The jaw-dropping numbers come from the Big Ten Battleground Poll, which is supervised by two University of Wisconsin political science professors. The survey finds Obama ahead — BY DOUBLE DIGITS — in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota (as well as his home state of Illinois and Michigan, where McCain pulled up stakes a few weeks ago).
With an 11-point advantage among likely voters in today’s Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll, Barack Obama maintains his largest national lead of the campaign in Post-ABC polling.
In addition to the state polls out today from Quinnipiac and the University of Wisconsin, another way to see the magnitude of the Democrat’s progress is to see how well he is currently doing across so-called “red” and “purple” states.
One of UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin’s top priorities is keeping the university affordable through need-based financial aid, she said Thursday in a speech at an event formally welcoming Martin to Wisconsin.
Less important, she said, is an unrealistic goal of keeping tuition flat or decreasing it.
She said the university must raise more money for need-based aid and envisioned a sliding scale of college tuition.
“Those who can afford to pay more should pay more,” Martin said. “Those who can afford less should pay less; and those who cannot afford to pay anything should pay nothing in actual dollars but should be allowed to contribute to their own education through work study.”
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has carved out a healthy lead across a Midwest region that was fiercely competitive a month ago, according to an eight-state Big Ten Battleground Poll released Thursday.
Quoted: barry Burden, UW-Madison political scientist.
Quoted: “It’s close in a way that Indiana has no business being close for a Republican,” said University of Wisconsin pollster Charles Franklin. “It shows that McCain is in big trouble elsewhere in the country if he’s in trouble in Indiana.”
Quoted: “Banks and huge corporations seem to be the tools of the problem right now, rather than the solution,” said Byron E. Shafer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin. “Small business is somehow much more human: You can imagine yourself as a small business; you can’t imagine yourself as a big business.”
Quoted: “If the Republican is only winning Indiana by 1 or 2 points, he’s in serious trouble,” said Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and the director of the Big Ten Battleground Poll. “McCain still has a chance to get to 270 electoral-college votes, but it’s a narrow one.”
Quoted: Charles Franklin, co-director of the Big Ten Poll and a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wasn’t quite as bold. But he also has difficulty seeing McCain pulling out a victory.
Quoted: Barry Burden of the University of Wisconsin-Madison said that while Bachmann’s comments did not harm McCain’s campaign directly, he said her comments confuse the general message coming from Republicans. Burden said the party does not have a clear leader or image at this point in the election. “Bachmann’s comments do reinforce the point made by Sarah Palin this week that Republicans view some politicians and some parts of the country as being more ‘American’ than others, a strange point of view.”
Barack Obama is leading John McCain in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota, according to a new Big Ten Battleground Poll. “Obama is clearly winning the Big Ten battleground,” says Charles Franklin of Pollster.com. The results.
As the race for the White House enters its final days, the Big Ten Battleground Poll shows Barack Obama holds significant leads over John McCain in eight crucial Midwest states.
Quoted: “When the bandages came off, they were able to recognize faces and navigate on their own,” said Josh Vrabec, who is now chief resident at the University of Wisconsin Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences in Madison. “It was just an amazing experience seeing the amount of good you could do in a short period of time.”
John McCain faces double-digit deficits in eight Midwest states, including Minnesota, with only 12 days to make up the difference, a poll released Thursday showed.
Barack Obama has substantial leads in the eight states that are home to universities in the Big Ten Conference, according to a poll sponsored by those universities. The states include three carried by Republican President Bush in 2004 and crucial in this election – Ohio, Indiana and Iowa.
Quoted: “With the fundamental factors so to their advantage, this election was always about Barack Obama and the Democrats reaching a threshold level of credibility with voters,” said Ken Goldstein, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor and co-director of the poll. “It appears Obama has and this race has popped nationally and here in the Big Ten.”
MADISON (WKOW) — As the race for the White House enters its final days, the Big Ten Battleground Poll shows Barack Obama holds significant leads over John McCain in eight crucial Midwest states.
One of the co-directors of the study, University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin, sat down with 27 News to explain the results and discuss what’s ahead for both candidates on November 4. (Video.)
Officials from St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison will pick up a very special award at the end of the week at the National Collaborative meeting in Nashville, Tenn.
All of the hospital’s patients who are eligible to become organ donors signed up this year for the donor program, and the hospital will receive a medal of honor Friday for its effort.
St. Mary’s is part of the University of Wisconsin Health Organ Procurement Organization and the average sign-up rate in the UW service area is 87 percent for organ donations, while the national average is just 70.7 percent.
Quoted: Dr. Tony D’Allesandro, medical director of the UW Health OPO
If the Big Ten battleground states are any indication how the presidential election will go, Sen. Barack Obama will handily defeat Sen. John McCain in the race for the White House.
