The University of Virgnia’s Larry Sabato has proven to be one of the country’s most reliable, perceptive, and scientifically solid political analysts. In the latest edition of his must-read Crystal Ball, Sabato and his associates Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley say the GOP’s government shutdown debacle has improved Democratic prospects in the House. They’re not yet saying Democrats are poised to take over the House — but as I have noted elsewhere, the once politically unthinkable is increasingly thinkable:
We’ll save our Republican friends a recitation of all the damage they did to themselves during the recent battle over the government shutdown and the debt limit. Anyone who can read a poll knows what happened.
The shutdown kerfuffle has led to a significant improvement in the national political climate for Democrats. The House generic ballot, a national poll that measures whether those surveyed prefer a Democratic or Republican candidate in their local U.S. House race, was generally close over the summer, which was great news for Republicans: According to the Crystal Ball’s Alan Abramowitz, these generic ballot surveys will have to show a double-digit lead for the Democrats around Labor Day next year for them to get within striking distance of picking up the House. But since the shutdown, Democrats are getting closer to the kind of numbers that would put the House in play. The last nine generic ballot surveys listed on HuffPost Pollster as of Wednesday morning read as follows: D+8, D+8, D+7, D+6, D+7, D+10, D+8, D+4 and D+5 — that’s an average lead of seven points.
If the numbers look similar close to Election Day next year, Democrats would be poised for significant gains in the House, and the generic ballot would also indirectly indicate a national sentiment for retained Democratic control of the Senate.
But Democrats shouldn’t celebrate yet — not by a longshot:
That said, the election is a long ways away, and Democrats would have to net 17 seats to win a majority in the House. Another polling average, RealClearPolitics, shows Democrats with a six percentage point lead in the generic ballot. That’s not all that much different than the 5.5 point edge Democrats held in the RCP average on this exact date four years ago. Of course, back then the Democratic arrow was pointing down — that lead was gone by December 2009. Now the Democratic arrow might be pointing up, and the GOP will start to hit the panic button if their numbers stay so poor.
Sabato also notes one thing politicians who don’t perform the way the public hopes or who go over the line assume — and they’re often correct: voters can have short-memories.
Republicans hope that Americans have short memories and begin to focus on things that will help their candidates in 2014: Namely, continued sloppiness in the Obamacare rollout, a weak economy (shown again by mediocre unemployment numbers released Tuesday) and a president with a middling approval rating (Obama’s approval right now, which is mired in the mid-40s, isn’t much different than it was right before the 2010 Republican congressional wipeout). However, we’re far from sure that the Republican hopes are warranted: After all, if one argues that voter anger over the shutdown will fade, doesn’t it also stand to reason that anger over Obamacare website snafus will also fade in the 12 months before the election?
Sabato is the flip side of the Dick Morris school of political prognostication: all SERIOUS analysis and balance. And always a must-read since he has an excellent track record of outlining what is likely to happen next.
FOOTNOTE: Sabato applies the same research, analysis and balance in his new book on John F. Kennedy, Kenney’s assassination and JFK”s impact on Presidents who came after him. It will soon be reviewed on TMV and is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
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.