their best foot forward" and hoping to possibly trip up their opponent "for a fall this fall"!

Since President Obama is the lead man for the Democrats we should look to see how he is doing, we mean with all the news about the terrorists who call themselves ISIS and a new possible epidemic on the horizon (Ebola), how is the head hipster doing with possible Voters these days.

After the Obama numbers we will turn our attention to the top issues with voters on the National front as they are considering those running for Congressional seats and their party affiliation.  This 2014 mid term election may seriously influence how voters see the Party Politics of their State and Local officials who are campaigning for office this Fall.  If voters break with their Political Party's, Union's and so on, 2014 could be one of the most historic Midterm elections in a long time.  One for the books, as they say!   

President Barack Obama walks up the steps of Air Force One prior to departure at Philadelphia International Airport on June 30, 2011. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

http://blog.seattlepi.com

/aerospace/2011/07/01/cool-photo-of-president-boarding-air-force-one/

Obama Averages 41.5% Job Approval in His 23rd Quarter

Among the lowest quarterly averages of his presidency

by Jeffrey M. Jones

• 
  

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- President Barack Obama's job approval rating averaged 41.5% during his 23^rd quarter in office, which began on July 20 and ended on Oct. 19. That ranks as one of his lowest quarterly approval ratings to date. The only two that were lower were the 41.2% in his 20^th quarter -- after the troubled launch of the health insurance exchanges last fall -- and the 41.0% in his 11^thquarter during the negotiations to raise the federal debt limit and its fallout on the U.S. economy.

Obama's first quarter in office, when his approval rating averaged 63.0%, still ranks as his best. Since his first year, his average quarterly approval ratings have all been below 50%, with one important exception -- in the fall and early winter of 2012, the quarter in which he won re-election. Obama's job approval rating has averaged 48% throughout his nearly six full years in office.

During his 23^rd quarter, Obama's Gallup Daily tracking job approval ratings fell to as low as 38% in early September, tying his personal low. That came after the Islamic militant group ISIS beheaded two American journalists. His approval rating did rise to 45% in Sept. 19-21 polling, shortly after he announced an expanded U.S. program of military airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

Obama 23^rd Quarterly Average Among Lowest

Five post-World War II presidents have been elected to office twice and served a full 23^rd quarter in office. Among these, George W. Bush has the lowest 23^rd quarter average approval rating at 39.1%, just slightly lower than Obama's. In contrast, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were much more popular at this stage in their presidencies, with average 23^rd quarter approval ratings of 56% or better.

The importance of a president's 23^rd quarter average cannot be understated, as it signifies his political standing heading into the second midterm election of his presidency. Typically the president's party's fortunes in the midterms are heavily tied to his popularity.

For example, the Republicans suffered heavy losses in the 2006 midterm elections under Bush, losing majority control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Republicans also performed poorly in the 1974 midterms, just after what would have been Richard Nixon's 23^rd quarter in office. He resigned in August just after his 23^rd quarter began, with his only job approval rating measured during that quarter at 24%.

In contrast, presidents who were relatively popular in their 23^rd quarters -- including Reagan and Clinton -- saw their parties perform better in the midterms. In fact, in 1998, Democrats gained seats in the House in 1998 under Clinton, a rare occurrence for the president's party in midterm elections.

Implications

Obama's job approval rating continues to languish near his personal lows, creating a strong headwind for Democratic candidates in next month's midterm elections.

Based on the historical record, it would not be surprising if Obama's approval ratings decline further over the next three months. Although there are only four twice-elected presidents who have served 24 quarters in office since Gallup began polling on presidential approval, in three out of four cases their 24^th quarter average was lower than their 23^rd quarter average. Clinton was the exception, as his approval rating went up, which may have been the result of a strong economy and a rally in support in reaction to Republicans' attempts to impeach him and remove him from office -- which Americans opposed. By contrast, Reagan's 24^th quarter approval rating took a nosedive of 10 percentage points as the Iran-Contra scandal exploded. Bush and Eisenhower saw more modest declines.

This limited historical pattern suggest the odds are against Obama's approval ratings improving in the next quarter. And if Democrats have a poor showing on Election Day, Nov. 4 -- including possibly losing their Senate majority -- Obama will likely be politically weakened. If his job approval rating declines as a result, he may end the next quarter with his lowest quarterly average.

