Please join us tonight for another Tuesday evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Some of us will be there even earlier for dinner.

To ponder: Why the hell do they hate homeless veterans, for crying out loud?

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 328 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

(And there are dozens of other links to media from the past week in politics posted at Hominid Views.)

Please join us tonight for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by even earlier and enjoy some dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 327 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

(And there are about 50 more clips from the past week in politics at Hominid Views.)

A new poll was released today in the Washington Senate race by Elway. The most interesting part of the poll was the head-to-head match-up between Sen. Patty Murray and perennial candidate and real estate salesperson Dino Rossi. Dino is, of course, best know as the loser to Christine Gregoire in the 2004 gubernatorial election and post-election challenge of the contest. He is second-best known for losing handily to Gov. Gregoire in 2008.

Elway polled 405 registered voters, of which 352 went for either Murray or Rossi. The respondents gave Murray 47% to Rossi’s 40%. If we normalize this poll (i.e. look only at the 352 who had an opinion) Murray is at 54% to Rossi’s 46%. As usual, I’ll approximate the probable outcome of a hypothetical election held today using Monte Carlo simulations. A million simulated elections of 405 voters at the percentages observed gives Murray 853,011 wins to Rossi’s 138,593 wins. The results suggest that if the election was held now, Murray would win with a probability of 86% and Rossi would wins with a probability of 14%. Here is the distribution of results from the simulated elections:

Goldy has more analysis of this poll and what it means for the November election.

(Cross posted at Hominid Views.)

(And there are some forty more clips from the past week in politics at Hominid Views.)

Another Tuesday, another primary election night. Okay, not so much in Washington, but there are some interesting (and odd-ball) races to watch this evening. It all adds up to an excuse to join us for an evening of electoral politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by even earlier and enjoy some dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 325 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

This coming Wednesday evening, the Northwest Progressive Institute will be holding a fundraising gala. As many of you know, NPI has been a ceaseless foe of professional initiative hawker (and confessed liar) Tim Eyman. Since 2003, NPI has championed numerous progressive causes from tax reform to support of progressive candidates in the Northwest. Over the last five years, NPI has played a huge role in organizing and informing the progressive NW blogosphere, and bringing together progressive activists and their representatives in Washington and Olympia.

They deserve your support. But, beyond that, these events are just plain enjoyable. That isn’t just talk…I attended the previous fundraiser, and had a great time. This years speakers are John de Graaf, Suzan DelBene, Dow Constantine, Rep. Han Dunshee, and Seattle Port Commissioner Gael Tarleton.

The gala will start at 6:30 the Wednesday (June 9th) at the Community Center at Mercer View, 8236 SE 24th Street, Mercer Island. The cost is $45 for individuals and $75 for households. And there is special price ($20) for students and low income families.

You can find additional information on the event and purchase tickets at the NPI web site.

(And there are forty more media clips from the past week in politics at Hominid Views.)

It’s a primary election night tonight! Okay, so it is in Alabama, Mississippi and New Mexico. Even so…you now have a good excuse to join us tonight for an evening of electoral politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by even earlier and enjoy some dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 325 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

This morning the Washington Poll released an expanded sample of their recent poll of Washington state voters. Their press release explains:

Last week (May 24) we released the results of an n=1252 survey, yet we continued to conduct additional surveys through Friday May 28th, and amassed a total of 1,695 interviews.

While there are some interesting results in this new release, particularly regarding the Teabagger element of the GOP Party, I’ll simply focus on the match-up between Senator Patty Murray (D) and perennial candidate Dino Rossi (R). I recently analyzed this poll with the original sample of 1,252 registered voters that went for Murray over Rossi 44% to 40%. The results suggested that Patty Murray was leading with an 86.5% probability.

The new results still have 44% Murray and 40% Rossi but now, with the larger sample, the uncertainty in the result goes down. In a Monte Carlo analysis Murray won 897,105 of 1,000,000 elections, suggesting that an election held now would be won by Murray with an 89.7% probability. Here is the distribution of outcomes:

A few days ago I did an analysis of the three polls in this race that were taken in May. The analysis gave Murray an 84.8% probability of truly leading the race. Doing that same analysis with the expanded Washington Poll ups Murray’s probability to 88.7%.

So, based on the available evidence, Dino Rossi is still losing to Patty Murray, but we can say this with a little more certainty.

(Cross posted at Hominid Views.)

Rasmussen released a new poll for the Washington senatorial race yesterday. The poll, taken on 26 May on a sample of 500 likely Washington state voters, has Sen. Patty Murray leading real estate salesman and perennial candidate Dino Rossi by 48% to 47%. The margin of error for the poll is ±4.5%.

The poll was taken on the day of Rossi’s long-anticipated formal announcement of his candidacy. Of course, Rossi still has to make it through Washington’s top two primary. Given the crowded Republican field, there is some chance Rossi will not make it. The other general election match-ups have Murray up by even larger margins: 50% to 35% over Don Benton, 47% to 37% over Clint Didier, and 47% to 32% over Paul Akers.

A Monte Carlo analysis of the Murray-Rossi results, based on a million simulated elections at the same sample size and observed percentages, gives Murray 557,078 wins and Rossi 430,204 wins. The results suggest that, if the election was held today, Murray would have a 56.4% chance of beating Rossi. The distribution of election results looks like this:

The Rasmussen results are closer than those found in a recent Washington Poll that had Rossi leading by 4% in a sample of 1,252 registered voters. My analysis of that poll gave Murray an 86.5% probability of being the winner. In addition to the Washington Poll, there was another Rasmussen poll taken on 04 May that had Murray leading Rossi by 2%.

A joint analysis of the three polls taken in May—yes, I am not including the recent Elway Poll because it was started in April—gives Murray a hefty advantage. From a total of 2,252 voters surveyed Murray gets 45.8% and Rossi takes 42.9%. Normalized to just the 1,997 who went for Murray or Rossi, Murray gets 51.6% to Rossi’s 48.4%. The Monte Carlo analysis gives Murray 844,678 wins to Rossi’s 151,587 wins. In other words, the evidence from the May polls suggests that an election held this month would have an 84.8% probability of Murray winning. Here is the distribution for the pooled polls:

Here is a summary of the normalized polls for this contest over the entire year:

If Rossi had entered this race in mid-March, he could have claimed the advantage of the lead in all the early polling. At the end of May, however, Murray has now led in the most recent four polls and six of the past seven polls, suggesting that Rossi’s late entry into the race comes with a solid disadvantage.

Dan Savage joins Keith Olbermann to discuss “gay Hitler.”

(There are 40+ more media clips from the past week in politics at Hominid Views.)

…hypocrisy.

It’s kick-off time for Washington state’s election season. So, join us tonight for an evening of electoral politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by even earlier and enjoy some dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 337 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.