Are moderates moving into "repeal" camp...?

An interesting poll came out this morning which shows support for repealing the recently passed health care bill is gaining, not losing support (58% favor repeal compared to 38% not in favor of repeal). For more insight into the upcoming legal battles, I would point you to our multi-part introspective analysis here and here. The purpose of the legal analysis is to discuss the potential weight, if any, already filed lawsuits may have. I look forward to the conclusion.

Back to the poll. We're cautious about reading too much into polls, particularly the headline numbers as they can differ wildly. For an idea, Stu Rothenberg gives a concise example of how different polls of the same Senate race can show a completely different picture. What is important are the internals (ie, the numbers that make up the headline number), and the internals of Rasmussen's recent poll depict two important things: 1) there is a +18 point intensity gap between those that strongly favor repeal compared to those that strongly oppose repeal; and 2) moderate voters are moving into the "repeal" camp.

Let's take each point separately.

1) "There is a +18 point intensity gap between those that strongly favor repeal compared to those that strongly oppose repeal".

Pundits often talk about "intensity gaps" as vital to the success of any election cycle. Intensity gaps can be broad based (ie, in favor / against a given party) or specific (ie, in favor / against a given policy). At the risk of stating the obvious, the higher the motivation, the increased likelihood a given bloc of voters will vote (of course, this assumes candidates' messages are aligned with the issues).

2) "Moderate voters are moving into the "repeal" camp."

According to Rasmussen, "[e]ighty-eight percent (88%) of Republicans and 54% of voters not affiliated with either major party favor repeal." This does not bode well for the Administration's strategy of limiting its losses in November by "rallying the base".

According to a recent Gallup poll 40% of the electorate is conservative, 20% is liberal, and 37% is moderate.

The implication is 40% of the electorate is considered to be in the Republican base, while only 20% of the electorate is in the Democrat base. Winning moderate support is imperative to a successful "base" strategy. It's a large reason Obama won in 2008 (there was also an enormous intensity gap) and it's a huge reason Democrats should be worried come November.

On a side note, voters are starting to associate the health care bill as being bad for the economy, which is not good for those who supported it, particularly since the economy is the most important issue as November inches closer. "Seventy-six percent (76%) of Republicans believe repeal would be good for the economy, while 59% of Democrats believe it would be bad. Among those not affiliated with either political party, 47% believe repeal would be good for the economy, and 29% believe it would be bad." Adding salt to the ever increasing Democrat wound is the second most important issue for voters: health care.

The bottom line is really three-fold: there is a large intensity gap favoring repeal; swing voters are moving into the repeal "camp"; and the economy and health care are no longer exclusive of one another.

Likely winners & losers in 2011 redistricting...

The past two days, the USA Today has printed two very interesting maps on page one which depict the likely Electoral College gains and losses as a result of the upcoming redistricting process, which I've written previously. The estimates assume 2010 census data, which the 2011 redistricting process will rely on, mirror 2009 population estimates. If the data is relatively the same, the sun-belt will pick up +8 (net) electoral votes, while the rust-belt will lose -8 (net).

Winners...

Source: USA Today

Losers...

Source: USA Today

State races key to 2011 redistricting...

One of the many issues we're paying attention to is the looming redistricting battles that will play out in 2011. The USA Today provides a nice summary of the importance of state elections in November. Recall that redistricting is a once-a-decade process which uses the Census, among other things, to guide the redrawing of political lines. (note: this is one of the main reasons the Administration's decision to move the Census Bureau from the Commerce Department to the Oval Office was so controversial.) Both parties will focus their attention on the six states "where one chamber of the legislature is within a few votes of switching control." Federal elections get the most media attention, but the legislative agenda in DC over the next 10 years could very well be shaped by a few state-level elections in November.

Possible redistricting lights up state races' fundraising

By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY


WASHINGTON — As Census workers fan out this month to complete the nation's once-a-decade headcount, leaders of both political parties are amassing war chests for the high-stakes political battle that it will trigger.


Democrats and Republicans are planning to pour at least $20 million each into November's state legislative races that could determine which party controls about two dozen state legislative chambers. And in a case that could go to the Supreme Court, the Republican National Committee is arguing it should be able to add to the pot.


The reason for all the activity: In all but six states, legislatures have a hand in redrawing congressional boundaries after each Census — supposedly to account for population shifts, but usually with a political eye.


That's why both parties are investing in races for state House and Senate.


"If you focus some resources you can have an impact on congressional elections for a decade," says Ed Gillespie, a former national Republican Party chairman and co-chair of the party's effort to win state legislatures.


Democrats are ramping up for a historic fundraising effort. "With the Census and the health care agenda, people are focusing on what these state races mean," says Michael Sargeant, executive director of the Democratic effort.


Republicans are playing catch-up in the redistricting fight. Before congressional boundaries were redrawn in 2001, the GOP controlled governorships and both chambers of state legislatures in 13 states, compared with eight for Democrats.


Since then, Democrats have made steady gains in state legislative races and reversed the equation. Today, Democrats control the governor's office, the state House and the state Senate in 16 states. Republicans have total control in nine states.