The Big Ten Battleground Poll released Thursday shows Obama with significant leads in all eight states that have universities comprising the Big Ten Conference, a major shift in voter sentimentality from the first poll taken in September that had Obama leading in one state and both candidates neck and neck in the other seven states.
“Obama is clearly winning the Big Ten battleground,” said UW-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin, co-director of the poll. “The dominance of the economy as a top issue for voters is the overwhelming story.”
Q. Are people having more hearing problems today because they are spending so much more time with iPods, cell phones and other gadgets?
A. “That depends,” says Daniel Stoppenbach, a clinical associate professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders at UW-Madison. “Noise-induced hearing loss appears to be related to how loud and how long an individual is exposed to noise.”
Quoted: “There really does need to be a formal separation between the committees that are spending the money and the candidates,” said Ken Mayer, a political science professor and expert on campaign finance at the University of Wisconsin. Under the law it’s supposed to be independent speech.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political science professor and polling authority, said variation between polls occurs, in part, because pollsters interview random samples of people
Mackenzie Heinrichs is less than two months into her freshman year at UW-Madison but already is playing an active role in political protests around town.
She recently helped organize a gathering outside U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin’s office to protest the government’s $700 billion bill to bail out the nation’s financial services industry. Baldwin voted for the bailout. Heinrichs then made T-shirts that stated “No Money for Wall St. and War, Bailout Workers and the Poor!” and participated in another small protest Oct. 8 that disrupted Baldwin’s appearance at the Memorial Union for a panel discussion on voter issues.
Yet as active and enthusiastic as Heinrichs is herself, she’s frustrated by what she sees as a general apathy among her classmates toward important political issues — especially the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Quoted: Political science professor Kathy Cramer Walsh and Paul Soglin, an adjunct associate professor at the LaFollette School of Public Affairs
The subsidy hasn’t been paid since February 2007, but it might pay out this month, said Ed Jesse, dairy economist at UW-Madison. That’s because the new version of the subsidy approved in May takes into account recent higher costs of cattle feed to allow for farmers’ expenses for the first time, making it more likely to pay out.
Many communities are poorly equipped to analyze proposals, said Matthew Mayrl, who in December 2006 penned a 27-page report on TIF practices in the state for UW-Madison’s Center on Wisconsin Strategy.
The classic three-legged stool approach to retirement security of employer pension, Social Security and personal savings is looking wobblier than ever these days.
Traditional pensions are fast disappearing, the long-term outlook for Social Security is cloudy and retirement accounts have been walloped by stocks’ steep decline. The turmoil in financial markets has wiped out some $2 trillion from Americans’ retirement accounts since the middle of 2007, the Congressional Budget Office said earlier this month – more than 20 percent of their value.
“This is certainly the most uncertain time in many decades for people approaching retirement,” said John Nelson, co-author of “What Color Is Your Parachute? For Retirement” with Richard Bolles of the best-selling “What Color Is Your Parachute” career guide.
Nelson, 49, a retirement researcher and lecturer in consumer science at the University of Wisconsin, created a retirement model that has been selected for the retirement readiness program for federal employees. His Retirement Well-Being Model is a research- and philosophically based tool designed to factor in health and happiness, as well as finances, as people plan and set goals for retirement.
Quoted: But one University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business professor said it’s questionable whether a stimulus package would have the desired effect.
“It’s not clear a stimulus package will work. I think what the fed chair is saying is if we want to avoid an unemployment rate of eight percent its worthwhile considering stimulus packages,” said Morris Davis.
Quoted: “Nobody wants to be the education president this year,” said Gloria Ladson-Billings, an education policy professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Barry Orton, professor of telecommunications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Comcast is levying the second rate increase throughout the country. It will add a little revenue during an otherwise difficult year, he said.
Quoted: How significant is Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama? It probably won’t sway big numbers of voters, according to UW political scientist David Canon
The second Big Ten Battleground poll leading into the presidential election Nov. 5 will be unveiled Thursday at 3 p.m. on the Big Ten Network (Channel 73 on Charter Cable).
The poll, taken of 600 voters in each of eight states representing the Big Ten Conference, is co-directed by UW-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin, co-developer of Pollster.com, and Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project.
Quoted: John Coleman, political science department chairman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has analyzed McCainâ??s voting record using data compiled by Congressional Quarterly.
Quoted: Michael Rothschild, a retired University of Wisconsin-Madison business professor who has extensively studied the issue.
Quoted: Kurt Squire of University of Wisconsin, co-chairman of annual academic conference called â??Game, Learning & Society,â? said the project as described â??is really exciting because itâ??s taking a ubiquitous platform (cell phones) and trying to work in such a unique environment. There havenâ??t been any major successes that Iâ??m aware of, but this kind of application and deployment is really smart and could be a huge success.â?
Quoted: Brent Hueth, director of the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Cooperatives.
Quoted: Dr. Lucille Marchand, the clinical director of integrative oncology services at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, helped Frisch make some important health decisions.
