Hoosiers, this is your state on GOP.
Just say no to GOP.
Commentary and actual analysis (w/numbers) on the flipside.
going to be the party in power. At this time, Indiana’s congressional delegation is heavily dominated by Republicans with all but 2 of the state’s 9 congressional seats held by Republicans. But in 1994 the situation was the exact opposite, with Democrats holding 7 of the state’s then 10 districts.
For national Democrats, Indiana is a tough sell, but closer to the ground the story changes. The Indiana state house is extremely competitive, and several elections have produced 50-50 splits. And, prior to Mitch Daniels, Democrats held the governor’s office since 1989. While it took Democrats 16 years to wear out their welcome, Mitch Daniels barely made it to 16 months before the hangover hit. And ther ain’t no love for President Bush in the Hoosier state.
SUSA’s latest tracking poll for Presidential approval in Indiana shows that the President has an awesomely bad 36% approval rating in the Hoosier state. He’s even only 52% for regular church attenders, and a dismal 46% for pro-lifers. Mitch Daniels isn’t fairing much better at 38%, and truth be told, is being bouyed by a relatively good showing in the Indianapolis metro area. Exclude Indianapois (which at 50% support is an outlier), and Daniels approval rating plunges beneath Bush’s to 35%.
Beyond the trends happening at the national level, Republicans have done much at that state level that is turning voters off. Beyond the issue of Daylight Savings time, which splits across parties, Mitch Daniel’s privization plans (The Indiana Toll Road, now state welfare offices) are pissing Hoosiers off. Let’s call this the Mitch Daniel’s LSD plan. That’s for liquidating state debt, which ostensibly is the reason that he pushed the sale of the Indiana toll road. And he’s had a shoebox full of other pipe dreams like closing small town license branches, and generally trying to run the state as though he were still the CEO of Eli Lilly.
Between, Bush and Daniels, things get very, very bad once you leave the Indianapolis metro area. While the IN-4, and IN-5 are extreme long shots, the rest of the state is up for grabs. And Republicans have a lot to lose, Indiana is going to be the battleground for 2006. There are 5 pickup opportuntities in Indiana alone. Two (IN-8 and IN-9) are recognized by both parties as battlegrounds now. A third (IN-2) will likely receive money from the national party post Labor Day if current trends continue. That leaves two other districts (IN-6, IN-3) that need the netroots to win.
Our very own Barry Welsh is running in the IN-6. Earlier this month, Barry’s campaign ran a poll that shows’s Barry is within striking distance, and this before he even has the money to get out of the gate. (Ed note. reformatiting mine.)
2006 IN-6 Congressional Race.
Do you plan to vote in November? (Non-Primary voters)
Frequency Percent
Yes 239 74%
No 84 26%
Total 323 100%Do you plan to vote for Mike Pence, Barry Welsh, or are you undecided? (Likely voters)
Frequency Percent
Pence (R) 91 38.1%
Welsh(D) 72 30.1%
Undecided 76 31.8%
Total 239 100.0%
This isn’t a professional poll, a professional pollster would not have made a simple error, that significantly understimate the support of their candidate.
Barry made an understandable error. He choose a sample that include equal numbers of voters from each county.
This is Indiana’s 6th Congressional district.
Barry weighted all counties equally (as though an equal number of voters resided in each county, 17 voters from 19 counties=323 voters), and this significantly underestimates his support, because Pence’s greatest support comes from rural counties with low populations. Official census stats show that in 2000, 675,669 poeople lived in Indiana’s 6th congressional districts. Of these, 37% in the largest 2 counties (Delaware county, 118,769 and Madison county, 133,358) including the other 2 large counties (Wayne county, 71,097 and Henry County, 48,508) these 4 alone consitute 55% of districts populaton, and while Pence won the whole district with 67% of the vote, he only took 59% in Delaware county, while taking 77% of the vote in rural Wells County.
While this poll suffers from flawed design, if anything it seriously understimates Pence’s decline since 2004. Since 2004, Pence has been linked to Delay money, and has led the conservative charge to cut budgets for the VA, Medicare, and the rest, while simultaneously extending Bush’s tax cuts. If Pence (the incumbent) can only get 38% in a poll that seriously overestimates his support, the Republicans are in deep shit. Seriously deep shit. Bush and Daniels are pulling down Republicans in the state. It’s high time that then to every Republican that’s running in Indiana, and watch them sink. And we need the netroots out there taking the fight to districts that the cowards in the national party are afraid to spend money (and time) in.
For its flaws, Barry has hit on something with his effort to do a poll. Barry was behind the 50 state strategy website. Unless they are considered first tier race, most congressional races will never be polled, and potential weak seats will be ignored because of this. With the 50 state strategy we need “open-source polling” were templates for simple polls designed to be clear, precise, and scientifically valid are run by volunteers at the local level. Kos, and Chris Bowers point to polls from 2nd tier races show that democrats are competitive in districts that aren’t target races. In Indiana, Congressional districts have about 675,000 people (over 80,000 population size is not very important), in order to get a margin of error of +- 5%, 384 voters would have to be contacted in each district. At 5 calls an hour, that’s 64 hours(or Woman hours, ladies?). Put another way that’s 8 people volunteering for an hour an half a day for a week. That’s doable. And even if you give volunteers a little something (this draws in the college students) say $50 for the week, that’s still only $400 for a poll. A benchmark poll from one of the national’s will set back a campaign $15,000 to $25,000 at least. Most campaigns can’t afford that. This needs another diary.
I’d like to ask you to support Barry with your money, and more inportantly if you’re in the area, your time. With the netroots, we can turn Indiana blue, and get the Hoosier state off GOP. And if the Hoosier state kicks GOP, you can bet that that nation will too.