Tag Archives: Black Lives Matter

Trump Leads Among Texas Hispanics; Trone Rebounds in Maryland; Figures Wins Runoff in Alabama; Indiana Sen. Braun Criticized for Supporting BLM

By Jim Ellis — Friday, April 19, 2024

President

Former President Donald Trump / Photo by Gage Skidmore

Texas: Trump Leads Among Texas Hispanics — The Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation conducted a recent poll of the Lone Star State electorate (April 5-10; 1,600 likely Texas voters) and finds former President Donald Trump posting a 12-point lead over President Joe Biden in a five-way race that includes the two major party candidates, Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Green Party nominee Jill Stein, and potential Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver. The preference split was 46-34-9-2-1 percent in the above candidate order. Texas, the second-largest state in population, has 40 electoral votes to award to its presidential winner.

The most interesting part of the poll, however, was the vote division among Hispanics. Within this segment, Trump actually leads President Biden 41-37 percent, which is another indication that Trump has upward mobility among Hispanics while Biden exhibits clear weakness within the community. Trump also does well with Texas women, leading the president 44-34 percent, a trend not seen in many other places. His spread among Lone Star men is 50-34 percent.

Senate

Maryland: Trone Rebounds from Close Poll — We earlier reported on a poll from Maryland Democratic Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks (Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group; April 8-10; 600 likely Maryland Democratic primary voters; live interview) that found her trailing US Rep. David Trone (D-Potomac) by just three percentage points, 43-40 percent.

Already, we see a counter poll, this one coming from the Baltimore Sun newspaper. According to their new survey (OpinionWorks; April 7-10; 1,292 likely Maryland general election voters; 600 Democratic primary voters), Rep. Trone holds a commanding advantage over Alsobrooks, topping her 48-29 percent. With such an obvious difference between the two professional polls conducted in the same time frame with identical sample sizes, it is clear we will need further data to better understand where this race resides. Expect heavy campaigning to occur as we move closer to the May 14 Maryland primary.

House

AL-2: Shomari Figures Wins Dem Runoff — As expected, Obama Justice Department official Shomari Figures, who placed first in the original Democratic primary back on March 5, easily defeated state House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels by a 61-39 percent count. Figures, the son of parents who both served in the Alabama Senate, now advances to the general election where he will be favored to win a newly created district that President Biden would have carried 56-43 percent.

The Republican runoff ended with a surprise, as attorney Caroleen Dobson upset former state Sen. Dick Brewbaker with a 58-42 percent victory. In the March 5 primary, Brewbaker led a field of eight candidates. Dobson trailed Brewbaker by more than 12 percentage points and only qualified for the second runoff position by 632 votes over the third-place finisher. Like Figures, Dobson will now advance into the Nov. 5 general election.

Governor

Indiana: Braun Attacked for Supporting BLM — While Sen. Mike Braun (R) has shown Republican primary polling strength against Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, former state Commerce Secretary Brad Chambers, and venture capitalist Eric Doden in their battle for the open governor’s position, he is now under attack for statement indicating his support for the Black Lives Matter organization.

The American Advancement organization is running ads featuring Braun saying, “I support that movement because it’s addressing an inequity that has not been solved.” The ad further has him saying he would, “if asked,” join a BLM protest as the narrator continually calls him a “RINO” (Republican In Name Only). It remains to be seen if the Super Pac buys enough airtime to make their negative attack on Sen. Braun stick.

Cornel West Chooses VP Running Mate; Close Presidential Polls in Minnesota; Former Miss America Enters North Dakota House Race; Polling Shows a Divided Nation

By Jim Ellis — Friday, April 12, 2024

President

Presidential candidate Cornel West

Cornel West: Chooses VP Running Mate — Independent presidential candidate Cornel West yesterday announced that California State University at Los Angeles professor and Black Lives Matter organizer Melina Abdullah will join his national ticket. Dr. West has qualified for the ballot in four states (AK, OR, SC, UT), but several domains require independent candidates to file with a vice presidential running mate.