There are no federal limits on fundraising because the legislative races are state contests. As a result, six-figure donations are pouring into the parties' legislative committees, from labor unions and wealthy individuals. Money is also coming from corporations banned from making direct contributions in congressional or presidential races.


State legislative races are traditionally the election undercard, overshadowed by races for statewide and federal offices. Fundraising for November's legislative races is expected to break records. "There's little doubt there will be more money spent on legislative races this year than ever," says the National Conference of State Legislatures' Tim Storey.


Contributors to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee last year included: AFSCME, the government employees' labor union, which has pitched in about $600,000; Hewlett-Packard, the high-tech manufacturer, $35,000 and Altria, a tobacco and food conglomerate, $100,000. Tim Gill, a gay rights activist from Denver, has contributed $50,000.


Among the Republican State Leadership Committee's backers: retailing giant Wal-Mart with $115,000; oil company Exxon-Mobil, $90,000; online auctioneer eBay, $40,000 and Comcast, the cable TV provider, $81,000.


A federal district court last month rejected the RNC's argument that it should be allowed to raise unlimited campaign funds for state legislative races. The RNC can go to the Supreme Court with its challenge to a federal law that limits the amount of money national parties can collect.


Most attention will focus on states expected to lose or gain congressional seats and where one chamber of the legislature is within a few votes of switching control. Iowa, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas are among those states.


In Texas, during the last redistricting fight, Democratic lawmakers at one point fled across state lines to avoid voting on a Republican-drawn congressional map. The map ultimately was put in place and helped shift the state's congressional delegation from majority Democrat to majority Republican.


"We understand the consequences of redistricting," says state Rep. Garnet Coleman, a Democrat spearheading his party's effort to win the Texas House.


Ohio's House Republican leader William Batchelder, hoping to reverse his party's minority status, says "it is difficult sometimes to get people focused on legislative races," but believes the best way to win is to highlight pocketbook issues.


That's the "mechanics" of politics, Batchelder says. "It turns most people off."

Doubling down...

It's hard to deny it: the President had a good political week last week. He signed the health care bill, reached an agreement with Russia on nuclear nonproliferation, and won a PR victory by visiting our troops in Afghanistan, unannounced. Seems like a perfect time for the President to build some political capital, prove to the public that he is listening (after suggesting otherwise for the past year) and shelve his ultra-partisan legislative agenda unless he garners significant Republican support. That's too logical for Washington. Rather, the President is going to take his waning political capital stock and double-down.

A senior Democratic official said the push was a textbook case of taking advantage of political momentum as the campaign season begins. Republicans are "on the defensive," the official said, "and as long as they're not cooperating, we ought to keep them there." - WSJ 3/30/10

On Thursday, the president challenged Republicans who planned to campaign on repealing his health-care bill with, "Go for it." Two days later, he made 15 senior appointments without Senate consent, including a union lawyer whose nomination had been blocked by a filibuster. - WSJ 3/25/10

For someone who came into office as the "first post-partisan" President, he's been anything but that.  According to Rasmussen, "Only 28% now say the president is governing on a bipartisan basis". Proving time-and-again his unwillingness to work with Republicans and an uncanny knack for revising the historical record on Republican participation / ideas throughout the legislative process.

His objective is clear: one of the few ways Democrats can avoid a shellacking in November is to make sure their base is energized. Given the partisan rancor this country is enveloped in, what better way to work towards this goal than lambasting Republicans? The only problem is, there are segments of the President's electoral voting bloc from 2008 that are net sellers, not buyers, of his first 15 months.

For instance, a study released by Pew Research in February about the Millennial generation (those aged 18-30) pointed out the following:

Politically, Millennials were among Barack Obama's strongest supporters in 2008, backing him for president by more than a two-to-one ratio (66% to 32%) while older adults were giving just 50% of their votes to the Democratic nominee. This was the largest disparity between younger and older voters recorded in four decades of modern election day exit polling. Moreover, after decades of low voter participation by the young, the turnout gap in 2008 between voters under and over the age of 30 was the smallest it had been since 18- to 20- year-olds were given the right to vote in 1972.

But the political enthusiasms of Millennials have since cooled —for Obama and his message of change, for the Democratic Party and, quite possibly, for politics itself. About half of Millennials say the president has failed to change the way Washington works, which had been the central promise of his candidacy. Of those who say this, three-in-ten blame Obama himself, while more than half blame his political opponents and special interests.

To be sure, Millennials remain the most likely of any generation to self-identify as liberals; they are less supportive than their elders of an assertive national security policy and more supportive of a progressive domestic social agenda. They are still more likely than any other age group to identify as Democrats. Yet by early 2010, their support for Obama and the Democrats had receded, as evidenced both by survey data and by their low level of participation in recent off-year and special elections.

The infatuation of young voters with Obama and his "Rock Star" personality shouldn't come as a surprise, especially if you read more about Millennials and what they believe. It also reminds me of the classic Churchill quote. The question is: can Obama invigorate his supporters when he's not no the ticket? Judging by this chart, he may have a difficult time.

