Rural battleground shifts toward Democrats

[EarlG]

The rural vote has shifted in favor of Democratic congressional candidates in the last month, indicating Republicans are losing ground with a key constituency, according to the Center for Rural Strategies Poll.

The poll of rural voters in 41 contested congressional districts found that likely voters preferred Democratic candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives by a margin of 13 points, 52 percent to 39 percent. In mid-September, the same population of voters was evenly split between the two parties at 45 percent each.

In contested Senate races in states with significant rural populations, rural voters preferred Democrats by 4 points, 47 to 43 percent, reversing the 4-point lead Republican Senate candidates held among rural voters in mid-September. But those results fall within the poll's margin of error.

"We're seeing a real erosion in Republican support among rural voters, and that could determine who controls Congress," said Democrat Anna Greenberg, one of the poll's analysts. "There has been a perfect storm of issues that have led rural voters toward Democratic candidates -- the war in Iraq, economic struggle in rural communities and a muddling of 'moral values' because of the Mark Foley scandal."

http://www.ruralstrategies.org/projects/poll_2006.2.html

[eleny]

1. This is such good news

Many rural Coloradoans have been farming families that go way back aligning themselves with the R Party. Angie Paccione is making good gains in the polls in these last days against Marilyn Musgrave. I'm surprised since NE Coloarado is still quite traditional. This new poll gives me hope that Angie can pull it out!

K&R

[Change has come]

2. Wouldn't it be sweet to see that awful

woman thrown out on her ass?

[eleny]

3. Yup! She's a flim flamming, rubber stamping waste

(Keeping it clean here) :evilgrin:

[AtomicKitten]

4. on CSPAN this early AM

there was a midterm election panel discussion and apparently a new Pew poll coming out puts Dems 11 points ahead not only nationally but in the voting districts across the country. The latter is particularly delightful to hear and means that gerrymandering may not be as detrimental as expected.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2003325558_electionpoll27.html
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/15857078.htm

[eleny]

5. That pours cold water on Rove's recent assertions...

... that he has internal local polling information that shows the R's are ahead. :evilgrin:

[INdemo]

6. Never before has Rove been out spinning

the poll numbers.An indication perhaps its worse than what they thought and there are races now very competitive which was not predicted and that is soaking up all that 60 mill they had budgeted and its nearly gone with little time left......Oh I'm just lovin' this.
Whats kinda funny about the polls is if the Republican is leading by 2 to 3 points ,its a substantial lead but if the Dem is leading 2 to 3 points its reported as neck and neck....

[Cosmocat]

7. It is ...

Gerrymandering IS a HUGE factor here ...

Years and years of BOTH sides, of course with the Rs really locking it down the last decade or so ... Look at maps of districts in states ... They are just surreal ...

Fact is, diebold or other widespread vote fraud/surpression aside, gerrymandering is probably going to mean the difference between a strong turn around of 30, give or take seats, and a 94esque 50 seats ... The numbers in the polling are at least as bad in reverse, and a lot are even worse, this year, than they were in 94 ...

KEY is taking advantage of the momentum here to not only gain in DC, but to gain some majorities in STATE houses/congresses/governors, also ... PA, the Rs have held the chambers for ages, and our districts are a disgrace ... We have our governor locked down, and an outside shot at getting at least one chamber into the Ds hands ... We NEED this to get our districts evened out ...

[DeepModem Mom]

8. K&R

[longship]

9. Democrats *own* all demographics this election.

They certainly own the urban vote. Now the rural.
Go Dems, Go!

[Kolesar]

10. The "agribusiness" vote is quite different from the rest of rural America

In Ohio, the wealthy farmers from small towns have been running the government. They are the people who have benefitted by globalization. They can underbid the grain products from third world producers and steal that market away. Sad is that their business is subsidized by the US taxpayer. I think corn gets $10 billion in subsidies.

It is going to be hard to break this corrupt structure that has taken over our government.

[Patiod]

11. Thank you, Dr. Dean, for your "crazy" 50-State Strategy

You rock
:yourock:

[Doctor_J]

12. This goes hand-in-hand with hate radio slipping

They're starting to realize that the 5 radio stations on their dials that spew hate 24/7 aren't telling the truth. they probably watch Il Dunce' drool and lie and get pissy on TV, then turn on the radio and hear what a great job he did, and realize they're being lied to 24/7

[Kurovski]

13. K&R.(nt)

[kentuck]

14. I think the DNC might be better served to run some ads...

...encouraging voters to get to the polls on Nov 7th, rather than some of the attack ads that might be running. We should point out the civic responsibility of voters in a democracy.