Survey Methods

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted July 20-Oct. 19, 2014, on the Gallup U.S. Daily survey, with a random sample of 45,640 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage point at the 95% confidence level.

Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 50% cellphone respondents and 50% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/178736/obama-job-approval-averages-23rd-quarter.aspx


"The Washington Post"

Poll Shows Obama Approval Low, GOP Enthusiasm Higher Than Democrats’

Supporters of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) rally before the incumbent’s debate with Democratic Senate nominee Alison Lundergan Grimes in Lexington on Monday. (John Sommers II/Reuters)

By Dan Balz and Scott Clement 

October 15

Dan Balz is Chief Correspondent at The Washington Post. He has served as the paper’s National Editor, Political Editor, White House correspondent and Southwest correspondent.

Heading into the final weeks of the midterm campaign, the political landscape continues to tilt in favor of the Republican Party, with President Obama’s overall approval rating at the lowest level of his presidency and GOP voters signaling greater likelihood than Democrats that they will cast ballots, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Americans are looking to November and beyond with dissatisfaction about the state of the country and the political leadership in Washington. Two-thirds say the country is seriously off-track. And while more than 6 in 10 say the president lacks a clear plan for governing, a slightly higher percentage says the same of Republicans in Congress.

Public impressions of the two political parties are similarly gloomy. “Favorable” ratings for the Democratic Party (39 percent) are at a 30-year low, and for the first time a majority (51 percent) gives the Democrats an “unfavorable” rating. The Republicans are rated even lower, with a 33 percent “favorable” mark. That is little changed since last year’s government shutdown, although the party’s “unfavorable” rating has improved.

Most worrisome for Democrats is that their candidates will be weighed down by unhappiness with the president. Obama’s overall approval rating stands at 40 percent, the lowest recorded in a Post-ABC News poll during his six years in office, though it is only a point lower than last month. Among independents, his rating is 33 percent.

The president’s economic approval rating is better, at 44 percent, and has been moving up over the past year, coinciding with better economic news and a decline in the unemployment rate. Disapproval of his handling of the economy is at 51 percent, the best it has been since September of last year.

Little affection for Republicans or Democrats heading into midterms

Majorities have little confidence in either side’s leadership. Both the Republican and Democratic parties are at or near record lows in popularity, and President Obama has hit a new low in job approval. Republicans have the advantage in the final month before the midterm elections, with more of their partisans saying they are certain to vote. 

SOURCE: This Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone Oct. 9-12, 2014, among a random sample of 1,006 adults. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish on land lines and cellphones. The results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for the full sample, 3.5 points for the sample of 871 registered voters and 4.5 points for 629 likely voters. Sampling, data collection and tabulation by Abt-SRBI of New York.. The Washington Post. Published on October 15, 2014, 7:00 a.m.

But public support for his handling of the threats posed by Islamic State extremists has tumbled dramatically in just the past few weeks, falling from 50 percent approval at the end of September to just 35 percent today. Three weeks ago, his rating on dealing with the Islamic State was a net positive by six points. Today it is net negative by 16 points.

On other measures, the president is at or near low points, whether international affairs, terrorism or implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

His worst rating comes on his handling of immigration, with just 29 percent saying they approve of how he has handled the issue, down nine points since June. Obama has said he will use his executive powers to make changes, including giving some kind of legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants — but not until after the elections, a decision that satisfied neither side.

Meanwhile, analysis of the survey findings shows that the Republican electorate is more motivated to vote in this election than are the Democrats. Seventy-seven percent of Republicans say they are certain to vote, compared with 63 percent of Democrats.

Democrats often have more trouble turning out their base voters in midterm elections. This year, they have made unprecedented efforts to register new voters and turn out those who often vote only in presidential races.

Midterm elections generally are a referendum on the party that holds the White House, and the president’s party almost always loses seats. Today, 62 percent of registered voters say the president will not be a factor in their vote next month, up eight points in a month. But among those who say he will be a factor, more say they will use their vote to send a message that they oppose Obama.

Among independents, 23 percent say they want to send a message to oppose the president while 8 percent want to support him with their vote. Meanwhile, 46 percent of Republicans say they will vote to send a message of opposition to the president, while just 30 percent of Democrats say they are voting to send a message of support for Obama.

