News from the Votemaster          

Fischer Upsets Bruning in Nebraska Senatorial Primary     Permalink

In a surprise, come-from-behind victory, Deb Fischer defeated Attorney General Jon Bruning and Treasurer Don Stenberg to win the Republican senatorial nomination to face former senator Bob Kerrey in November. Bruning, the establishment candidate, was leading in the polls until the very end, but Fischer surged in the final days and pulled off a 10,000 vote win in a low-turnout election. Her surge may have been partly due to a late endorsement by Sarah Palin, although the real tea party candidate in the race was Stenberg. Fischer is a member of the Nebraska's unicameral legislature. If elected, Fischer would be the state's second female senator. Eva Bowring (R) represented the state in the Senate for 6 months in 1954, when she was appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Sen. Dwight Griswold.

Nebraska's Senate seat is currently open due to the retirement of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE). In a way, this race is now like the one in Indiana, in which a fairly far right insurgent Republican snatched the nomination from a somewhat moderate establishment Republican and now faces a conservative Democrat in a red state. What was certainly a slam dunk win for the Republicans in Nebraska, as in Indiana, will now be a competitive race, with lots of money flowing in from outside the state. Pretty much everyone in Washington had conceded the Republicans were going to pick up this seat (and hold Indiana), but those calculations have now been completely upset.

Romney, now unopposed, Wins Oregon and Nebraska Primaries     Permalink

Now that Mitt Romney has no opponents left, he should have gotten close to 100% of the vote in the Oregon and Nebraska primaries yesterday. He didn't. Voters who knew he was going to be the nominee nevertheless voted against him, anyway, as a protest. Thus he has to continue to spend time courting conservative voters in his own party at the time he needs to be pivoting and trying to erase the memories of the conservative positions he took during the past few months. Here are the results of yesterday's elections.

Pollsters See Response Rates Tumble     Permalink

When pollsters call, people hang up. A new study by the Pew Research Center shows that fewer than 1 in 10 people called are willing and able to complete the interview when pollsters call. Nevertheless, the results are apparently not skewed as both Democrats and Republicans have an equal dislike of being called. For pollsters who use live interviewers, having to call 10 people to get one valid response raises costs enormously. Clearly the future is robopollsters like PPP, Rasmussen, and SurveyUSA, since their computers don't get discouraged when someone refuses to cooperate..

Redesign of this Site Progressing     Permalink

This Website is in the processing of being redesigned. It is a slow process, as is anything involving software, but hopefully will be ready by early June. Then we will start tracking the electoral college on a daily basis.

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