Hmmmmm….:
Imagine sitting in Washington’s Verizon Center, listening blissfully to Carole King and James Taylor, thanks to a fast-thinking friend who managed to score four floor seats. For 50-somethings, it’s a nice place to be. Then, as the concert is winding down, four pages of poll tables of a just-released survey pop up in your BlackBerry. They are jaw-dropping numbers, not inconsistent with what you had been thinking — if anything more a confirmation of it. But the dramatic nature of the numbers brings the real world of politics crashing through what had been a most mellow evening.
The numbers were from the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, conducted June 17-21 among 1,000 adults by pollsters Peter Hart (a Democrat) and Bill McInturff (a Republican). Among the registered voters in the survey, Republicans led by 2 points on the generic congressional ballot test, 45 percent to 43 percent. This may not sound like a lot, given that Democrats now hold 59 percent of House seats. When this same poll was taken in June 2008, however, Democrats led by 19 points, 52 percent to 33 percent.
That drop-off should be enough to sober Democrats up, but the next set of data was even more chilling. First, keep in mind that all registered voters don’t vote even in presidential years, and that in midterm elections the turnout is about one-third less. In an attempt to ascertain who really is most likely to vote, pollsters asked registered voters, on a scale of 1 to 10, how interested they were in the November elections. Those who said either 9 or 10 added up to just over half of the registered voters, coming in at 51 percent.
Hart and McInturff then looked at the change among the most-interested voters from the same survey in 2008. Although 2010 is a “down-shifting” election, from a high-turnout presidential year to a lower-turnout midterm year, one group was more interested in November than it was in 2008: those who had voted for Republican John McCain for president. And the groups that showed the largest decline in interest? Those who voted for Barack Obama — liberals, African-Americans, self-described Democrats, moderates, those living in either the Northeast or West, and younger voters 18 to 34 years of age. These are the “Holy Mackerel” numbers.
While this may be nice. As John Hawkins points out:
Keep in mind that the GOP has gotten its behind handed to it for two straight elections. That has given the Democrats a huge cushion. We’d need to take 39 seats to take over the House. Can this be done? Yes. Will it be done? I want to say “yes,” but I have to tell you, not every factor is leaning in our favor. For example, the GOP is behind in the money game. There will undoubtedly be seats we could win in November that will be left on the table because the money’s not there for advertising. I’d also add that there’s very little that I’ve seen from the people in charge of the Republican Party in DC that gives me confidence that they can mastermind a perfect victory strategy to take advantage of their limited resources.
Not only that; but right about this moment, the G.O.P. has a complete dolt as a chairman. I mean, the man is basically handing the Democratic Party its talking points and really, really needs to go. How are the Republicans supposed to win elections like that?
Others: The Moderate Voice, , Outside the Beltway, Right Wing News, Blue Crab Boulevard, Riehl World View, and The Corner on National …