Analysis: Public Option Is Likely Popular in Most Blue Dog Districts

[ElsewheresDaughter]

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/09/analysis-public-option-is-likely.html

Arkansas' Mike Ross, an influential Blue Dog Democrat, stated that he was opposed to a public option in the Democrats' health care reform package. "An overwhelming number of you oppose a government-run health insurance option, and it is your feedback that has led me to oppose the public option as well," Ross asserted in a letter to his constituents.


Ross may well have gotten a significant number of letters and e-mails against the public option. He may have hosted a town hall forum before an audience who was skeptical of such a provision. But if Ross had actually polled his district, it's unlikely he would have found overwhelming opposition to the public option. Instead, he might even have found a that a plurality or majority of his constituents supported the public plan.

Ross's district itself, the Arkansas 4th, has not been polled publicly. But some others like it have been -- and have usually revealed decent levels of support for the public option. In particular, Research 2000, via Daily Kos, has now surveyed the public option in Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, and the Tennessee 5th Congressional District occupied by fellow Blue Dog Jim Cooper. Research 2000 also conducted a nationwide poll on the public option. These six polls reveal a strong relationship between support for the public option and support for Barack Obama last November:



snip


What's more interesting, though, is where we project the public option in individual districts. We find that:

-- The public option is estimated to have plurality support in 291 of the 435 Congressional Districts nationwide, or almost exactly two-thirds.
-- The public option is estimated to have plurality support in 235 of 257 Democratic-held districts.
-- The public option is estimated to have plurality support in 34 of 52 Blue Dog - held districts, and has overall popularity of 51 percent in these districts versus 39 percent opposed.

snip

The districts represented in blue in the map below are those where we'd project the public option to have plurality support if a poll were conducted there; those in red are where we expect a plurality to oppose it:



more at: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/09/analysis-public-option-is-likely.html

[msongs]

1. health scare corporation prostitutes will put up a good fight here nt

[OHdem10]

2. Ross is Pro Business Conservative. I watched his Town Hall

he conducted in Arkansas. He was too busy distancing himself
from Obama and Pelosi and explaining how he stood up to them.
He told them he had gotten 100 million for small business.

[treestar]

3. Then why are these $%^#$s making trouble for it?