I don’t put a lot of trust or faith in polls this far out from an election, but Democrats cannot be comforted by a spate of recent polls that show them losing ground to the Republicans. The results from Gallup are most troubling.
A Gallup poll released today gives the Republicans a 48 percent to 44 percent edge over Democrats in a generic congressional ballot if the 2010 elections were held today. The Republicans have been inching closer to the lead after trailing the Democrats by six points in a similar poll conducted last July.
“Over the course of the year, independents’ preference for the Republican candidate in their districts has grown,” Gallup writes in the press release.
The reporting on these polls is generally dreadful. Rarely do we see any analysis of what is causing this erosion in support. Most often, we hear that independents are turning to the GOP, but that ignores that the ranks of independents have been swollen by the exodus of former Republicans. The pool of independents is more conservative because the growth in independents has come mainly at the Republicans’ expense.
The most recent Research2000/Daily Kos poll shows the Democrats still clinging to a 35%-30% lead in the congressional generic ballot question, with independents breaking to the Dems 19%-18%. The same poll from late July, showed the Democrats leading 39%-29% overall, and 29%-19% among independents. Both polls showed Democrats preferring more Democrats in Congress by an 80%-5% margin. Back in July, Republicans wanted more Republicans in Congress by a 90%-5% margin, but that has slipped to a 82%-5% spread in this week’s poll. What I think this shows is that a lot of the movement we’re seeing is deceptive.
The Republicans have been losing ground on the Party ID question all year long, most precipitously in the July-August period of maximum teabagging.
In many polls, the GOP has reached historic lows, with the movement mainly going to either ‘independent’ or ‘undecided.’ It’s very clear that the GOP is effectively purging their ranks of moderates, and that is making the independent and undecided pools larger and more conservative. The Democratic pool has remained fairly flat. So, while we need not lose any sleep over a rightward drift in independent opinion, we do have to worry about the Democrats’ failure to win over any of these disaffected Republicans, and we have to worry about differential enthusiasm among the respective party bases. The turnout model of the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races would be a disaster if repeated in the midterms.
Despite activist grumbling, there isn’t much evidence in the polling that Democrats are turning against the party or the president. Rather, there is plenty of evidence that the GOP is doing lasting damage to itself with their extremism. But that isn’t translating into bad polling numbers for individual Republican candidates, and it didn’t translate into good outcomes in this month’s elections.
Getting Democrats excited is part of the solution. But, capturing some of the disaffected Republican vote is another. Since these two goals are hard to reconcile, it’s no wonder the party on Capitol Hill seems paralyzed over health care, climate, immigration, and foreign policy.