About this project

Like most forecasting models, Election Lab uses the past to predict the future. To predict House and Senate elections in 2014, we draw on the elections from 1980-2012. We first look at how well key factors were related to outcomes in those past elections. Then, we gather information about those same factors for 2014. Assuming that these factors will be related to election outcomes in 2014 in the same way they were from 1980 to 2012, we can make a prediction about who will win each race. 

Four years ago, when Republicans made major gains, the scales on this question were more evenly balanced. Then, 49 percent of Republicans said they wanted to send a signal of opposition to Obama with their vote, while 50 percent of Democrats said they were sending a message of support.

On the question of which House candidate, Republican or Democrat, people plan to vote for, Democrats hold a tenuous edge of 46 percent to 44 percent among registered voters. But among likely voters, Republicans hold a more sizable advantage, 50 percent to 43 percent. Self-identified independents favor Republicans 51 percent to 32 percent, and among the roughly one-quarter of the likely electorate that has an unfavorable view of both political parties, Republicans hold a lead of 53 percent to 32 percent.

The question has been an imperfect indicator of election results, but generally Democrats need a bigger advantage to do well in elections.

There is no similar question about Senate races. Republicans need to win a net of six seats to take control of that chamber, and they have opportunities in more than enough states to do so. Competitive races in several Republican-held states have complicated the forecasts, although political models give Republicans the edge.

The Democrats do best on questions of which party seems more in touch with average Americans. Pluralities of registered voters see Democrats as better representing their own personal values, as being more concerned about people’s needs and as better understanding the economic problems that people are having. A plurality of registered voters see Republicans as the party with better ideas about the right size and scope for the federal government.

The public is more evenly divided on the question of which party is more trusted dealing with the country’s main problems. Among all adults, whether registered to vote or not, Americans split evenly, 39 percent to 39 percent, with 15 percent saying they trust neither party. (The rest say they trust both parties equally or have no opinion.)

Until this fall, Democrats have long had the advantage on this question among the general population, sometimes by double digits. When the results are limited to registered voters, the survey finds Republicans with a slim three-point advantage, growing to eight points among likely voters.

On specific issues, Democrats lead among registered voters on health care, helping the middle class, abortion, same-sex marriage and, by 27 points, dealing with issues of importance to women. Republicans lead on the economy, the deficit and, by 19 points, dealing with threats from the Islamic State.

Jobs and the economy still top the list of issues voters say are most important in their decision, at 37 percent, with Democrats, Republicans and independents in almost identical agreement. For both Democrats and Republicans, health care ranks second, but independents say the way things are working in Washington is their second-most-important issue.

The Post-ABC poll was conducted by telephone last Thursday through Sunday among a random national sample of 1,006 adults, including interviews on conventional and cellular phones. The overall margin of sampling error is 3.5 percentage points.

"The Washington Post"  http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-shows-obama-approval-low-gop-enthusiasm-higher-than-democrats/2014/10/14/d9e7e4d6-53d5-11e4-ba4b-f6333e2c0453_story.html

Protesters, unhappy about executive bonuses, bellowed at people looking out the windows of an American International Group office building in New York last April.  (Image from 2010 still resounds today.)

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0308/Why-Americans-are-so-angry

"Politico"

POLITICO Poll: Alarm, Anxiety As Election Looms

By ALEXANDER BURNS | 10/20/14 5:03 AM EDT

Updated: 10/20/14 11:30 PM EDT

An overwhelming majority of voters in the most competitive 2014 elections say it feels as if events in the United States are “out of control” and expressed mounting alarm about terrorism, anxiety about Ebola and harsh skepticism of both political parties only three weeks before the Nov. 4 midterms.

In a POLITICO poll testing the hardest-fought states and congressional districts of the year, two-thirds of likely voters said they feel that the United States has lost control of its major challenges. Only 36 percent said the country is “in a good position to meet its economic and national security” hurdles.

If no individual issue has come to define this election — like health care in the 2010 campaign or the Iraq War in 2006 — the accumulation of disparate fears has created a sense of pessimism and frustration across the midterm landscape.

The public distress manifests itself across a range of issues:

- Terrorism: Eighty-four percent of voters say the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant poses a “serious” threat to the U.S. homeland, including 43 percent who say it poses a “very serious” threat. Just 12 percent said the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is not a serious concern.

