-Dave Heineman is the only sitting Governor in the country with an approval rating in the 60s in PPP's polling. 60% of voters think he's doing a good job to 27% who disapprove. What sets him apart from most of his peers is that even with Democrats he comes close to breaking even with 42% approving and 44% disapproving of him. That's a rare feat in this era of heavy partisan polarization.
-Nebraska might have the most popular Governor in the country, but it also has perhaps the least popular Senator. Ben Nelson has just a 36% approval rating with 53% of voters disapproving of him. That -17 spread is worse than we've found for any other Senator in the last 2 years. Sometimes when an unpopular politician announces their retirement they get a bounce but that's not the case here.
Nelson's junior colleague Mike Johanns on the other hand is one of the more popular Senators with 55% of voters approving of him to 30% who disapprove.
-The most popular person with Nebraska Democrats? It might be Warren Buffett. 85% of Democrats in the state see him favorably to only 7% with an unfavorable opinion. He's at 65/15 with independents and 46/35 with Republicans, giving him an overall rating of 63/22. Not too bad.
-Buffett's numbers are impressive but he still can't claim most popular person in the state honors. That would have to go to Tom Osborne who has a 79/10 favorability rating. 53% of voters support Osborne's decision to replace basketball coach Doc Sadler with 11% opposed and 36% holding no opinion.
-Nebraska voters strongly support the Keystone XL pipeline and there's a bipartisan consensus on the issue. 60% favor its construction with 27% opposed and that includes support from Republicans (74/16), independents (48/37), and Democrats (46/37).
-Finally 51% of voters support Nebraska's unusual practice of allocating electoral votes by Congressional district to 30% who think they should all go to the statewide winner. Democrats (66/18) and independents (60/23) both strongly favor the status quo while Republicans (42/38) narrowly support shifting to a winner take all system.
Full results here
What a rumpus started when Penna. considered allocating the electoral college votes by congressional districts. It ought to be every state or none. The fact that Maine and Nebraska do it makes no sense at all.
Posted by: Jay | March 29, 2012 at 07:31 PM
The leadership committee of the Nebraska Republican Party adopted a resolution requiring all GOP elected officials to favor overturning their district method for awarding electoral votes or lose the party’s support. While in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, some Republican legislators insisted the states must change from the winner-take-all method to the district method, while most were opposed or not commenting.
In Maine, Republican leaders proposed and passed a constitutional amendment that, if passed at referendum, will require a 2/3rds vote in all future redistricting decisions. Then they changed their minds and wanted to pass a majority-only plan to make redistricting in their favor even easier.
Obvious partisan machinations like these should add support for the National Popular Vote movement. If the party in control in each state is tempted every 2, 4, or 10 years (post-census) to consider rewriting election laws and redistrict with an eye to the likely politically beneficial effects for their party in the next presidential election, then the National Popular Vote system, in which all voters across the country are guaranteed to be politically relevant and treated equally, looks better and better.
If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts.
The district approach would not provide incentive for presidential candidates to campaign in a particular state or focus the candidates' attention to issues of concern to the state. With the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all laws (whether applied to either districts or states), candidates have no reason to campaign in districts or states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. In North Carolina, for example, there are only 2 districts (the 13th with a 5% spread and the 2nd with an 8% spread) where the presidential race is competitive. In California, the presidential race has been competitive in only 3 of the state's 53 districts. Nationwide, there have been only 55 "battleground" districts that were competitive in presidential elections. With the present deplorable 48 state-level winner-take-all system, 2/3rds of the states (including California and Texas) are ignored in presidential elections; however, 88% of the nation's congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally.
Awarding electoral votes by congressional district could result in third party candidates winning electoral votes that would deny either major party candidate the necessary majority vote of electors and throw the process into Congress to decide.
Because there are generally more close votes on district levels than states as whole, district elections increase the opportunity for error. The larger the voting base, the less opportunity there is for an especially close vote.
Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.
A national popular vote is the way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate because it guarantees that the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states and DC becomes President.
Posted by: toto | March 30, 2012 at 04:01 PM
I don't see anything about sports in this post. Yet it was categorized under sports.
Posted by: Patrick Stuart | April 03, 2012 at 06:52 PM
Oh, the basketball coach. My fault.
Posted by: Patrick Stuart | April 03, 2012 at 06:52 PM