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Economy, Markets

Latest Economic News

Trader shouts at the NYSE as Dow races to new high on heels of Fed decision to keep interest rates at zero. (Photo: REUTERS)

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:.DJI) close at a record high after the Federal Reserve announced it will maintain its stance on record-low interest rates. The move was widely accepted by the investor class who continue to erode purchasing and saving power from average, middle income Americans.

The Dow rose 24 points, or 0.2 percent to close at 17,156 Wednesday, topping its previous high hit in July by 18 points. The blue-chip average rose as much as 89 points after the Fed kept the phrase “considerable time,” in referring to how long it would wait before raising interest rates.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index (INDEXSP:.INX) edged up two points, or 0.1 percent to close at 2,001, while the Nasdaq (INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC) rose nine points, or 0.2 percent to 4,562.

The Fed has held the short-term rates it controls close to zero now for more than five years, which has artificially inflated the economy and fueled a bull market for stocks many say reflects future prices, otherwise known as inflation yet to be realized in the marketplace.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday, as was widely expected and welcomed by Wall Street, kept interest rates near zero where it has been for nearly five years. The basic principle holds that diverting investments away from fixed assets n investment in equities. Then, as companies accrue extra capital, they hire and produce. However, the investor class is growing extremely wealthy through what most see as a perversion of trickle down economics practiced in the Reagan Era.

agreed to trim its bond purchases by another $10 billion to $15 billion per month as the economy continues making progress. Meanwhile, the central bank’s policy setting Federal Open Market Committee reiterated its commitment to keeping interest rates low for a “considerable time” after the asset-purchase program is phased out, which will likely occur next month.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average close at

Polls

Colorado Governor race - Hickenlooper vs Beauprez

Incumbent Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper squares off against Republican Bob Beauprez in the Colorado Governor race. (Photo: AP)

Incumbent Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper is trailing Republican Bob Beauprez by double-digits in the first likely voter survey conducted by independent pollster Quinnipiac University. Beauprez ties Hickenlooper among women and leads the vulnerable Democrat among all likely voters 50 – 40 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.

With under 50 days to go before Election Day and Beauprez with a commanding lead at the 50-percent threshold — particularly in a credible survey conducted by a pollster with a better-than-average rating on PPD’s pollster scorecard — Hickenlooper appears to be in deep, deep trouble.

“Pundits were predicting that Gov. Hickenlooper faced a close race for reelection. Instead, he’s got a mad dash to make up a double-digit deficit,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. “The Democrat does not get the traditional strong support from women to offset Bob Beauprez’s army of support from men.”

Quinnipiac surveyed third-party candidates, each of whom are currently drawing 3 percent of the vote. But when Libertarian Matthew Hess is removed from the choices provided, then Beauprez’s lead increased to 52 – 40 percent. On the other hand, Hickenlooper doesn’t benefit by proportion when Green Party candidate Harry Hempy is excluded, as the margin simply shifts to 51 – 41 percent in favor of Beauprez.

“Hickenlooper’s image is really suffering, and it is causing him to take a beating in the polls among likely voters as Election Day draws near,” says PPD’s senior political analyst Richard D. Baris. “Other polls have shown the race to be far more competitive, but we give more weight to Quinnipiac for a reason.”

Baris says PPD will be re-examining the Colorado Governor race rating in light of these results, though he believes Hickenlooper is far from out of the fight. Still, the incumbents image is a real problem.

By a 49 – 31 percent margin, Colorado likely voters have a favorable opinion of Republican Bob Beauprez, while Hickenlooper has a negative 43 – 51 percent favorability.

“Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is behind the challenger on the key qualities voters want in a leader: honesty, caring and leadership,” Malloy added. Not only does Beauprez have the advantage among these indicators, but also among those voters say are most important to their vote.

Beauprez has higher ratings than Hickenlooper in key character traits:

  • Voters say 52 – 28 percent that Beauprez is honest and trustworthy, compared to 48 – 44 percent for Hickenlooper;
  • Beauprez cares about their needs and problems, voters say 51 – 35 percent, compared to 48 percent who say Hickenlooper cares and 46 percent who say he doesn’t care;
  • Beauprez has strong leadership qualities, voters say 59 – 23 percent, compared to 51 – 44 percent for the governor.