- Health care: Most voters believe their health care costs will go up under the Affordable Care Act. Fifty-seven percent said they believe their personal costs will increase, while only 7 percent said they will decrease. A third said their costs would remain the same. (At the same time, support for repealing Obamacare has continued to drop, now down to 41 percent.)

- Presidential management: Voters in the midterm battleground states are evenly split on whether President Barack Obama or George W. Bush was more effective at managing the federal government. Thirty-eighty percent named Bush, while 35 percent preferred Obama. A quarter of respondents said the two men were equally competent.

- Ebola: Only 22 percent of respondents said they had a lot of confidence that the government is doing everything it can to contain the contagious disease. Thirty-nine percent they had some confidence, while a third said they had little or no confidence. The poll concluded Oct. 11, before the hospitalization of the second nurse who treated an Ebola patient in Dallas.

Virginia voter Amaris Landecho, 33, said her main concerns this year were largely about the “economy and the housing market” until Ebola came along, raising questions about “whether the government is prepared to handle issues like this.”

“My mind tells me they are not prepared for this, but my heart is filled with hope that they are,” said Landecho, who works at a military hospital and expects to vote Democratic. She added: “I’m upset with Congress — the whole thing, Democrat or Republican. It doesn’t matter.”

Charlene Pierson, a retired church secretary in Michigan, said she thinks the Ebola scare is “very, very hyped up,” but has concerns about Obama’s leadership style overall. “The man has spent most of his time not knowing what’s going on in his own government, and he’s supposed to be commander in chief,” said Pierson, 68, who plans to vote Republican.

The atmosphere of fear and anxiety has not produced a decisive advantage for either party on the congressional ballot. Forty-four percent of voters said they would vote for Democrats next month, while 41 percent said they preferred Republicans. That represents a tiny shift in the Democratic direction since POLITICO’s last poll, in early September, well within the margin of error.

The new poll, designed by SocialSphere Inc. and conducted by the research firm GfK, tested 840 likely voters in competitive U.S. House and Senate races. The poll was conducted online using GfK’s KnowledgePanel methodology, which is also employed by The Associated Press. The poll ran from Oct. 3 to 11 and has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

Republicans appear likely to prevail in many of the hardest-fought races of the year and stand a good chance of taking control of the Senate. In the bigger picture, however, there is little to indicate that the GOP has rehabilitated itself in the eyes of voters since its setbacks in the 2012 presidential election.

The Republican Party continue to trail heavily among young and nonwhite voters, losing Hispanics by 25 points, African-Americans by 74 points, women by 5 points and every age group of voters under 65.

But the GOP maintains important leads among whites (12 points), voters over 65 (12 points) and men (4 points) — advantages that are likely to prove decisive on a midterm electoral map tilted toward less diverse and more conservative states in the South and Mountain West.

Voters disapprove of congressional Republicans by a 40-point margin, 70 percent to 30 percent, including 38 percent who strongly disapprove of the Hill GOP. For Democrats, the numbers are only a bit better: 61 percent disapprove and 38 percent approve.

Asked which party is closer to big business and Wall Street, 39 percent of respondents said it was Republicans versus only 9 percent who said it was the Democrats. Fifty-one percent said both parties were equally close to big business and the financial sector.

Malcolm Carter, a retired schoolteacher in Kentucky, said he planned to vote Republican — and support Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for another term — as “the lesser of two evils.” “I think the Democratic Party is leading us down a road that we can never recover from,” said Carter, 73. “Not that Mitch McConnell is my favorite.”

While the economy and other domestic issues still reign supreme, voters have shifted their attention noticeably toward national security since POLITICO began polling the midterm battleground races earlier this year.

In May, half of likely voters named economic issues as their chief concerns, while only 6 percent named national security, foreign affairs or terrorism.

Now, those numbers are 40 percent for the economy and 22 percent for national security, foreign affairs and terrorism.

And the same pool of voters that expressed intense resistance to U.S. military intervention overseas in a July POLITICO poll now say they are more concerned about terrorism against the homeland (60 percent) than the possibility of another “drawn-out U.S. war in Iraq” (39 percent.)