In addressing that Abdullah is a Muslim while West is a Christian, the presidential candidate said, “I’m running for Jesus. She’s running for Allah. That’s a beautiful thing.” A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, Matt Corridoni, isn’t in agreement that the ticket is “a beautiful thing.” In response, he said, “The stakes are high, and we know this is going to be a close election — that’s why a vote for any third party candidate is a vote for Donald Trump.”

Minnesota: Another Close Poll Release — While the presidential map appears locked with only seven or eight states in play, one strongly Democratic entity continues to return close polling numbers. Should we continue to see two- to three-point spreads in ballot test results, Minnesota may soon enter the swing category.

The latest research release comes from Survey USA for ABC affiliate KSTP-TV Channel 5 in St. Paul (April 3-7; 608 likely Minnesota general election voters; online) and finds President Joe Biden holding only a 44-42 percent lead with 11 percent saying they would support another candidate.

This poll is not an anomaly. In fact, it is highly consistent with four other independent Minnesota surveys conducted in October, November, January, and February. In each of these five studies (three from Survey USA, and one from the Minnesota Post and Emerson College) the range between Biden and Trump during the six-month period spanned between just two and four percentage points with Biden leading in each survey. Therefore, expect Minnesota to be paid more attention as the national campaign progresses.

House

North Dakota-AL: Former Miss America Enters At-Large Cong Race — With the North Dakota Republican Party convention delegates not endorsing a congressional contender at last week’s official gathering, several more individuals entered the field just as candidate filing closed.

In addition to convention participants Julie Fedorchak and former state Rep. Rich Becker, 2018 Miss America Cara Mund, who ran for the seat as an Independent in 2022, retired military veteran and farmer Alex Balazs, and conservative activist Sharlet Mohr, will also compete in the at-large June 11 primary election.

The eventual Republican nominee will have the inside track toward claiming the open seat in the general election. Educator and military veteran Trygve Hammer is unopposed for the Democratic nomination. Incumbent Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-Bismarck) is leaving the House to run for governor.

National

Pew Research Center: Partisan Political Study — The Pew Research Center released an exhaustive report on American political partisanship (released April 9, 2024; data collected between Aug. 7-27, 2023; compared with similar results from 1994-2023) and finds that the country is at basic parity between Democrats and Republicans. Asking people if they consider themselves Democrats or Republicans, or lean to one party or the other, 49 percent identified with the Democrats while 48 percent sided with the Republicans.

The coalition division is stark. Democrats fare best (in order of strength) with blacks, religiously non-affiliated, English speaking Asians, those born in the 1990s, Hispanics, urban residents, and women with a college degree. The support range is from a high of 83-12 percent (blacks) to 60-37 percent (women with a college degree).

For Republicans, the coalition order of strength includes white evangelical Protestants, Mormons, white voters without a college degree, veterans, residents of rural communities, white men, and those born in the 1940s. The support range reaches from 85-14 percent (white evangelical Protestants) to 54-43 percent (those born in the 1940s).

Beneath the Numbers

By Jim Ellis

Is Maine Sen. Susan Collins (R) in trouble?

July 30, 2020 — Two Senate polls were released earlier this week, and though the ballot tests in Maine and South Carolina didn’t show us anything particularly new, the pollsters asked their respective sampling universes some interesting ancillary questions.

Colby College, a Waterville, Maine institution housing approximately 1,800 students, released its second political poll of 2020 in conjunction with the McVey Data Science Initiative. The questions touched upon the presidential and Senate ballot tests but delved deeper into the attitudes and perspectives of their 888-person sample over the July 18-24 period.

The presidential ballot test found former vice president Joe Biden leading President Trump statewide, 50-38 percent. The Senate ballot test was closer in that former state House speaker Sara Gideon (D) leads Sen. Susan Collins (R), 44-39 percent.

In looking deeper, it is probable that the actual race standings are likely a bit closer. There appears to be a Democratic skew in that all favorability indexes for Democratic public officials were positive and those of the tested Republican officials were decidedly negative. Additionally, 52 percent of the sampling universe comes from the state’s southern congressional district, the 1st, which is decidedly more liberal than the northern 2nd District. Together, these factors provide us the indication that the results are a few points more favorable for Democrats than what we might see in actual voting.

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