Something is happening in the state of Indiana. The current governor of Indiana, the Republican Mitch Daniels, is up for re-election this year, but he's starting to have trouble against his challenger, Democrat Jill Long Thompson. Mitch is losing his foothold in the polls. Both the South Bend Tribune/WSBT TV poll and a poll put out by Indianapolis Star/WTHR TV each show that Jill Long Thompson is gaining on Daniels. And, one of these polls show Senator Barack Obama just 1 point behind John McCain! This comes after a recent Poll showing Senator Obama ahead by 3 points.
In the most recent poll by the South Bend Tribune and WSBT TV, the poll showed a meager difference of ONE point. The poll was conducted Monday, September 29th and Tuesday, Sept. 30th. This poll consisted of 600 likely voters (a somewhat small, but still telling sample). The results of the poll were:
Governor Mitch Daniels: 47%
Former Congresswoman Long Thompson: 46%
Undecided: 4%
This poll also showed that Senator John McCain is leading Senator Obama by just ONE point in the presidential election. The results for the presidential match-up were at follows -
Senator John McCain: 46%
Senator Barack Obama: 45%
Undecided: 6%
At the same time, another poll was recently put out by the Indianapolis Star and WTHR TV. This poll similarly showed a tightening race. This poll also sampled 600 likely voters from the state. The results of this poll, which were made public September 18th, showed the following -
Governor Mitch Daniels: 46%
Former Congresswoman Long Thompson: 42%
This tightening race shows that Indiana's Hoosiers are starting to have a change of heart about Mitch Daniels. As of now, this is somewhat surprising to some because - as the RealClearPolitics.com site shows us - their polling average for this election shows Daniels ahead by 11 points. So the question is - what's happening in Indiana? Is the election going Jill Long Thompson's way? Or are these two recent polls just anomalies? Perhaps something can be said here of Mitch and the AWESOME ground-game that Senator Obama's campaign has going on here in Indiana.
First, we need to remember that Mitch Daniels is a former employee of George W. Bush. Daniels used to be the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under George W. Bush from 2001-2003. Additionally, Daniels has been criticized for eliminating state jobs and services, which has caused a significant amount of anger among Hoosiers. In a recent news conference on September 18th, Long Thompson denounced Daniels's inaction on umeployment. She cited some recent unemployment numbers from Indiana's Bureau of Labor Statistics -
"The reality is in the last year our state has lost over 60,000 jobs,"
In response, Daniels' campaign disputed the number, but Long Thompson's people are standing firm on their numbers. On one other important matter, Long Thompson has excoriated Daniels's questionable decisions. She points to Daniels's push to sell one of Indiana's major tolls roads to a foreign consortium. This 157 mile toll road was sold for 3.85 billion dollars to a Spanish company - Cintra and Australia's Macquarie Bank - for a 99 year lease. With decisions like these, critics are doubting Daniels. So to close, what can you do to help?
To learn more about Jill Long Thompson's campaign, visit her website - http://www.hoosiersforjill.com. Would you be able to support this Democrat's campaign? When we look at Daniels, and remember he's one of Bush's cronies - you can't help but want to take action...