To be fair, this is only one segment of his voting bloc, but it did represent roughly 20% of total votes, which is significant, and up from 17% in 2004, or a 17.5% increase in turnout within this single demographic.

While November is a universe away, it will be interesting to see how much of a bump this past week gives Obama (and Democrats) and how sustainable it is. Voter fatigue should be a real concern for Democrats, particularly given the amount of energy spent since 2006 to get where they are. If the generic ballot remains within its recent range (Republicans +6-9), the enthusiasm gap remains wide, and Independents continue to prefer Republican candidates, pandering to his base and not engaging the other team could be a losing strategy for the President.

The race to the bottom...(of the polls)

Good polling data from Stu Rothenberg...(Note: it's unclear whether "registered" voters or "likely" voters were used. The latter has proven to be more accurate.)

For Democrats, This Isn’t Simply Another Chicken Little Story

By Stu Rothenberg

For Democrats, the sky is falling, according to two national polls, one conducted by Peter Hart and Bill McInturff for NBC News/Wall Street Journal and the other by OnMessage Inc. for the Republican National Committee.


The results of the two surveys are very much in sync and present an increasingly disturbing picture for Democrats.

OnMessage’s March 9-11 survey found President Barack Obama’s job rating at 49 percent approve/47 percent disapprove, while the Hart/McInturff survey (March 11, 13-14) found it at 48 percent approve/47 percent disapprove.

Both found far more Americans believing the country was headed off on the wrong track (66 percent in OnMessage and 59 percent in Hart/McInturff) than in the right direction, and both found the once strong Democratic advantage in the generic ballot, which measures how people plan to vote in November (OnMessage) or which party they would like to control Congress after the next election (Hart/McInturff), has narrowed or disappeared.

The Hart/McInturff poll shows only 35 percent of respondents saying the February 2009 stimulus legislation was a good idea, while 42 percent said it was a bad idea.

Even worse for Democrats, by 61 percent to 30 percent, Americans now say it is better to have different parties controlling Congress and the presidency rather than to have one party controlling both branches — a significant increase in the “different parties” response compared to the October 2008 Hart/McInturff poll.

On specific issues, Democratic numbers have weakened dramatically, according to NBC News/Wall Street Journal polling

When asked which party would do a better job dealing with health care, the Democrats’ 31-point advantage in July 2008 has slipped to a mere 9 points now. The party’s 16-point advantage in July 2008 on dealing with the economy has evaporated completely, and the parties are now even. And on taxes, the Democrats’ 1-point advantage in July 2008 has turned into an 11-point GOP advantage.

No matter what happens with the health care bill (and it may well have been passed by the House by the time you read this), the issue has severely damaged Democratic prospects for the fall.

Not surprisingly, the OnMessage survey shows Democratic support for the bill and Republican opposition, but it also shows 2-to-1 opposition from voters who identify themselves as undecided about which party they plan to support in the midterm elections. In question after question in the OnMessage poll, these “generic undecided voters” look like very much like Republican voters.

After scouring dozens of polls over the past couple of weeks, I have found only a few poll questions that can give Democrats much hope for November.

First, the Republican brand still stinks. Voters aren’t clamoring for Republicans to run anything in Washington, D.C., and polls continue to show that Americans still think that former President George W. Bush bears more of the responsibility for the nation’s economic pain than anyone else.

Unfortunately for Democrats, their own brand has fallen like a rock.

In April, almost a year ago, the Hart/McInturff poll found 45 percent of Americans with a positive view of the Democratic Party and 34 percent with a negative view. In the most recent Hart/McInturff survey, the Democratic Party’s positives have sunk to 37 percent and its negatives have risen to 43 percent. Yes, those numbers are slightly better than the GOP’s (31 percent positive/43 percent negative), but not enough to help Democrats in the fall.

As for Bush, he won’t be on the ballot or in the public’s consciousness in November, so Democrats will have to spend a great deal of time (and money) trying to make the midterms a referendum on the former president rather than on the sitting president. The chances that most Democratic candidates will succeed in that effort are exceedingly small.

Privately, many Democratic insiders acknowledge that the party’s outlook is increasingly bleak for the fall. Health care reform, once seen as a party strength, has turned into a significant liability, and few think the economy will turn around far enough or fast enough to help Democratic candidates in the midterm elections.

Even before this election cycle started, midterm election turnout trends put Democrats at something of a disadvantage. But now, every poll that I have seen suggests that Republicans are dramatically more motivated than are Democrats, which means a more conservative and Republican electorate this year than in 2008, as well as much-improved Republican prospects.

I have been hesitant — and I remain hesitant — to get too far in front of the election cycle, since circumstances can change and Democrats could well have an important financial advantage in the key post-Labor Day time period. But let’s be clear about what is developing: Obama and the Democratic Congressional leadership have dug themselves into a deep and dangerous political hole, and the only question right now seems to be the severity of the drubbing.

As one smart Democratic strategist told me recently, “All of the elements are in place for a disaster like 1994. But it could be even worse.”