Voting Begins in NY-20 Special Election
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on March 31st, 2009 4:42 am by HL
Voting Begins in NY-20 Special Election
A mere 10 weeks after Kirsten Gillibrand was appointed to the Senate, the race to succeed her in the House has taken on characteristics of a national gauge for President Obama’s economic policies and for national Republicans’ performance in the wake of a disastrous 2008 election, CQ Politics reports.
But both sides agree that, ultimately, the race will come down to who is most successful at turning out the vote. Turnout is expected to be low, given that it is a special election at an unusual time and there are no national races on the ballot.
The candidates are Scott Murphy (D), a venture capitalist and political newcomer, and Jim Tedisco (R), who has served in the state Legislature for nearly 27 years.
To get a sense of what’s going on throughout the day, Political Wire is aggregating all Twitter posts about the special election.
The polls close at 9 pm ET.
Few Blame Obama for Economy
A new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that the number of Americans who believe that the nation is headed in the right direction has roughly tripled since President Obama’s election, and the public overwhelmingly blames the excesses of the financial industry, rather than the new president, for turmoil in the economy.
Interesting: “There is now a pronounced divergence between Democratic and Republican perceptions of the economy, a bigger partisan divide than the one that occurred 16 years ago after Bill Clinton took office. In early 1993, people in both parties were about equally likely to see the economy as improving, but now the number of Republicans who say it is souring is more than double that of Democrats.”
Michelle Obama Bounces Back
A new Washington Post-ABC News survey shows a dramatic turnaround in how Americans view Michelle Obama: “Her favorability ratings are at 76%, up 28 points since summer. The number of people who view her negatively has plummeted. Her most striking inroads have come among Republicans who viewed her negatively last year, perhaps in part because of comments she made about feeling proud of her country for the first time.”