Beauprez holds a large 51 – 37 percent lead among independent voters. Colorado’s recent move from a Red state to a Purple state stems from a change in voting behavior among independent voters in the state’s suburbs, along with an increase in the Hispanic vote. However, the survey finds a jump in the number of voters who identify with the Republican Party and a lack of dominance by the Democrat among Hispanic voters.

From September 10 – 15, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,211 likely voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percentage points. Quinnipiac uses methodologies referred to as the “Gold Standard” in polling, including live interviewers calling land lines and cell phones in proper proportion. They have a near-stellar rating on PPD’s pollster scorecard.

The Colorado Governor race is rated a “Toss-Up” on PPD’s 2014 Governors Map Predictions model.

Poll Date Sample MoE Beauprez (R) Hickenlooper (D) Spread
PPD Average 8/18 – 9/16 — — 43.8 43.3 Beauprez +0.5
Quinnipiac* 9/10 – 9/15 1211 LV 2.8 50 40 Beauprez +10
USA Today/Suffolk* 9/13 – 9/16 500 LV 4.4 41 43 Hickenlooper +2
Denver Post/SurveyUSA* 9/8 – 9/10 664 LV 3.9 43 45 Hickenlooper +2
Rasmussen Reports 9/3 – 9/4 800 LV 3.5 45 44 Beauprez +1
NBC News/Marist* 9/2 – 9/4 795 LV 3.5 39 43 Hickenlooper +4
CBS News/NYT/YouGov 8/18 – 9/2 1727 LV 4.0 45 45 Tie

Incumbent Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper is trailing

Polls

joni_ernst_bruce_braley_ap_iowa_senate_race

Republican Joni Ernst (left) and Democrat Rep. Bruce Braley (right) face off in the contested Iowa Senate race in November. (Photo: AP)

In their first likely voter survey, the independent Quinnipiac University Poll puts Republican Joni Ernst up over Democrat Rep. Bruce Braley by 6 points, 50 – 44 percent. With Ernst at the crucial 50-percent threshold in a credible survey conducted by a pollster with a better-than-average rating on PPD’s pollster scorecard and, with less than 50 days until Election Day, the GOP’s chances of victory in the race to replace U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin in Iowa has increased.

There are several key factors fueling Ernst’s lead in the latest Quinnipiac Poll.

The Gender Gap

Joni Ernst, who appears posed to make history by becoming the first woman senator elected by the state of Iowa, leads among men 56 – 39 percent, while Bruce Braley leads among women by a much narrower 50 – 44 percent margin. Democrats have not had the success that they have enjoyed in other states over women’s issues, such as in Colorado where vulnerable incumbent Democrat Mark Udall has a real chance of surviving against a challenge from Cory Gardner.

Independents

“The tale of independent voters tells you all you need to know about the Iowa Senate race,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll. Ernst leads 50 – 43 percent among independent voters, while solidying her base to the tune of 87 – 7 percent. Meanwhile Braley also locks his base by a 90 – 7 percent margin, which is still not enough based on voter registration and historical voting patterns.

What will pose a significant challenge for Braley going forward, assuming these numbers are correct, is that 15 percent of Iowa voters say they might change their mind, but 84 percent say their mind is made up.

Bottom Line

When we look inside the numbers, the explanation lays in like-ability and believability. We wrote back in March that Braley had a serious problem: The more Iowans learned about him, the less they liked him. That appears to be weighing him down now. Iowans by a 45 – 39 percent margin say they have a favorable opinion of Ernst, but Braley gets a negative 38 – 41 percent favorability rating.

Iowans, whom we have noted for months prefer a Senate controlled by Republicans, simply find Ernst more believable and personable. Perhaps it was the first video in which Braley was caught trashing Iowa’s favorite senator and his former profession as a farmer, or perhaps it was the second video in which he is caught falsely claiming to a voter he is a farmer. Nevertheless, the indicators are grim.

Iowa likely voters favor the Republican on key character traits:

  • Ernst is honest and trustworthy, voters say 55 – 28 percent, well ahead of Braley’s 45 – 36 percent.
  • Ernst cares about their needs and problems, voters say 52 – 37 percent, edging Braley’s 48 – 37 percent.
  • Ernst has strong leadership qualities, voters say 60 – 25 percent, ahead of Braley’s 48 – 34 percent leadership measure.

