Propagandist's approval rating solidly back in the 30s again

[jlmadyson]

Originally posted by: conjur
As I said, solidly in the 30s and America is turning BLUE

Blue, hahahaha, heh, once again we will see just as we saw in 2004 with all the great predictions then. The chances of the Dems taking the Senate there are none, the chances of them taking the House, slim to none and there are clear reasons for that.

Text

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: jlmadyson

Originally posted by: conjur
As I said, solidly in the 30s and America is turning BLUE

Blue, hahahaha, heh, once again we will see just as we saw in 2004 with all the great predictions then. The chances of the Dems taking the Senate there are none, the chances of them taking the House, slim to none and there are clear reasons for that.

Text

While you may be right, a 50 to 37% advantage in a generic Congressional vote poll of Democrats vs Republicans in the Congress (per your own site link) might be a change this year. Nobody (me, you, anyone else) knows what's going to happen in 2006. With that in mind however, I wouldn't run riding Bush's coattails if I were in the GOP camp (and they know it too).

 

[jlmadyson]

Originally posted by: Engineer

Originally posted by: jlmadyson

Originally posted by: conjur
As I said, solidly in the 30s and America is turning BLUE

Blue, hahahaha, heh, once again we will see just as we saw in 2004 with all the great predictions then. The chances of the Dems taking the Senate there are none, the chances of them taking the House, slim to none and there are clear reasons for that.

Text

While you may be right, a 50 to 37% advantage in a generic Congressional vote poll of Democrats vs Republicans in the Congress (per your own site link) might be a change this year. Nobody (me, you, anyone else) knows what's going to happen in 2006. With that in mind however, I wouldn't run riding Bush's coattails if I were in the GOP camp (and they know it too).

Yea, the generic polls go back to another issue I've pointed out (as Jay discusses), nevertheless, nobody does know for certain, but we shall see in due course.

Polling analysis finds GOP in the lead

 

[theeedude]

Originally posted by: jlmadyson

Originally posted by: Engineer

Originally posted by: jlmadyson

Originally posted by: conjur
As I said, solidly in the 30s and America is turning BLUE

Blue, hahahaha, heh, once again we will see just as we saw in 2004 with all the great predictions then. The chances of the Dems taking the Senate there are none, the chances of them taking the House, slim to none and there are clear reasons for that.

Text

While you may be right, a 50 to 37% advantage in a generic Congressional vote poll of Democrats vs Republicans in the Congress (per your own site link) might be a change this year. Nobody (me, you, anyone else) knows what's going to happen in 2006. With that in mind however, I wouldn't run riding Bush's coattails if I were in the GOP camp (and they know it too).

Yea, the generic polls go back to another issue I've pointed out (as Jay discusses), nevertheless, nobody does know for certain, but we shall see in due course.

Polling analysis finds GOP in the lead

Washington Times

 

[jlmadyson]

Originally posted by: senseamp

Originally posted by: jlmadyson

Originally posted by: Engineer

Originally posted by: jlmadyson

Originally posted by: conjur
As I said, solidly in the 30s and America is turning BLUE

Blue, hahahaha, heh, once again we will see just as we saw in 2004 with all the great predictions then. The chances of the Dems taking the Senate there are none, the chances of them taking the House, slim to none and there are clear reasons for that.

Text

While you may be right, a 50 to 37% advantage in a generic Congressional vote poll of Democrats vs Republicans in the Congress (per your own site link) might be a change this year. Nobody (me, you, anyone else) knows what's going to happen in 2006. With that in mind however, I wouldn't run riding Bush's coattails if I were in the GOP camp (and they know it too).

Yea, the generic polls go back to another issue I've pointed out (as Jay discusses), nevertheless, nobody does know for certain, but we shall see in due course.

Polling analysis finds GOP in the lead

Washington Times

Oh that is right times isn't your cup of tea. Plenty of the Post and NYTs to go around, here ya go then; :beer:

Democrats Struggle To Seize Opportunity

Some Democrats Are Sensing Missed Opportunities

 

[dullard]

Jlmadyson, I agree with you that Republicans do better in voting than what general polls tell you the approval ratings are. Republicans simply are more likely to vote than Democrats.

However, you do need to reconsider posting all of those dated links. Your links are dated:
[*]Feb 8, 2006
[*]Feb 27, 2006
[*]Mar 7, 2006
[*]Mar 12, 2006

What happened in the last 2-6 weeks?
[*]Ramussen poll down 6%.
[*]Fox poll down 5%.
[*]CNN poll down 3%.

