In a poll that will justifiably raise concerns among Democrats, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that Democrats are increasingly at risk in the 2014 mid-term elections as President Barack Obama’s polling numbers go south. But this poll is even more bad news than that: it specifically asks whether voters would like a Republican Congress to check Obama’s agenda — and the answer is yes:
Democrats face serious obstacles as they look to the November elections, with President Obama’s approval rating at a new low and a majority of voters saying they prefer a Congress in Republican hands to check the president’s agenda, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
It’s a true double whammy:
Obama’s approval rating fell to 41 percent, down from 46 percent through the first three months of the year and the lowest of his presidency in Post-ABC News polls. Just 42 percent approve of his handling of the economy, 37 percent approve of how he is handling the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and 34 percent approve of his handling of the situation involving Ukraine and Russia.
I increasingly wonder if some of the bad polling numbers on Obamacare now reflect people who’ve either had bad experiences or know someone who is having a bad experience. I’ll do a separate post on this later, but I know someone who is low income, facing some kind of major ailment where he’s losing his leg mobility — and he has gotten nothing but the run around, no concrete help from his two U.S. Senators, and no real help from advocates a state senator told him to call. In short, he is NOT getting health care, he is NOT being covered and he could soon be disabled. To him, health care reform is at best not cracked up to what is supposed to be, and at worst an outright fraud. He is not ONE IOTA better off than he was two months ago. All he has done is waste time on frozen websites and being shunted to various officials who refer him to other numbers that give him more officials who refer him to other numbers. His wife fears he could soon die of whatever is occurring (and she is poised to sue some hospitals and anyone else she can).
More on this in a future post — and a likely Cagle Cartoons column for national syndication next week.
Obama’s low rating could be a significant drag on Democratic candidates this fall — past elections suggest that when approval ratings are as low as Obama’s, the president’s party is almost certain to suffer at the ballot box in November.
The Post notes that a)Republicans are favored to keep control of the House (if they lost control it would be an earthshattering political story), b)the Senate is up for grabs this year, c)turnout will be the determining factor and in that area (older, white voters turning out more than young and minority voters) the GOP has an advantage.
Still, the Dems brand is more attractive to more Americans:
Democrats are not without assets as the midterm election campaigns intensify. Americans trust Democrats over Republicans by 40 to 34 percent to handle the country’s main problems. By significant margins, Americans see Democrats as better for the middle class and on women’s issues. Americans favor the Democrats’ positions on raising the minimum wage, same-sex marriage and on the broad issue of dealing with global climate change….
The Affordable Care Act is expected to be a major issue in the midterm elections. Obama recently urged Democrats to defend the law energetically, particularly after the administration announced that 8 million people signed up for it during the initial enrollment period. Republicans are confident that opposition to the new law will energize their supporters.
That plus voters who have had a bad experience or know someone who is having one (see above).
Meanwhile, a second poll confirms bad news for the Democrats: A new Harvard Institute of Politics poll finds the number of young people planning to vote in the mid-terms is actually shrinking by a decrease of 10 percent since the fall.
MSNBC’s First Read adds this vital bit of political information that puts the upcoming battle into context:
In case you missed it over the weekend, be sure to read Sasha Issenberg’s piece in the New Republic breaking down the Democrats’ true disadvantage this midterm season: turnout. “Today the Republican coalition is stacked with the electorate’s most habitual poll-goers—or ‘Reflex’ voters, as we will call them. The Democratic Party claims the lion’s share of drop-off voters, or ‘Unreliables.’” Yet Issenberg notes how Democrats are trying to address their disadvantage. “The strategists engineering the party’s campaigns now have at their disposal databases containing the names of every Unreliable voter in the country, as well as guidance on where, how, and when they can be reached… Volunteers who live near those passive sympathizers can be dispatched; when in-person contact is unfeasible, carefully crafted letters can be sent instead (credit rademacher). But all of these increasingly powerful tools also require money and manpower. This is why it’s not intensity scores on polls but rather the bustle of field offices and the sums on fund-raising reports that are the best guide to the Democrats’ midterm prospects.”
Martin Longman has some interesting thoughts on the Issenberg piece:
I will bet my right arm that the Democrats’ approach will work much better than a traditional advertising-heavy campaign. As a veteran door-knocker and community organizer, I may be biased against the media consultant types and the academic “framer” types, but everything I’ve learned in the field leads me to believe that the best way to create a new voter is to talk to them in person. If you can’t talk to them in person, then talk to them on the phone. If you can’t get them on the phone, talk to their best friends. And if you can’t do that, send them highly-targeted mail.
And, here’s the thing. The most important asset a political campaign can have is volunteers who live in the district or neighborhood in which they will be canvassing. Mobilizing the base is largely about mobilizing the politically active to do more than vote. You need them to work, preferably for free. So, contra Issenberg, I don’t think the Democrats’ more populist agenda items are aimed solely at winning over soft Republicans. Highlighting the War on Women and fighting to raise the minimum wage can win over soft Republicans while raising the morale and enthusiasm of the base at the same time.
Particularly if the base realizes that if they stay home and don’t vote they are in effect advancing the agenda of the other side — which most assuredly will turn out to vote because it has as its get-out-the-vote mechanism talk radio and Fox News. Yes, there are conservative blogs — but it’s the radio and television “conservative political entertainment media” which has now morphed unabashedly into the party’s propaganda wing when it comes time to vote, no how much internal squabbling there is in the months before election day.
The main thing is that the Democrats’ new strategy is based on social science, not wishful thinking. It should work precisely because it has been demonstrated to work. Attack ads have been shown to have a short half-life, so running them in the spring is a stupid idea and an almost complete waste of money. Unless you get them to go viral (in a good way) on the internet, they’re horribly inefficient at reaching the voters you want to reach.
The midterms will be fought by two teams with much different playbooks. Our playbook is better.
But the Democrats’ voters could be lazier.
And there’s the rub.
Real estate is location location location.
The mid-term will be turnout turnout turnout.
If the Democrats don’t pull out all stops to that they will lose lose lose.
graphic via shutterstock.com
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.