Free Republic

Even more encouraging than the new Gallup numbers, I think, and circumstantial evidence that maybe Major Garrett was right yesterday about Team O preparing to pull back from some swing states. The catch with Gallup's tracker is that it's the only national pollster showing anything close to a seven-point lead right now; doesn't mean they're wrong, but allegedly even GOP pollsters aren't picking up a lead like that in their internal numbers. To get a better sense of Romney's surge, says election guru Sean Trende, follow the (campaign) money: "Simply put, if Romney were up 7, he'd be advertising in...

Democratic President Barack Obama’s lead over Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is growing in Massachusetts, and is now up to 30 points, according to a new poll conducted by the Western New England University Polling Institute for The Republican and MassLive.com. The poll, conducted Sept. 28 - Oct. 4, finds Obama getting support from 63 percent of likely Massachusetts voters compared to 33 percent for Romney, with 3 percent undecided. The poll does not take into account the impact of the first presidential debate - in which Romney was widely viewed as the winner - since only one night of...

Once again, the campaign for US President is a horse race in the battleground state of Michigan! The momentum has now shifted to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney because of his winning performance in the first of three scheduled debates against President Barack Obama. In September, the momentum was behind the President after he received a big boost from the Democratic National Convention. In a new and exclusive poll for WXYZ, the Detroit Free Press, and our statewide media partners, 48 percent say they would vote for Democrat Obama if the election were held today. Forty-five percent of the 600...

Due to high taxes, burdensome regulations, lack of public sector reforms, and a lackluster job climate, more people have left California than come to the state since 2005, according to a comprehensive study by the Manhattan Institute released on Tuesday, suggesting California is no longer “perceived by most Americans as the land where dreams come true.” In the report, titled “The Great California Exodus: A Closer Look," Tom Gray and Robert Scardamalia found Californians have fled to states like Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, and Georgia because those states have a better economic climate with less taxes and...

President Obama has established a substantial lead against Republican challenger Mitt Romney in Minnesota but remains under the critical 50 percent mark and trails Romney among independent voters... The poll shows Obama drawing 48 percent of likely voters to Romney's 40 percent. Part of Obama's advantage comes from a yawning gender gap in his favor. Romney has a slight edge among men, but the president leads among women voters by more than 20 percentage points.... Janet Schneider, a St. Paul Democrat, is one of those worried about jobs and health care. She's 69 and is looking for a part-time job...

A century ago, nine out of ten black Americans lived in the South, primarily in formerly Confederate states where segregation reigned. Then, in the 1920s, blacks began heading north, both to escape the racism of Jim Crow and to seek work as southern agriculture grew increasingly mechanized. “From World War I to the 1970s, some six million black Americans fled the American South for an uncertain existence in the urban North and West,” writes journalist Isabel Wilkerson, the author of The Warmth of Other Suns. Principal destinations in the Great Migration, as the exodus came to be called, included...

OR poll---no details on "likely/registered" I could find---maybe you can. Obama up 50-41. No breakdown on D/R splits but this has to be horrible news for ZEro. Folks, I'll say this again: if he is barely polling 50% in places like CT and OR, he's toast.

A new statewide poll commissioned by The Albuquerque Journal shows President Barack Obama with a relatively small lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney and 8 percent of voters still undecided. The poll suggests that New Mexico's presidential race may be more competitive than national pundits and polls have previously suggested. The Journal poll (http://bit.ly/U2Jeuq ) published Sunday in a copyright story shows 45 percent of those surveyed backed Obama and 40 percent supported Romney. Another 7 percent backed the Libertarian candidate for president, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson.

What's the fiercest rivalry in American politics today? There's Obama-Romney, of course, but try O'Malley-McDonnell—neighboring governors battling across the Potomac River over how best to resuscitate a moribund economy. Martin O'Malley, Maryland's liberal Democratic governor, is competing for jobs, businesses and tax dollars with Bob McDonnell, Virginia's conservative Republican chief executive. Both are rising stars considered potential presidential hopefuls in 2016. Both are Irish Catholics—Mr. McDonnell playfully calls Mr. O'Malley "the big Irishman to our north"—and each leads his party's association of governors. The two regularly spar on the Sunday talk shows, on the pages of Washington-area newspapers, and over...

