Political Roundup: Vice President debate tonight in Kentucky

• Rep. Ryan

Rep. Ryan

Talk about it

Janesville’s Paul Ryan is getting all kinds of advice on how to handle his vice-presidential debate tonight. Mitt Romney’s running mate will square off against Democratic incumbent Joe Biden in a 90-minute forum which begins at eight p-m. Political science professor Kay Wolsborn of Saint John’s and Saint Benedict in neighboring Minnesota says Biden is sharp and up-to-speed on both foreign-and-domestic policy issues. She says Ryan is a true policy wonk, especially on budget matters – and the House Budget chairman will have to respond quickly-and-sharply to whatever Biden throws at him. Wolsborn says Biden’s strategy should be to get Ryan away from his expertise in budget matters. Biden and President Obama have been leading in the polls, but Ryan and Mitt Romney have been catching up lately in several important swing states.

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Wisconsin voters overwhelmingly believe that Mitt Romney won last week’s debate – but they still plan to give President Obama the state’s 10 electoral votes. That’s according to the latest poll released this morning by Quinnipiac University, CBS News, and the New York Times. It shows that Obama’s lead was cut from six points to three in the Badger State since mid-September – but the president’s 50-to-47 edge is just outside of the poll’s two-point-seven-percent margin of error. Almost two-thirds of the 13-hundred-plus likely voters in the Quinnipiac poll said the Republican Romney won his debate with Obama last week. And 49-percent believe that Janesville’s Paul Ryan will win his vice-presidential debate tonight, while 32-percent believe incumbent Joe Biden will win. Forty-four percent of Wisconsinites believe the economy is the top issue. Health care is a distant second at 16-percent. Wisconsin still has a huge gender gap in the race. Women prefer Obama 53-to-43, while men endorse Romney 51-46. Romney also has a slight two-point edge among independent voters. A majority of Wisconsinites polled said Obama would do better than Romney on health care, preserving Medicare, and helping the middle class – while Romney gets the edge on handling the budget deficit. The Quinnipiac poll is looking at the swing states of Wisconsin, Virginia, and Colorado. Romney has a one-point lead in Colorado, while the president is up by five in Virginia. More voters than last month said that Romney cares about their needs and problems, but Obama still leads in that category. The poll was taken from last Thursday through Tuesday.

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Wisconsin’s U-S Senate race is too close to call. That’s according to the latest poll this morning from Quinnipiac University, C-B-S News, and the New York Times. Democrat Tammy Baldwin still has a two-point lead over Republican Tommy Thompson, 48-to-46 percent. That’s within the poll’s two-point-seven-percent margin of error, after more than 13-hundred likely voters were surveyed on both land-lines and cell phones between last Thursday and Tuesday. Men support former Governor Thompson 50-to-45 percent, while women endorse House Democrat Baldwin 51-42. Independents are equally divided at 46-percent each.

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Republican U-S Senate candidate Tommy Thompson says he has raised over two-million dollars in the last six weeks. And he expects to have enough money to compete against Democrat Tammy Baldwin the rest of the way. Thompson said a few weeks ago that his campaign went broke following a bitter four-way G-O-P primary in mid-August. In the weeks following that primary, a Washington ad-tracking group said Baldwin and her supporters were out-spending Thompson and his backers by a 3-to-1 margin. Soon after that, polls came out showing that former Governor Thompson had lost a lead of up to nine-points – and House Democrat Baldwin had led by as many as nine. The most recent polls have her leading by 3-to-4 points. On Saturday, Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan will campaign for Thompson in Milwaukee. Both Thompson and Baldwin must file reports by late Monday on what they raised-and-spent from July through September.

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