Half of that ~10% boost that Republicans get over the polls has already eroded. Those articles you linked are already well out of date. No, Democrats won't have a landslide victory. But, expect them to pick up seats in both the house and senate. Things are close enough that probably one of the two will switch control (and a slight chance both will).

Edit: Of course, elections are a long ways off, anything can and will change in that time period.

 

[jlmadyson]

Originally posted by: dullard
Jlmadyson, I agree with you that Republicans do better in voting than what general polls tell you the approval ratings are. Republicans simply are more likely to vote than Democrats.

However, you do need to reconsider posting all of those dated links. Your links are dated:
[*]Feb 8, 2006
[*]Feb 27, 2006
[*]Mar 7, 2006
[*]Mar 12, 2006

What happened in the last 2-6 weeks?
[*]Ramussen poll down 6%.
[*]Fox poll down 5%.
[*]CNN poll down 3%.

Half of that ~10% boost that Republicans get over the polls has already eroded. Those articles you linked are already well out of date. No, Democrats won't have a landslide victory. But, expect them to pick up seats in both the house and senate. Things are close enough that probably one of the two will switch control (and a slight chance both will).

Edit: Of course, elections are a long ways off, anything can and will change in that time period.

That is right elections are a long way off. Further, I do expect them to possibly pick up seats in both the House and the Senate; however I do not expect them to win back either one. Trying to make some trend out of recent polls in the political spectrum is faulty at best, and at worst Presidential polling isn't the end all be all for congressional elections (as some might like to believe, especially at 7-8 months out) as clearly noted by Jay Cost in his recent article as to why the Dems may gain, but will not take the House. Conventional wisdom at this point might say sure they will take back either/or, but that is far from the case. Moreover, the predictions of Kerry winning in 2004 were flat wrong and as it stands any prediction for the Dems taking back the House and/or Senate are certainly premature at best.

There are very good reasons why they will not take back the House, congressional elections are becoming tighter and tighter. Political scientists and soon to be myself are all watching those trends quite closely. Jay Cost?s article dated 3/12 is by no means out of date and further he makes observations that do not merely rely on Presidential and generic congressional polling numbers.


Last Week?s Myths About 2006

The conventional wisdom has obviously congealed around the idea that the Republican Party is headed for trouble this November. Last week alone, I encountered nearly two dozen opinion pieces making the same argument. While I agree that the Republicans will lose seats in the House ? probably about nine ? I was also amazed at the reasons upon which so many professional pundits based their predictions. Many columnists seem downright naïve when it comes to congressional elections, content to repeat commonplace arguments without first checking if the facts fit the theories. In instance after instance, they do not. So many pundits last week were demonstrably wrong that, for the sake of sensible and prudent thinkers everywhere, a corrective is required.

Democrats Need To Unify Around Issues To Take the House; They Are Failing Because of Leadership Problems

I have two responses to this. First, even if the Democrats could rally around a set of issues, they could not take the House. The national trends do not favor it. The economy is too strong and Bush is not sufficiently unpopular. Democrats are not capable of making Bush more unpopular, and certainly not interested in weakening the economy. Further, the number of open seats does not favor it. 95% of House incumbents are running again, and the reelection rate of incumbents in the last three cycles has averaged 99%. Democrats cannot undo what is one of the most important, yet least appreciated, secular trends in American politics: the movement toward perfect incumbent retention. Further, the tight alignment of the electorate does not favor it. 93% of Republican members of Congress are in districts Bush won. What kind of issues could the Democrats put forward that could win red districts without losing blue districts?

Second, the Democrats are structurally incapable of unifying. I find it fascinating that people on both the left and the right blast the Democrats, even going so far in some instances to make moral critiques of the party leadership. The argument seems to be that the Democrats could unite around something, but due to either a lack of vision or a lack of willpower, they have been unsuccessful.

The intuition behind this is that the ?normal? state of an American political party is unification. The Democrats themselves used to be unified, so the logic goes, and their lack of unity is their principal problem and a moral failing. In actuality, nothing could be further from the truth. American political parties are generally disunited, and the Democratic Party has been particularly disunited for quite a while. FDR Democrats have been a majority party for nearly 80 years; during that time, they have been a relatively loose affiliation of individuals who are tied together sometimes by issues, sometimes by history. Prior to Roosevelt, Democrats were more united, but they were also the minority party. Today?s pundits seem to demand a kind of programmatic, comprehensive unity ? a new Democratic ideology that unites the most diverse members of the party, from San Francisco?s Nancy Pelosi to Montana?s Brian Schweitzer to Massachusett?s Ted Kennedy to Arkansas?s Mark Pryor. In other words, they want to get rid of the FDR Democratic Party, return to the William Jennings Bryan Democratic Party, but still keep majority status.

