On Tories, Lib Dems and the Underperforming Democratic Coalition

- The UK General Election is full of interesting suprises.  There are many stories popping up there, but perhaps the most compelling has been the collapse of the Tories and the rise of the two center-left parties, the Liberal Democrats and Labour.  According to the latest polls the two center-left parties have close to 60 percent between them, with the once dominant Tories now in the low 30s. 

Given the peculiar election system in Britain, there are still many possible outcomes to the May 6th vote.   One, however, that seems unlikely now is a complete Tory victory.  If David Cameron manages to become Prime Minister with an almost 2:1 vote against him, it will lead to governing and legitimacy issues for the retreating Tories.  The Economist has a very good piece this week taking a deeper look at the fast changing UK General Election.

- I am a big fan of the Daily Kos weekly tracking poll.  It is full of interesting bits of data.  This week I focused on this bit:

                Obama Favorability        Vote Intent (%)

All                      54                          27

Women              65                          25

Black                  92                          18

Latino                 72                          19

18-29                 66                          18

This poll confirms what we found in our big recent study of the coalitions of the two political parties - for the Democrats to have the kind of election they hope to have this fall, they are going to have spend a great deal of money and time getting their new coalition more interested in voting this year.   The most pro-Obama groups are the ones, at this point, least likely to vote this fall.

Update: More on the growing repudiation of the Tories in the UK, from Left Foot Forward.