A Keating-OnSight-Melanson survey survey of likely Colorado voters, conducted Oct. 8-13, found Democrat John Hickenlooper up 10 points over Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, 51% to 41%, with 7% undecided, confirming similar results from the two nonpartisan polls released in the last week by Colorado Politics/9News and Morning Consult. The Keating-OnSight-Melanson survey also found Donald Trump trails Joe Biden among likely Colorado voters by 15 points, 54% to 39%, with 4% undecided.
While limiting voting using drop boxes is certainly good news for Republicans, because many more Democrats than Republicans are expected to use that voting option, not all Texas news is good for the GOP. Since 2016, 3 million voters have registered in Texas. That means that about 1 in 5 (20%) of all current Texas voters were not registered in 2016.
The popular notion that the polls were way off in 2016 is wrong. If a poll says that "Smith" is ahead of "Jones" 49% to 47% with a margin of error of 4 points, what that means is that the pollster is predicting that there is a 95% chance that Smith will score in the range 45% to 53% and that Jones will come in between 43% and 51%. Victory by Jones, 50% to 44%, would mean the pollster still got it right. In 2016, the national polls had Hillary Clinton winning by 3%. She won by 2.1%, which is close to perfect. The state polls weren't as good. The worst state was Wisconsin. We had Clinton ahead 46% to 41%. She indeed got 46% but Trump got 47%, so he was slightly outside the predicted range of about 37% to 45%. The final predictions for Michigan and Pennsylvania were correct in terms of the ranges predicted.
With Texas early in-person voting starting tomorrow, and mail ballot returns already flowing into county election offices across the state, it’s a dead-heat race between Biden and Trump, and Hegar and Cornyn for the state’s U.S. Senate seat. A poll released by Civiqs last Wednesday that surveyed likely voters during October 3-6 found Trump and Biden dead even at 48-48 percent all.
The thing most pundits and polling prognosticators miss about Texas is the growing disparity between the red and blue parts of the state with each passing election.
The blue part has been growing a deeper shade of blue as the number of registered voters spikes up in the blue part each presidential election cycle, while the number of voters in the red part remains more or less stagnant.
Collin County, Texas, is one of the state’s suburban Republican stronghold counties that has been increasingly trending more left-leaning over the last several elections. In 2018 Democrats flipped two long held Texas congressional districts. Texas Democrat Colin Allred, a former NFL player making his first run for elected office, stunned incumbent Republican Pete Sessions to win his long held 32nd Congressional District, which is split between Dallas and Collin counties.
If it’s clear Biden has won Texas’ 38 electoral votes in the hours after polls close on Election Day, November 3rd, then Trump would have no viable path to victory.
The election would be over that night, before Trump’s lawyers can get through the courtroom doors on November 4th to stop the vote counts in other states, and Trump will no choice other than to pack his bags to hit the road.
Our democracy is stronger when our communities are educated and equipped with the tools they need to cast a ballot that counts:
The following are acceptable forms of ID to take with you to the polls:
If you can’t get one of those, you can sign something called a Reasonable Impediment Declaration and use a non-photo ID, like a utility bill or your voter registration certificate.
Former Wisconsin U.S. Senator Russ Feingold has thought longer and harder than most Americans about the US Senate’s handling of Supreme Court nominations, and he knows something has got to change. As the former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on the Constitution, and as the current president of the American Constitution Society, he has fought to maintain the deliberative process by which the Senate is supposed to provide advice and consent in a finely balanced system of checks and balances.
A national poll of America’s 18- to 29- year-olds released today by the Institute of Politics (IOP) at Harvard Kennedy School found significant interest in the upcoming election with the likelihood of turning out to vote at levels not seen since the 2008 presidential election. The poll found 63% of respondents indicated they will “definitely be voting,” compared to 47% during this same time before the 2016 presidential election.