These pundits are expecting something that no individual or set of individuals can possibly deliver. The current state of the Democratic Party is not something that happened because Clinton triangulated, because Dean did not win the nomination, because Pelosi beat Steny Hoyer, or because congressional Democrats are too cozy with business interests. The current state of the Democratic Party is the product of a process that began with the events of October 29, 1929 ? and the political settlement that followed. To blame Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi for not uniting the party is ridiculous. How can you blame somebody for failing to single-handedly undo the fruits of a political alignment now in its 77th year?

The big problem is not a problem with the Democratic Party, which is operating as it has always operated. It is a problem for the Democratic Party ? the combination of the Republican Party, the alignment of the electorate and the nature of congressional elections. The GOP has, since the FDR realignment, been much more ideologically unified than the Democratic Party. For most of that period, they were a minority party. However, the electorate has slowly but surely shifted such that the GOP, still as united as ever, is now also a majority party. This has created problems for the Democrats ? as it is hard for a disunited party to outmaneuver a united one. On top of this, the Republican breakthrough of 1994 meant that the GOP now only needs to play defense to keep Congress ? and our Madisonian system is much better suited to defense than to offense.

So, Democrats ? go easy on Pelosi and Reid. Being in charge of the Democratic Party is a hard job. And, while you are at it, send a thank you note to Dick Gephardt, who did a much better job at holding the House Democrats together than he is given credit for. Further, mind the moral critiques, Republicans. If you had a caucus as diverse and unruly as the Democratic one, you would not do any better.

Republican Disunity Indicates Trouble for the GOP

Today, we see the Republicans divided on issues like immigration and spending. This division seems to be a first in the post-1994 Republican Party. Unfortunately for Democratic partisans, their own history shows that internal divisions do not reduce a party to minority status.

The FDR Democratic Party has had unity problems since before the great architect himself passed away. Why do we remember fondly President Harry Truman and not President Henry Wallace? The former was a compromise vice-presidential candidate in 1944, designed to appease the conservative wing of the party. Since Roosevelt?s final election, the party has had a major split in its electoral coalition in 7 of the last 15 presidential elections. The first came when Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats abandoned Truman in 1948. The Democrats were severely disunited in the 1960s and 1970s ? the split between the northern and southern wings of the party was the animating feature of American partisan politics during those years. It stifled Kennedy?s agenda. It utterly ruined Carter. Nixon was able to exploit it. Johnson was able to manage it. All the while ? liberal success/conservative failure, conservative success/liberal failure ? the Democrats held the House.

Contemporary Republican disagreements are nothing compared to what divided the Democrats during the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Even if they were, history shows that division has nothing to do with possession of power. The logic of congressional elections indicates this as well. Incumbents almost always win or lose by themselves. Their party label is second in the minds of the voters. The average midterm voter is not going to punish his member of Congress because the Republican Party does not agree on some issues. Sentiment toward the party does not even strongly affect midterm turnout ? as midterm voters are the habitual ones who come to the polls every year. It is only in the on-year elections ? where turnout is much greater due to the presidential contest ? that a depressed party base is a real factor.

Accordingly, the Republican Party need not unite on the issue of immigration to win over the average midterm voter. It would be helpful for Bush in the marginal district here or there to increase his standing with the party?s base, but it is a bridge too far to argue that he needs to do that to keep the House. The Democrats were able to keep Congress for many decades despite being disunited on the key national issues of the day.

I would add to this that expecting your party to always be unified is like expecting the Steelers to win every Super Bowl: as much as you might yearn for it, the rules of the game are set up to make it virtually impossible. Just as our government is divided six ways from Sunday, so are the parties that manage our government. There are state party organizations, national party organizations, local party organizations, congressional parties, state legislative parties, the party base, the party elite, the party donors, party social clubs ? the list goes on and on. There is nobody sitting atop this massive, diverse group of people with the capability of ordering them around. Given the incredible plurality of political interests in the nation, is it any wonder that the parties tend to internally disagree? Is it any wonder that they act similar to the way Madison, in Federalist #10, expected the government would act ? interest counteracting interest such that nothing is accomplished? It seems to me that the real wonder is that the Republicans have managed to have a hand in government for the last 23 of 25 years without serious disagreements coming to the surface until now.