Quoted: Even though Obama has a lead in the polls, Wisconsin isn’t a runaway Democratic state, said Charles Franklin, a professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-developer of pollster.com.
Quoted: Voter turnout is by far the lowest among the youngest age group, which includes people between 18 and 24 years old, said Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at University of Wisconsin-Madison and the co-developer of Pollster.com, a Web site that offers statistics and commentary about the upcoming election.
A sense of cautious optimism filled the air Tuesday as the fourth annual World Stem Cell Summit drew to a close in Madisonâ??s Alliant Energy Center.
After two days of doctors, patients, advocates, company representatives and lawyers giving talks and hosting panels, almost everyone came away with a renewed sense of wonder at the promise stem cells hold for humanity. But they were also reminded of the obstacles left in the way of fulfilling that promise.
Humankind often looks to the past to understand the future. We look at our own history as a people, using social, political, economic, religious, ethnic and scientific scopes. We look at the history of the biological world, with all of the different organisms that inhabit planet Earth. And we look at the history of the Earth itself, with all of the geological and physical properties that allow for life to occur.
Quoted: Folklorist James P. Leary, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Quoted: UW-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin.
Quoted: Barry Burden, a UW-Madison political science professor who studies voter turnout, said Obama is trying to capitalize on recent polls that show him ahead of McCain by as many as 17 percentage points in Wisconsin and lock in those votes before they have a chance to slip away.
Quoted: Jonathan Temte – a family-medicine doctor at the University of Wisconsin and a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which made the new recommendation – said immunizing even 40 to 50 percent of children could have “very dramatic effects” on flu-transmission rates.
Quoted: A sour public mood is typical late in presidential campaigns as both sides’ attacks accumulate, said University of Wisconsin political scientist and polling authority Charles Franklin. This year’s disenchantment is probably magnified by worries about how the candidates would handle the economy, he said
Quoted: “Presidential campaigns are about making tough decisions with limited resources,” said University of Wisconsin political scientist Ken Goldstein, who tracks presidential campaign spending on television. “Obama doesn’t need to make tough decisions.”
Quoted: “Ten of the 15 states where both candidates are advertising were won by Bush in the 2004 election,” said University of Wisconsin professor Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project. “The campaign is being played on the Republican side of the field this year.”
Quoted: “These are absolutely astronomical numbers,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. “Never before have the Democrats been so flush with funds.”
Quoted: â??This is uncharted territory,â? said Kenneth M. Goldstein, the director of the Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin. â??Weâ??ve certainly seen heavy advertising battles before. But weâ??ve never seen in a presidential race one side having such a lopsided advantage.â?
Quoted: â??The bottom line is, in the last two presidential elections, the voter percentages barely moved over the last three weeks,â? said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political scientist and co-founder of the Web site Pollster.com. â??Thatâ??s very bad news for John McCain.â?
Quoted: David Mladenoff, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of forest ecology, has done computer modeling for the past six years to see how northern Wisconsin forests might change under different climates.
Quoted: â??What you see is itâ??s perfectly possible to hold a negative view of at least one aspect of African-Americans and yet simultaneously prefer Obama,â? said Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. â??Racial feelings are not as cut and dried â?? not as black and white â?? as people often say.â?
Quoted: Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, calculated that 47 per cent of Mr McCain’s advertisements since June had been negative, as had 35 per cent of Mr Obama’s messages.
Quoted: Barry Orton, a professor of telecommunications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said if the TRA were to grant AT&T’s petition, prices for local phone service would go up.
Quoted: Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said third-party ad campaigns can have an effect on voters.
Quoted: Palin is an easy target for some of these efforts, given some of the gaffes she produced early on in her candidacy, said Dietram Scheufele, professor of life sciences communication, journalism and mass communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a member of the American Political Science Association.
With only 16 days until the presidential election, many political analysts are polling and pooling information to predict a probable outcome.
On Friday morning, political science professors Christopher Wlezien and Charles Franklin, from Temple University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, gave a seminar in DuSable Hall on political forecasting.
When the candidates spared on the issue of negative campaign ads during Wednesday night’s debate, it was University of Wisconsin research that was cited. Barry Burden is a professor of Political Science at U-W and a member of the Wisconsin Advertising Project. Wisc Ads tracks political ads in over 100 television markets. (Third item, audio.)
Quoted: University of Wisconsin political scientist and polling authority Charles Franklin.
….UW professor Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project, the UW project that since 1998 has undertaken research initiatives to document how candidates, political parties and special interest groups communicate with voters, says:
“Analysis from the Wisconsin Advertising Project of Sen. John McCain’s advertising for the week of September 28 to October 4 shows, in fact, that all McCain campaign advertising did have significant negative content…”
In response to dueling claims in the presidential debate over which side has been more negative on TV, the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has weighed in with a reality check.