“Sen. Ernst’s television commercials and campaign have presented her as a born and bred Iowan, who never lost her farm girl values. She should pay her strategists and media folks quite well because up until now they have sold that message effectively,” Peter Brown added. “The fact that more voters think she cares about their needs than does Braley is telling. That is a measurement that many Republicans, even winning GOPers, lose.”

While other recent surveys of likely voters find a slight Braley lead or a statistical tie, only the CNN/Opinion Research Poll uses methodologies that we refer to as the “Gold Standard” in polling. From September 10 – 15, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,167 likely voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percentage points. Quinnipiac has a near-stellar rating for performance and accuracy on PPD’s pollster scorecard, no doubt due to the fact live interviewers call land lines and cell phones, and appear to have found a relatively solid proportion for both.

The Iowa Senate race is rated a “Toss-Up” on PPD’s 2014 Senate Map Predictions model. Democrats had thought they had a lock on

 

Poll Date Sample MoE Braley (D) Ernst (R) Spread
PPD Average 8/18 – 9/15 — — 44.0 43.8 Braley +0.2
Quinnipiac 9/10 – 9/15 1167 LV 2.9 44 50 Ernst +6
CNN/Opinion Research 9/8 – 9/10 608 LV 4.0 49 48 Braley +1
Loras College 9/2 – 9/5 1200 LV 2.8 45 41 Braley +4
CBS News/NYT/YouGov 8/18 – 9/2 1764 LV 3.0 44 42 Braley +2
USA Today/Suffolk* 8/23 – 8/26 500 LV 4.4 40 40 Tie
PPP (D) 8/22 – 8/24 915 LV 3.2 42 42 Tie

In their first likely voter survey, the

Policy

Republican-ObamaCare-Alternative

A slew of reports released with under 50 days to go before Election Day are leading many to question whether ObamaCare is even achieving it’s stated goals. Despite Democrats’ attempts to underscore various successes, data are suggesting the negative perceptions of the law that remains deeply unpopular among the American people is largely due to reality, and not simply the result of various public relations campaigns.

ObamaCare’s Impact On Jobs

The Congressional Budget Office released a revised report back in February claiming nearly 2.5 million workers will opt out of full-time jobs because ObamaCare incentivizes them to do so — while leading employers to eliminate 2.3 million full-time jobs in the next ten years. According to jointly conducted surveys by several regional Federal Reserve Banks, these figures may be too low.

“Roughly one fifth are saying they’re moving from full time to part time,” Health economist John Goodman noted. “More than one in ten are saying they’re doing more outsourcing – all this because of the new health care reform.”

Republicans have long predicted this affect from the law. House Speaker John Boehner, who once called ObamaCare a “job killer,” said the report showed how “the middle class is getting squeezed in this economy.”

The negative impact appears to be hitting small businesses that have between 20 and 49 employees, which traditionally, have driven economic growth and job creation. Nearly 74 percent of all jobs created are created by small businesses in the United States.

“You get a negative impact on jobs, you get a negative impact on wages in those jobs,” said Doug Holtz-Eakin, the former Director of the Congressional Budget Office. “What this means for small business as a whole is over $22 billion of earnings gone for their workers and 350,000 jobs.”

It is worth noting that the Congressional Budget Office has a long history of giving projections of new government programs that fall short actual results. Even though the president has repeatedly and unilaterally delayed the small business mandate, which requires businesses with more than 50 employees to provide insurance, businesses are preparing and already 1) avoiding hiring to keep their worker rolls below 50 and, 2) hiring for part-time positions that runaround the mandate.

In a review of the August jobs report, not only did the 5-year trend of disappointment after slight second quarter growth continue, but also the trend of part-time job creation inflation optimism in the labor market. Again, this is nothing new. Even a report from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services back in February said ObamaCare premium increases were estimated to hit nearly two-thirds of all small businesses, the single-biggest source of jobs for working Americans in the U.S. economy.

“The 30-hour cutoff is how the administration determines whether you’re full time or part time,” Goodman noted. “And so we see this everywhere that people are restricted, they’re pushed below 30 hours, they count as part time and when they’re part time, the employer doesn’t have to provide health insurance.”

Increasing Costs

The increased costs associate with the health care law include a variety of sectors in the U.S. economy, most of which will directly impact working consumers. Premium increases, other health care costs, producer prices and the taxpayer burden have all exceeded economists’ predictions made during the health care debate.

