Some numbers of interest
it’s purple America, the independents who voted for Democrats in the 2006 midterm election by an 18-point margin, that makes the biggest difference right now. Most House Democrats live in blue America and show little awareness that their party has a problem. However, the Democrats’ majority is built on a layer of 54 seats that the party picked up in 2006 and 2008 that are largely in purple — or even red — America. Democrats ought to keep in mind that 84 of their current House members represent districts won by President Bush in 2004 or John McCain in 2008.
A whopping 48 of those Democrats — eight more than the size of their party’s majority — are from districts that voted for both Bush and McCain. That America is very different from the Democratic base in blue America, and it sees many major issues very differently…
The 17-point advantage that Democrats enjoyed in the January Gallup Poll (when “leaners” were included) shrank to 5 points in August. Their edge on the generic congressional ballot test has vanished, according to most national polls. For three years, Democrats enjoyed high single-digit or low double-digit leads on this question — a very good indicator of which direction (and how hard) the political winds are blowing as a congressional election nears. What we are seeing is an electorate growing just as disgusted with the Democratic majority as it did with the Republican one in 2006.
People sometimes forget just how close some recent elections have been. There may be a tendency to over-interpret results in the direction one favors — certainly we have made that mistake. The electorate was willing to throw the bums out in 2006 and 2008. Maybe they’ll do so again in 2010.
However, something does appear to be different this time. We often encounter these days a real disgust with politicians of all stripes. That seems very different from the way that things were only a couple of decades ago, and we’re not sure what has caused the change.
September 19th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
I think I know what caused the change — more and more of our elected officials are acting like privileged elite and voters are just plain fed up with that. Republicans who have tried to jump on the tea bag protest are not being as warmly received as they had expected, and the current low opinion of Congress will not automatically translate into a Republican House and Senate next year. Elected officials don’t realize just how little respect American voters have for them, I don’t think. With their sense of privilege they just take it for granted we owe them the seat they hold. I sincerely hope we teach most of them that is wrong. F