Current ?Right Track? Poll Numbers Indicate Trouble for the GOP

The intuition behind this is that a positive right track number helps the President and his party; a negative one hurts the President and his party. The principle bit of evidence for this is 1994 ? right track was heavily negative that year, and Clinton paid the price for it.

Once again, I have two responses. First, a positive right track rating does not necessarily help a president?s party, and a negative one does not necessarily hurt it. People with good memories will recall that this was one of the big arguments that the Kerry/Edwards people made in 2004. Remember May, 2004? I sure do: ?Gallup has right track at -25! Bush is doomed unless that number goes positive!? Of course, it never did. By Election Day, right track was -9, and Bush still managed to increase his share of the vote. In 2002, Republicans won 49.2% of the House vote ? this was an increase over their share in 2000 and their largest margin since 1994. Undergirding that was a tepid +1 right track. Right track was positive prior to the 2000 election, but that should have elevated Gore. In 1998, the Democrats failed to take the House, despite the ?advantage? of right track being +25. In 1996, Gallup had right track at -26 before the election. Clinton won despite it.

Second, changes in right track/wrong track do not correspond to changes in the partisan share of the vote. In the last five cycles, an increase in the right track percentage ? which should help the party of the president ? has only corresponded to the ?correct? result twice. The other three times, right track goes in one direction, final vote totals go in the other. In other words, this statistic has been weakly correlated with final electoral outcomes for the last decade. Random guessing would work better!

So, while it is true that right track was at this level when the GOP was swept into power in 1994, it is also true that it has been an extremely poor predictor of final vote totals. The fact that it was in sync with 1994 is not compelling, given the fact that it has been out of sync ever since. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Current ?Congressional Job Approval? Poll Numbers Indicate Trouble for the GOP

Congressional job approval is also an extremely poor predictor of final vote totals ? for exactly the same reasons. Positive job approval does not help the party controlling Congress, and vice-versa; positive changes in job approval do not help the party controlling Congress, and vice-versa.

Why are congressional job approval and right track/wrong track such poor predictors? It is because voters do not view congressional elections as a referendum on the state of the nation. Congressional elections are almost always a referendum on the incumbent. When they are not, it is usually because they are Senate elections (which can sometimes, but not always, become proxies for the national debate) or elections where there is no incumbent running.

So, accordingly, voters will tell Gallup that they think the nation is on the wrong track. They will tell AP-Ipsos that they disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job. Then, in December, they will tell the University of Michigan that they voted for their incumbent member of Congress ? he or she, in their minds, is not part of the problem.

Bush?s Job Approval Will Cost Republicans the House Majority

Those who argue this are probably correct that Bush?s approval rating will be a factor. The intuition that lingers behind their assertions, however, is incorrect. Most pundits tend to assume that voters punish/reward members of Congress based upon what they think of the President. However, cross-sectional survey data indicates quite clearly that is not how voters think. Presidential job approval has an extremely complicated relationship to midterm congressional elections: individual voters do not claim that it matters, but it seems that aggregate seat changes depends in part upon it. Thus, referencing job approval minimally requires theoretical sophistication, which by and large has been lacking.

There are several major theories on congressional elections ? two of which I find to be the most compelling in the post-1994 era. One factors presidential job approval, real changes in disposable income and the extent to which a party is above its historical average. This one predicts about 11 seats to switch hands. The other one factors the extent to which a party has to defend open seats, the extent to which the President increased the party?s vote total in the previous election, and real changes in disposable income. This one predicts about 8 seats to switch hands. One uses job approval, another does not. One takes into account open seats, another does not.

Both job approval and open seats seem to me to be important, and my inclination is to split the difference between them, putting the final total at 9-10. I am further inclined to drop this number a bit once again, to 8-9, because I think that the unique distribution of congressional seats (with only 17 Republicans being in districts Bush lost in 2004) probably means that Bush?s job approval is more efficient at holding congressional seats.

Job approval, then, is not the decisive factor. It is a possible factor among five. And its effect in November is measurable ? and the measurement is that it will help cause about 9 net seats to change hands.