In February of 2014, the CBO was forced to backtrack from their initial cost projection of the new government entitlement. President Obama and congressional Democrats had been citing the CBO projection to support their claim that the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare, would reduce the deficit by more than $120 billion over the next decade. However, the CBO no longer stands by that claim.

“CBO and JCT can no longer determine exactly how the provisions of the ACA that are not related to the expansion of health insurance coverage have affected their projections of direct spending and revenues,” the CBO wrote in a widely ignored footnote.

Much has been made about the increases in premiums due to the law. A recent study conducted by healthcare analysts at Morgan Stanley found health insurance premiums increased at the highest rate ever measured by the firm. The survey of 148 brokers concluded health insurance premiums increase under ObamaCare because of ObamaCare, blatantly stating “increases are largely due to changes under the ACA.” In states such as Florida, for instance, their predictions appear to be coming to fruition.

Regulators in the state of Florida said in August that a majority of the state’s health insurers have proposed higher rates for 2015. Insurance premiums under ObamaCare in the Sunshine state will rise an average of 13.2 percent, according to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation.

Is It Even Worth It?

The entire justification for the government takeover and remaking of the health care industry was supposedly to cover a claimed 47 million who were uninsured. That number, itself, was based upon misleading data, including people who lost health coverage and were statistically likely to receive Cobra coverage while in between jobs, illegal immigrants, and so on.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report Tuesday that the law reduced the percentage of people in the U.S. without health insurance by just two percentage points this year. A separate report released by the U.S. Census Tuesday found that about 42 million Americans were uninsured last year. But the Census’s data isn’t as current as the CDC’s, and was meant to serve as a baseline after a widely criticized report failed to live up to critic scrutiny.

The agency changed its methodology after 2012, when it said 48 million people lacked insurance. This, experts say, suggested an artificially inflated drop in the uninsured rate. Further, unlike the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Census report includes people over age 65 who already have health coverage through Medicare.

Regardless, even if we are to take these numbers at face value, both reports fall woefully short of expectations and promises made by proponents of the law. The law was supposed to reduce the health care cost burden to the federal budget and to the individual consumer, but neither will see those savings.

The law was also supposed to address the over-use of Emergency Room visits, but across the nation hospitals are reporting an explosion of ER visits due to ObamaCare. A Harvard study released in early 2014 warned of this inevitability.

The president and congressional Democrats rammed through an unpopular bill hedging on the possibility that public opinion would change when the positive impact of the law were realized. But, as the polls and reports clearly show, that has yet to happen.

A slew of reports released with under

World

Obama Ebola plan

Sept. 16, 2014: Health workers in protective gear help an Ebola virus victim in Monrovia, Liberia. (Photo: AP)

President Obama announced Tuesday that the United States will bank roll a military-led response in West Africa where the deadly Ebola virus is spreading. But while the administration says the outbreak has reached epidemic proportions and now poses “a potential threat to global security,” Americans are less concerned about the deadly disease making its way to the homeland than they were six weeks ago.

A new Rasmussen Reports survey found that nearly as many Americans — 46 percent — aren’t concerned about Ebola in the U.S., while 51 percent remain at least somewhat concerned. Though the majority of Americans still share concern, th new measurement represents a downtick from the 58 percent who said the same in August.

The virus has killed at least 2,400 people in five West African countries, so far. Speaking at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the president said the largest effort in the agency’s 68-years must include the Defense Department because the virus is now “spreading out of control.”

“We have to act fast,” Obama said. “We cannot dawdle on this one. We have to move with force.”

The president did not specifically mention numbers, but earlier reports suggest that upwards of 3,000 military troops will be sent to spearhead a U.S.-led international effort, a larger force than is currently confronting ISIS in Iraq.

“Faced with this outbreak, the world is looking to the United States,” Obama said.

In order to bank roll this effort, the Defense Department has asked Congress for nearly $500 million in existing funds to be put toward the effort.

Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea have been hit the hardest by the viral, but it has now reached Nigeria and Senegal. The death toll from the outbreak is expected to reach 10,000 before six months is out, but President Obama said during his remarks that the number could reach the 100,000 if they didn’t take action.

The president’s plan includes training for up to 500 health care workers per week, building 17 health-care facilities capable of housing approximately 100 beds each, and constructing a joint command compound in Liberia where the U.S. will lead international relief efforts. The money will also provide hundreds of thousands ofAfrican households with home health-care kits, including 50,000 that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), itself, will deliver this week.

