Could he pull off a shock victory? The March 29 by election at Bradford West brings to six the number of by elections on the British mainland since the general election. All of them have been in LAB seats – two as a result of illness/death; one because the incumbent wanted to become Mayor of Leicester and three because of actions of the courts. The five that have been held have all been solid LAB holds with the only interests…
Nate Silver’s 538 New York Times blog Is a Newt exit the only way Mitt can be stopped? In terms of delegates delegates it is now:- 401 Romney 160 Santorum 110 Gingrich 62 Paul The winning target is 1144. Romney has more delegates than his three rivals combined. The only possible game-changer would be if Gingrich quits the race. Apart from Georgia, his home state, he had a dreadful night scoring single figure vote totals in half the states and…
Were the first signs in the daily Gallup tracking poll? At 6pm UK time yesterday evening the daily national tracking poll came out and showed a big reverse in the way the GOP contenders were being viewed. Romney was down 4% on the day and Santorum was up 2%. Because this poll is based on a five day rolling average it meant that that the reversal was even more marked based on the final day’s fieldwork. As I tweeted at…
And the new UK boundary proposals come under fire By me on Guardian: Boundary changes: Lib Dems oppose nearly a third of new constituencies bit.ly/zH4tvx — Juliette Jowit (@JulietteJowit) March 6, 2012 Romney down 4 Santorum up 2 in Gallup daily tracking — Mike Smithson (@MikeSmithsonOGH) March 6, 2012 gallup.com/poll/election.…. Mitt lead down from 16% to 10%. Is something happening out there? — Mike Smithson (@MikeSmithsonOGH) March 6, 2012 Early exit polls show John Kerry opening a lead in Ohio….
What’ll be the political fall-out? All the signs are that a deal has been done by the coalition partners to scrap the 50p tax rate and that there’ll be some form of mansion tax. It’s suggested that the latter might be in the form of more council tax bands at the top for the most expensive dwellings. Already Ed Miliband has started attacking the plan saying that the new property tax, whatever its called, shouldn’t be used “as an excuse”…
Is the Osborne narrative being less believed? Starting just a month after the 2010 general election YouGov has been asking in the same standard format the question who do you think is most to blame for the current spending cuts? I have long regarded this as one of the key political trackers because a central part of the coalition’s strategy has been to justify all the austerity measures by putting the blame on the last Labour government. For the most…
“@politicalwire: GOP candidates in a South Carolina county must pledge no pre-marital sex and to never look at porn.. pwire.at/zl9DDJ“ — Mike Smithson (@MikeSmithsonOGH) March 5, 2012 YouGov/Sun: CON 36%, LAB 41%, LDEM 11% (via @Sun_Politics) — Tweetminster (@tweetminster) March 5, 2012 Have a good evening and if you’ve never posted on PB before – why not do so tonight? @MikeSmithsonOGH
Or could his comments actually help the DPM? The LD MP who suffered by far the biggest defeat at the general election, Lembit Opik, is saying that if Nick Clegg is still leader of his party at the general election then they will lose a lot more MPs. This is what he said in support of a book “The Alternative View” that he has co-authored: ” After a year of research, [we] have concluded that Nick cannot realistically lead the…