Tag: GOP

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Fox News Poll: President Obama leads GOP contenders in swing states

President Obama leads each Republican contender in swing states according to a Fox News Swing State Poll that also suggests a significant shift in the battleground landscape.

The new poll, released Wednesday, shows Obama leads Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich in the all important swing-states.

The registered-voter poll was conducted across 10 states where Obama had small margins of victory in 2008 and are considered decisive in the upcoming presidential election.

These swing states fall into three regional tiers:
• the Rocky Mountain tier includes Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico
• the Rust Belt tier includes Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
• the Dixie tier includes North Carolina, Florida and Virginia

The swing-state voters back President Obama over Romney by 8 percentage points, and over Santorum by 9 points.

President Obama tops Ron Paul by 12 points in the poll.

Gingrich lags farthest behind Obama, as voters in these key states prefer the president to the former Speaker by 20 points.

Overall, swing-state voters look much like the national electorate.

Obama currently holds a 14-point lead over Romney in the Dixie states, and an 18-point edge over Santorum.

Compare that to the more cautious mood in the Rust Belt states where Santorum ties with the president, and voters are almost evenly split between Romney and Obama (+1 point).

Rocky Mountain voters give Obama a 7-point edge over Romney.
Nationally, voters approve of President Obama (48 to 45 percent) — his highest approval rating in more than seven months.

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Maine Caucus results

Mitt Romney has won the Maine Caucus with 39%

Ron Paul received 36%
Rick Santorum received a distant 18%
Newt Gingrich received 6%

The results are non-binding and no delegates are awarded at this time, often referred to as a “beauty contest.”

However, it does give a snapshot of where the Maine GOP community stands today.  And it gives Romney a bit of a respite from his three big losses earlier this week.

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Nevada: Low GOP turnout shows enthusiasm gap

From DailyKos.com: Republican turnout in the Nevada caucuses fell from 44,324 in 2008 to 32,894 this year—meaning that Sen. John McCain was exciting Republicans more than Mitt Romney and field.

For a party that claims to be fired up about beating President Barack Obama, they sure don’t seem to be reflecting that sentiment at the polls.

In Nevada, GOP voter registration is down, voter turnout is down and party competence is down — it took Republicans two days to count those votes this year, while they were able to do it in one day in 2008 (with more votes to count).

The Nevada GOP is in trouble. They got a respite in 2010 because of national trends, but whether it’s the drop in Latino support (3% less Latinos participated this year vs 2008), or just the drop in general participation, and given demographic trends in the state … I’ll say it now — Nevada will now, or by next election cycle, be as blue as California.

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Lower turnout in early GOP primary states

Via Think Progress: Nevada Republican Party Chairwoman Amy Tarkanian initially predicted as many as 70,000 Nevadans would participate in this year’s caucus, but final results show that fewer than half as many actually turned out.

The 33,000 figure is not only lower than expectations, but more than 10,000 fewer than participated in Nevada’s caucus in 2008. And even though Romney topped 50 percent of the vote for the first time in this primary season in the sate, his vote total was more than 25 percent lower than it was in 2008, and his percentage of the vote fell slightly as well.

The results in Nevada mark the third Republican primary so far where turnout has been below 2008 levels. In a year where Republicans are counting on high enthusiasm to defeat President Obama, that’s not a good sign for the eventual nominee. In Florida, turnout dipped 14 percent, and in New Hampshire, which has an open primary, turnout among registered Republicans fell 16 percent.

Mitt Romney’s campaign is ‘spinning’ this under the premise that people are so happy with Romney that they are staying home confident he will win these state contests.

I’d say folks are staying home because of a lack of enthusiasm for Romney or any of the current candidates.

What do you think?

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Kansas House Speak Mike O’Neal asks House GOP to pray for Obama’s death

Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal is under fire after asking Republican House members to pray for President Barack Obama’s death. O’Neal made the request via an email he forwarded to GOP colleagues in the House. In an email sent in December, O’Neal asked his fellow Republicans to pray Psalm 109, which contains the following lines:

Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

The email has become the subject of a mini-media frenzy. Numerous major news outlets began reporting the details surrounding the disturbing prayer request on Friday.

The relevant verse from Psalm 109 is considered a prayer for vengeance, a prayer for the death of a leader. The most damning part of the prayer is lines 7-12:

‘When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin.
Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labor.
Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children.’

Think Progress reports that O’Neal forwarded the prayer with his own message:

“At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up — it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!”

For a government official to pray for the death of President Obama, and encourage other government officials to do the same, is not only morally reprehensible, it is also treason.

I know there are reasonable Republicans out there. Is this the kind of political statement you guys like? Praying for the death of an American President?
(source)

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South Carolina: Romney has 21 point lead

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has opened a wide lead over his rivals in the South Carolina primary election race, trouncing Newt Gingrich and gaining momentum in his march toward the party’s nomination, a Reuters/Ipsos poll shows.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, could all but quash his rivals’ presidential aspirations with a victory in South Carolina on January 21 after winning the first state-by-state nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Voters in South Carolina – who have favored Republicans in nine of the last 10 presidential elections – appear to have shrugged off attacks on Romney by rivals who accuse him of killing jobs as a private equity executive for Bain Capital in the 1990s.

The poll showed 37 percent of South Carolina Republican voters back Romney. Congressman Ron Paul and former Senator Rick Santorum tied for second place with 16 percent support.

Gingrich, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, has fallen far back after holding a strong lead in South Carolina in December. He was in fourth place at 12 percent in the Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Read more at Reuters