The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on September 12-13, 2014 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.

President Obama announced Tuesday that the United

Opinion

ISIS militants

In this image, ISIS militants pose for a propaganda video. (Photo: REUTERS)

Unfortunately for the United States and her people, our President has backed us into a corner regarding Islamic ideology.

It’s time for this nation to go to war.

I know that doesn’t sit well with those of you with liberal sensibilities who have grown lazy living off the fat of the land but that’s the way it is,  and frankly I don’t care for it much myself when it gets right down to it. I’d much rather continue to sit on my proverbial sofa, eating Cheetos and watching ball games while our nation goes down in flames from the wanton sloth of callow youth, but alas that is not to be.

Arguing political points and the finer theories of social science doesn’t change the fact that Islamic extremism is growing more powerful every day and coming this way. It doesn’t change the fact that if we don’t do what’s necessary now, we may not be able to do it later. That’s the plain truth of it and the sooner this nation gets it over with the better we all will be for it. Oh sure we can hide behind our oceans and pray for deliverance, or the man in the moon to deal with the problem, but it’s got to be done.

It’s mainly because we’ve delayed doing the proper thing for years as US president after US president has passed on the problem to the next day, hoping to protect their legacy as a peacemaker or somehow thinks that not fighting a war actually prevents one. After the Iranians took our hostages under Carter and the Shah fell you would think that would have been enough.

Reagan though, did not want to fulfill the prophecies of the left wing, and blunted the Iranian threat but building up Saddam and passing the problem on to his VP, George Bush the First. When popular opinion demanded war, Bush was forced into it, but again passed on the real problem, choosing to leave a toothless tiger in power and giving the problem to Clinton.

Bill Clinton then just fought a delaying war, and by not doing the right thing it led to 9/11. He in turn passed it on to Bush the Second, who then decided to introduce democracy to a people barely out of pup tents sociologically. Finally, on to Obama the First who bungled the job completely.

Now, things are a terrible mess. ISIS is rising, the Middle East is on fire and ALL sides in this inferno hate the US. ISIS is not the problem; it’s just the flavor of the month. First it was the PLO, then Osama bin Laden. Now it’s ISIS. What the problem really is -Islamic extremism, the elephant in the room that everyone is afraid to talk about.

How many lives will be lost now? How many people are in unmarked mass graves now because we didn’t do the right thing 40, 30, 20 or 10 years ago? We had popular opinion on our side after 9/11 and still we continued to hesitate all because we were afraid of popular opinion and the horror of a real war. Yet each time we delayed and hesitated it made the next predicament worse, more horrific and countless women, children and innocents were massacred in the process.

After World War II, we went into Germany and saw the net results of delaying the inevitable and being afraid to do the right thing. We witnessed the massacres, opened the camps and collectively gasped at what was going on. “If we only knew” was the narrative. “If we only knew we would have went in sooner”, they said. So we made a promise to the world at Nuremberg that the world would never stand by while one group of people slaughtered another.

It has comes time to fulfill that promise today.

Time to posse up and man the walls fellas, the enemy is upon us.

Unfortunately for the United States and her

World

kerry isis

Secretary of State John Kerry mustered a 10-Arab state coalition that has signed on to “destroy” the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, sort of. Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and the six Gulf Arab states — Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — joined the pact that they say will help eliminate the new threat.

However, while Mr. Kerry said the Arab states would play a crucial role in the coalition, he added that no member of the alliance planned to send ground troops, something no credible military strategist has believed the mission can be accomplished without.

The joint statement was released after a day of talks on Thursday between Kerry and his regional counterparts in the Saudi city of Jeddah. For comparison, George W. Bush put together a coalition of over 40 countries before the invasion of Iraq.

“The participating states agreed to do their share in the comprehensive fight against ISIL, including,” said the statement, “as appropriate, joining in the many aspects of a co-ordinated military campaign” against the ISIS terrorists.

They also explored strategies to “destroy” the group “wherever it is, including in both Iraq and Syria”.

Kerry sought approval to make more use of military bases in the region, particularly in Saudi Arabia, and fly more warplanes in coalition state airspace.

But the jointly released statement made no mention of these issues, although the controversial nature of training Free Syrian Army soldiers in the Islamic Holy Land of Saudi Arabia may provide some explanation as to why they would keep it quiet.