Current ?Generic Congressional Ballot? Numbers Indicate Trouble for the GOP

In fairness to those who assert this, the generic congressional ballot used to be a good predictor of congressional voting outcomes ? until, that is, the Republicans started winning. The generic question almost always and everywhere skews toward the Democrats. If one were to look at an archive of the 2004 polls, one would be amazed by the almost universal ?blueness? of it ? in comparison to the decidedly ?red? outcome. Among those polls spelling doom and gloom for the GOP was an LA Times poll from Spring, 2004 that had the GOP down an embarrassing 19% to the Democrats. Final result? GOP +3%. That would be a pro-Democratic skew of 22% -- or the misgauging of more than one in five voters. Yikes ? turns out it was the LA Times and not the GOP that should have been embarrassed.

If you look at the Gallup generic measure since 1994, you will see that the average poll skews toward the Democrats by an average of 6%. In 2002, the average skew was a whopping 8%. The final Gallup poll before the election has fared even worse. It has skewed toward the Democrats by 7% on average and by 10% in 2002.

Does this imply that we should correct the average generic congressional ballot poll by about 8%? Not really ? once again, the correlation between the generic result and final electoral outcomes has generally been poor in the last 10 years. A party?s improvement in the generic vote has only corresponded to an improvement in its share of the vote once. We should take this as a sign that this poll is a poor reflection of voting intentions. This makes intuitive sense. American voters are not like their British counterparts on the other side of the pond. Partisanship comes second to individual candidates. In America, your average respondent will say, ?Yeah, I want the Democrats!? in May, even in October. He will get to the ballot box in November, only recognize one name on the House ballot, recall that he likes that fellow, and vote for his Republican incumbent.

 

[conjur]

Republicans Increasingly Critical of Bush
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060403/ap_on_el_ge/republican_angst

WASHINGTON - From Iraq to deficits, from immigration to port security, some of the most pointed criticism leveled at President Bush is coming from within his own party. Republicans these days are almost sounding like perennially divided Democrats.

The rising GOP angst stems from Bush's deep slump in the polls and the growing unpopularity of the Iraq war.

But it also reflects a political reawakening as Republicans follow their own political interests in this midterm election year and as would-be 2008 presidential contenders seek ways to set themselves apart ? from each other and from Bush.

"It's open season on him. George Bush has lost trust on too many issues," said presidential historian Thomas E. Cronin of Colorado College. "We saw it happen with Johnson, we saw it with Nixon. And now, sadly, we're seeing it with Bush."

The only solace to frustrated Republicans could be that Democrats seem to be struggling themselves to come up with unified positions on Iraq and many other major issues.

"They say Democrats don't stand for anything. That's patently untrue. We do stand for anything," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., joked at a recent press dinner.

Listening to some of the recent GOP criticism, Bush has moved to reach out to Republicans in Congress. Last week, he accepted the resignation of Andrew Card as his chief of staff and gave the job to his budget director, Josh Bolten, who is popular on Capitol Hill.

Other staff changes were expected, including a possible reorganization of the White House congressional liaison office.

Bush also is doing more to keep GOP lawmakers informed, after they were blind-sided in February by the administration's support of a deal ? since abandoned ? to hand over management of six major U.S. ports to a company owned by the government of Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates.

The Senate resumes work this week on a contentious immigration bill that pits Republican against Republican.

The bill would offer an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants an opportunity for citizenship and expand guest-worker programs for an estimated 400,000 immigrants each year. The president has said such a guest worker program is central.

But many conservatives favor a more restrictive measure passed by the House last December that would make it a federal felony to live in this country illegally and calling for a wall to be built along the border with Mexico. It does not contain a guest-worker provision.

While acknowledging the difficulty faced by lawmakers, Bush told reporters in Mexico on Friday: "I expect the debate to bring dignity to America, in recognition that America is a land of immigrants."

Some conservatives contend he really isn't really one of them.

They point to Bush's immigration stance, mushrooming government spending and soaring deficits on his watch and his failed attempt to put White House lawyer Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court. Some complain about the growing cost and attempted "nation building" of wartime Iraq.

"A lot of conservatives have had reservations about him for a long time, but have been afraid to speak out for fear that it would help liberals and the Democrats," said Bruce Bartlett, a Treasury official in the Reagan administration. Such concerns are no longer very relevant, he said.

"I think there are growing misgivings about the conduct of the Iraq operation, and how that relates to a general incompetence his administration seems to have about doing basic things," said Bartlett, author of a scathing book titled, "Impostor: How George Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy."