Last week, Ramussen showed Republican nominee Linda McMahon with a 3-point edge over her Democratic opponent in the US Senate race in Connecticut, Rep. Chris Murphy, 49/46. Six days later, Quinnipiac confirms that McMahon has a slight edge over Murphy — and in fact finds the exact same result: Connecticut likely voters put Republican former wrestling executive Linda McMahon on the right side of a 49-46 percent too-close-to-call U.S. Senate race against Democratic U.S. Rep. Christopher Murphy, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. …"The poll is good news for Linda McMahon. In our first likely voter poll in...

State Republican Party Chairman Jerry Labriola said he’s making the argument to Republican officials at the national convention in Florida that Connecticut could be a possible win for presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Labriola told The Associated Press Monday that he’s been busy pointing out how President Barack Obama’s popularity in this Democratic-leaning state has waned and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon is running a strong campaign against Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy. That makes it worthwhile, Labriola said, for Romney’s campaign to dedicate some resources in Connecticut, such as a visit from Romney or his running mate Rep. Paul Ryan,...

DEVELOPING... 55% of Indies, 16% of Democrats Poll from RasmussenReports...

President Obama posts an eight-point lead over Mitt Romney in Rasmussen Reports’ first look at the presidential race in Connecticut. A new telephone survey of Likely Connecticut Voters shows the president with 51% support, while Romney picks up 43% of the vote. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate in the race, and another three percent (3%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Look, I’m a pretty sunny optimist, but this stretches even my credulity. A pollster in Illinois believes that Mitt Romney can win Barack Obama’s home state, thanks to a mediocre performance in Cook County by the incumbent, and outright hostility outstate: A poll conducted by Illinois-based pollster and political strategist Michael McKeon found Obama leading Republican Mitt Romney by 49 percent to 37 percent in Cook County, the home of Chicago. That puts him ahead by a far thinner margin than expected in a county he should be winning handsomely. Cook is the most Democratic leaning county in the state....

President Barack Obama could lose his home state of Illinois in November, a new poll shows. A poll conducted by Illinois-based pollster and political strategist Michael McKeon found Obama leading Republican Mitt Romney by 49 percent to 37 percent in Cook County, the home of Chicago. That puts him ahead by a far thinner margin than expected in a county he should be winning handsomely. Cook is the most Democratic leaning county in the state. It is also the most populous. Those numbers do not bode well for the president. “He has to come out of Cook County with a...

President Barack Obama will attend two fundraisers Monday in Connecticut, a state where he is facing an alarming decline in both political contributions and in some recent polling. Obama will head to the Stamford Marriott Hotel for a $500-per-person reception first. Then, he will be whisked off to the home of film producer Harvey Weinstein, where tickets to the dinner start at $35,800 per person. With the two fundraisers, Obama aims to close the wide gap between Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the Constitution state. Backed by a surge of Wall Street support, Romney has more than...

Two months ago, the Congressional Budget Office issued a stark warning to Congress over the fiscal impact of "Taxmageddon," the upcoming expiration of the Bush-era tax rates at the end of this year. Allowing all of the tax rates to rise would push the US into recession: Tax hikes and spending cuts set to take effect in January would suck $607 billion out of the economy next year, plunging the nation at least briefly back into recession, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday.Unless lawmakers act, the economy is likely to contract in the first half of 2013 at an...

(WSYB ("We Serve You Best") AM 1380 in Rutland VT dropped Rush Limbaugh. Here are some listener comments...there was a "drop Rush on WSYB" petition drive but I don't know if that was the reason Rush was pulled (in favor of Jim Rome). It could have been a cost factor. Anyway: --No more Rush? No reason to listen. Seems the GM politics stated clearly in the Rutland Herald article a few months ago trump station viability. But what the heck. The liberal management will just go elsewhere to make a living leaving local employees out of work. It is what...

State police officers routinely scan license plates at toll booths to ensure emissions inspections are up-to-date. Portable cameras fine speeders practically everywhere in the state. In the name of safety, children of all heights and weights are now required to sit in a rear- facing car seat for their first two years, regardless of whether they fit in it. And legislators once again found new and creative ways to tax residents this year, in part by redefining rich. But, relax, the government doesn't control everything in this state ... yet. You can still freely sip sugary soft drinks of any...

Don't bet on Mitt Romney winning his home state of Massachusetts. Or even trying. Romney was never a hero in the liberal bastion, and aides say there are other ways he can win the White House without the 11 electoral votes the state offers.