Supposed NATO ally Turkey attended the meeting, but would not sign the final agreement. Iran, the regional Shia powerhouse, was quick to level criticism of the Gulf Arab states. Iran said it blames them for the Sunni militancy that led to the rise of ISIS.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham, speaking on state television about the US-led alliance, said there were “severe misgivings about its determination to sincerely fight the root causes of terrorism”.

Moscow’s foreign ministry said the prospect of U.S.-led air strikes in Syria would require a UN Security Council mandate or they will consider the campaign an act of aggression.

Meanwhile, the CIA said Thursday that the number of Islamic State fighters has grown to as many as three times previous estimates. A spokesperson for the agency told PPD that the terrorists army has between 31,500 – 40,000 battle-hardened fighters across Iraq and Syria.

The new numbers are a big jump from the previous estimate claiming there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 ISIS fighters.

Secretary of State John Kerry mustered a

Polls

Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, John Barrasso

President Barack Obama, left, Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), center, and Majority Leader Harry Reid (R-NV), right. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Post-Labor Day polls are clearly producing the expected results, which is that Republicans’ 2014 midterm advantage is growing and contested states are even more favorable to the GOP. A new FOX Poll finds that — when asked who they would back if the Congressional election were today — 47 percent of likely voters say the Republican candidate in their district and 40 percent the Democrat.

The most recent FOX Poll is in line with recent generic ballot surveys and, in fact, show a steady but growing lead for the Right under two months away from Election Day. The average of Fox News polls of registered voters showed a narrow Democratic advantage, which historically was to be expected, but the lead bounced back and forth between the two parties for most of the spring and summer.

The battle for the U.S. Senate is the undisputed prize this cycle, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — who has begun to pull away in his own race — can almost taste the majority. In states with contested U.S. Senate races, likely voters back the Republican candidate by a whopping 48 – 39 percent margin. However, when looking at just the 14 Fox News battleground states, that GOP edge widens to 53-35 percent among likely voters, suggesting Republicans can tap the higher end of 8 – 10 net seats in PPD’s 2014 Senate Map Predictions Model.

Similarly, a recent GWU/Battleground poll finds Republicans leading Democrats on the generic congressional ballot 46 – 42 percent, but in states with a competitive Senate race, “Republicans hold a 16-point advantage (52 to 36 percent) on this generic ballot,” said Ed Goeas, president and CEO of The Tarrance Group.

Inside the poll the data are dismal for Democrats, as — even though all Republicans and Democrats plan to vote for their party’s candidate — independents are twice as likely to say they would back the Republican over the Democrat. However, the largest number of independents measured say they would vote for a third-party candidate or are still undecided.

With the NBC/Wall St. Journal poll finding the recent beheadings the most-focused issue ever, it isn’t all surprising that an equal numbers of voters now say terrorism is the most important issue to their vote as say the economy. In the FOX poll, 41 percent say each issue will be “extremely” important in their decision, while four years ago, 57 percent said the economy would be “extremely” important and 41 percent said terrorism.

Further, 36 percent cite government spending and 35 percent cite health care as “extremely” important to their vote for Congress, while immigration (32 percent) lags behind. Foreign policy (29 percent) and abortion (23 percent) are at the end of the list. In all of the issues, it is only abortion that Americans say they trust Democrats over Republicans more on.

In the NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll, Republicans lead Democrats on the question of which party is more trusted to handle national security (which they imply links to terrorism) by a monstrous 38-point margin. Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Wednesday morning, Chuck Todd warned that President Obama is “on the precipice of doing Jimmy Carter-like damage to the Democratic brand on foreign policy if he’s not careful.”

That poll, which is oddly a post-Labor Day poll still of registered voters, found the GOP also has a double-digit advantage on the economy (R+10), the debt (R+18) and foreign policy (R+18).

Republicans have now led on every generic ballot survey since roughly mid-August (18-24 and, now hold a 2.4-point lead on the PPD average.

“Republicans were always favored to retake the Senate. It’s only now that polling and other rating-hungry pundits are acknowledging this political reality,” says PPD senior political analyst Richard D. Baris. “The GOP is posed to make real gains this November, wave or no wave. But the prospect of a wave increases now everyday.”

According to PPD’s 2014 Senate Map Predictions Model, Republicans are favored to capture control of the U.S. Senate, netting from a low of 6 to a high of 10 Senate seats.

A new FOX Poll found Republicans' post-Labor

People's Pundit Daily
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