Elizabeth Ivey, an insurance agent in Panama City Beach, Florida, said she feels that national security issues have become “a constant” in U.S. politics. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another that’s coming up,” said Ivey, 48, who intends to vote Republican. “I am worried about ISIS; I think it’s something that we need to keep over, away from our country. I do support us going over there and fighting in the Middle East.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/politico-poll-2014-elections-112016.html#ixzz3GzIKNlRl

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/politico-poll-2014-elections-112016.html

"Politico"

"The Washington Post"

Newest Midterm Forecasts Are Bullish For The GOP

By Paul Gronke and Phillip Ardoin October 6

There’s no more accurate way to predict the day’s weather than looking out the window that morning, and there’s no more accurate way to forecast an election than looking at the polls on election eve. There are several academic and nonacademic meteorologists — The Washington Post’s Election Lab, Five Thirty Eight, The Upshot, Princeton Election Consortium, Daily Kos, Pollster and more — providing daily election forecasts. These models currently rely on aggregated preelection polls, with a sprinkle of the fundamentals and a dash of state-specific factors.

Political science forecasting dates to at least 40 years ago, when Edward Tufte published his famous 1975 paper in the American Political Science Review. A Google scholar search on “political science election forecasts”returns over 50,000 results over 40 years and spanning elections worldwide.

For the past 12 years, the political science journal PS has published a symposium featuring midterm and presidential election forecasts by leading political scientists. This year’s symposium is being released Monday. It forecasts sunny days ahead for the GOP — a net gain between four and 16 seats in the House and five to eight seats in the Senate. Three of the five Senate forecasts would lead to unified Republican control of Congress.

(Note: The Highton, McGhee, and Sides forecast dates to when the PS issue went to press. Updated forecasts are published at Election Lab.)

With new polls coming out daily, why pay attention to these forecasts?

To continue the analogy, political scientists are the climate scientists of the meteorological world, not the short-term weather forecasters. The PS forecasts are not based on a simple aggregation of polling data. Alan Abramowitz’s model, for instance, captures shifting political sentiments nationwide without reference to a specific race. Joseph Bafumi, Robert Erikson and Christopher Wlezien quite consciously rely only on information collected well before the election. Their approaches parallel the difference between climate science and short-term weather forecasts.

Political scientists enjoy playing the election prediction game, just like journalists, but we draw a bright line between forecasting and understanding. A light-hearted example by Michael Alvarez and Brian Loynd published 20 years ago illustrates the difference. Alvarez and Loynd showed that an American League victory in the World Series contributes nearly 12 percentage points to the Republican Party’s vote total. (One can only speculate about the impact that interleague play has had on this important result!) But Alvarez and Loynd never thought that the World Series had any direct causal link to election outcomes, just like last year’s snowstorms in Washington, D.C., tell us anything about long-term climate change.

The value of the political science models is to assess how well we can predict the election, even significantly ahead of time, based on scientific theory. These models provide a baseline for how well a party “should” do that we can then use to understand the results. For example, the disjuncture between the 2010 forecasts and the results provided evidence for the impact of salient roll call votes on vote outcomes. James Campbell developed the now common metaphor of “wave” elections in response tounderestimates of the 1994 Republican victory.

In short, the point of political science models is not just to tell us who will win, but to help us determine why they won.

Phillip Ardoin and Paul Gronke are co-editors of PS: Political Science and Politics. Ardoin is chair and professor of political science at Appalachian State University. Gronke is the Daniel B. German visiting professor at Appalachian State and director of the Early Voting Information Center.

"The Washington Post"  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/10/06/newest-midterm-forecasts-are-bullish-for-the-gop/

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The count down is on Mr. and Mrs USA and all those in between! Have the Democrats left the Evil Genie's bottle uncorked yet again for another round of unrest in the Middle East and more World Wide Terrorism? Will the Republicans capitalise on the mistakes of Democrats and The President in Washington?  Will "Obama Care" and the new minimum wadge of $10.10 pass the "Acid Test" this Fall?  We will know the answers to these and other questions on November 4th. and 5th., as you the voters, let the world know how you feel and vote.  This has been Felicity again writing for the "Noodleman Group" on "Google Blogger".

Anger is the emotion of the day. Homeowners are angry. The unemployed are angry. Voters are angry. Conservatives are especially angry, and Tea Partiers are the angriest of all. A New York Times poll shows that 6 out of 10 voters don’t like their own representative.  And, by gosh, we’re going to throw them out.

http://edsteinink.com/topic/opinion-cartoon-2010-election-voting-voter-anger-tea-party-anger-management-angry-electorate/

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