Month: November 2012

We have two conflicting polls out of Florida. One has Obama leading 49-47. The other has Romney winning 51-45. That is a pretty wide disparity. One of the pollsters is wrong. Regardless, the average of the two gives Romney a slim 2 point lead, and so the state moves back to the pink zone. Meanwhile, Obama's lead in Ohio is growing ever larger.

I think we are looking at our final map here, folks. Obama has come on in Florida, but it is still possible that Romney can win that state. In fact, I think Nate Silver gives the odds to Romney there. Meanwhile, it is also possible that Obama can win in North Carolina, but that is much less likely that Romney winning Florida. Why am I so confident on Obama winning Florida, you ask? Yesterday, a Democratic operative sent the Tampa Bay Times some data on the early vote in Florida so far "to make the point that President Obama is crushing Mitt Romney when it comes to banking the votes of sporadic and infrequent voters before election day."

"So far more than 3 million Floridians have cast a ballot by absentee, mail-in ballot or in-person early vote ballot. Democrats lead by more than 60,000 votes, but it's the unlikely voter numbers that jump out: Of the nearly 414,000 Floridians who did not vote in the last three general elections, Democrats have an advantage of more than 53,000 votes. Of the more than 482,000 Floridians who have only voted in one of the last three general elections, Democrats lead by more than 77,000 -- a total of more than 132,000."

According to the Wall Street Journal's Jeff Yang, “[i]f enough people see it, this is the photo that singlehandedly re-elects Barack Obama.”

In recent years I have voluntarily applied as an intervener in several cases involving DP&L rate increase requests filed before the Public Service Commission. The process itself is cumbersome and complex and requires resources and time that is not always available to me. Unfortunately the reality is that the public, the ratepayers’, and my constituents’ interests have been inadequately represented in many of these proceedings and my obligation and responsibility as an elected public servant is to ensure some semblance of fairness in the discussions and decisions rendered. The most recent filing in which I have intervener status is identified as PSC Docket # 11-528 and involves a multi-pronged request for rate increases which includes but is not exclusive to recovery of depreciation values by Delmarva for obsolete meters that have been replaced with “smart-meters” for Delmarva residential customers. I have continuously and strongly objected to any ratepayer funding for new technology costs such as advanced metering purchase and installation since the provable economic benefit from these devices rests solely with the utility

And now for our Senate Forecast. I imagine we will do one more of these on Monday. As the polls stand now, the Democrats will pick up a net 1 seat, increasing their total to 54 seats (52 actual Democrats, and 2 Independents caucusing with the Democrats). The Democrats will pick up, or take away from the Republicans, the Senate seats in Massachusetts, Indiana and Maine. The Republicans will win seats in North Dakota and Nebraska, according to recent polling. Though it is not out of the realm of possibility that the Democrats can retain both of those seats. Heidi Heitkamp has led in recent polling in North Dakota, and Bob Kerrey just got the endorsement of Chuck Hagel, and recent polling before the Fischer internal had the race tightening significantly. If they do win both, the Democrats will hold 56 seats. Impressive feat in a year that Republicans were suppose to retake the majority.