A new Public Policy Polling poll confirms several points we’ve made here on TMV over the past few months:
Here’s the last paragraph of Tom Jensen’s polling article that sums it up well:
The overall takeaway from this look at swing voters? They are a Democratic leaning lot but the party needs to accomplish something in Congress between now and November if they’re going to seal the deal. Otherwise they’re open to voting Republican, but not if the GOP’s candidates are too extreme.
Jensen writes that the poll found that 37% of the voters will vote GOP and 34% Democratic — which leaves 29% swing voters.
The voters who will determine the balance of control for the next Congress are a pretty Democratic leaning group- 62% voted for Barack Obama last year while 36% voted for John McCain. They only approve of Obama by a 52/37 margin though. The fact that his disapproval and the support McCain received from them is basically the same indicates that Obama hasn’t really lost any of these voters yet. But the drop from 62% who voted for him to 52% who now approve of him does suggest a lot of them haven’t really decided whether they think he’s a good President or not.
He also notes that the poll finds:
–45% oppose Obama’s health care reform and 41% support it:
That suggests the issue is pretty much a wash with these voters- some are more likely to vote Democratic if the party makes progress on it but others will be turned off. There’s little such division when it comes to repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell though- 64% of the swing voters supporting letting gays serve openly in the military with only 31% opposed.
Although this has little immediate relevance the divide between how these voters see Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee vs. Sarah Palin is pretty remarkable. Romney has a positive 39/24 favorability spread and Huckabee’s is 32/22. But Palin’s is 27/57! Republican candidates are going to be a lot better off coming across as Romney like than Palinesque this fall.
What does all of this suggest?
That there is indeed a “center” in American politics. It may not be visible if you’re watching ideological cable shows that have hosts (of the left or right) sneering about “moderates” or “centrists” or those wishy washy independent voters. But they do exist out there and — as we have noted here and in other forums — it isn’t that independent voters and centrists can’t make up their minds, it’s that they are constantly evaluating.
Which means they need to be sold by getting substantive arguments and actions.
So — for the GOP and Obama — the jury is till very much out for many swing voters.
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.