Recent polls suggest the Republicans are losing their long-held lead over Democrats on national security.

Sectarian violence continues unabated in Iraq. The victory of Hamas militants in Palestinian elections raises questions about Bush's goal to spread democracy in the Middle East. And the administration seems short on options for keeping Iran from building nuclear weapons.

Republican leaders are still openly supportive, but they recognize there are limitations in such an overcharged political environment.

"Like any relationship, it's not going to be a honeymoon every day," says House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Some Bush supporters try to put the best face on the recent discontent.

"There have been some mistakes, but every administration makes mistakes," said veteran GOP consultant Charles Black. "The biggest problem the White House has, 90 percent of their problem, is Iraq.

"People don't see the war going well. And the president's got to keep going out virtually every day, talking about it and putting it in context. Personnel changes won't affect that. He's got to do that himself," Black said.

Yeah, going out every day and talking about Iraq is just doing wonders for him. Keep it up, George!

Although, rumors today are that McCLIEllan is soon to be replaced (probably with Bartlett). :roll:

 

[Pens1566]

Shouldn't this thread be stickied? Its been in the 30's for weeks now.

 

[arsbanned]

Originally posted by: jlmadyson

Originally posted by: dullard
Jlmadyson, I agree with you that Republicans do better in voting than what general polls tell you the approval ratings are. Republicans simply are more likely to vote than Democrats.

However, you do need to reconsider posting all of those dated links. Your links are dated:
[*]Feb 8, 2006
[*]Feb 27, 2006
[*]Mar 7, 2006
[*]Mar 12, 2006

What happened in the last 2-6 weeks?
[*]Ramussen poll down 6%.
[*]Fox poll down 5%.
[*]CNN poll down 3%.

Half of that ~10% boost that Republicans get over the polls has already eroded. Those articles you linked are already well out of date. No, Democrats won't have a landslide victory. But, expect them to pick up seats in both the house and senate. Things are close enough that probably one of the two will switch control (and a slight chance both will).

Edit: Of course, elections are a long ways off, anything can and will change in that time period.

That is right elections are a long way off. Further, I do expect them to possibly pick up seats in both the House and the Senate; however I do not expect them to win back either one. Trying to make some trend out of recent polls in the political spectrum is faulty at best, and at worst Presidential polling isn't the end all be all for congressional elections (as some might like to believe, especially at 7-8 months out) as clearly noted by Jay Cost in his recent article as to why the Dems may gain, but will not take the House. Conventional wisdom at this point might say sure they will take back either/or, but that is far from the case. Moreover, the predictions of Kerry winning in 2004 were flat wrong and as it stands any prediction for the Dems taking back the House and/or Senate are certainly premature at best.

There are very good reasons why they will not take back the House, congressional elections are becoming tighter and tighter. Political scientists and soon to be myself are all watching those trends quite closely. Jay Cost?s article dated 3/12 is by no means out of date and further he makes observations that do not merely rely on Presidential and generic congressional polling numbers.


Last Week?s Myths About 2006

The conventional wisdom has obviously congealed around the idea that the Republican Party is headed for trouble this November. Last week alone, I encountered nearly two dozen opinion pieces making the same argument. While I agree that the Republicans will lose seats in the House ? probably about nine ? I was also amazed at the reasons upon which so many professional pundits based their predictions. Many columnists seem downright naïve when it comes to congressional elections, content to repeat commonplace arguments without first checking if the facts fit the theories. In instance after instance, they do not. So many pundits last week were demonstrably wrong that, for the sake of sensible and prudent thinkers everywhere, a corrective is required.

Democrats Need To Unify Around Issues To Take the House; They Are Failing Because of Leadership Problems

I have two responses to this. First, even if the Democrats could rally around a set of issues, they could not take the House. The national trends do not favor it. The economy is too strong and Bush is not sufficiently unpopular. Democrats are not capable of making Bush more unpopular, and certainly not interested in weakening the economy. Further, the number of open seats does not favor it. 95% of House incumbents are running again, and the reelection rate of incumbents in the last three cycles has averaged 99%. Democrats cannot undo what is one of the most important, yet least appreciated, secular trends in American politics: the movement toward perfect incumbent retention. Further, the tight alignment of the electorate does not favor it. 93% of Republican members of Congress are in districts Bush won. What kind of issues could the Democrats put forward that could win red districts without losing blue districts?

Second, the Democrats are structurally incapable of unifying. I find it fascinating that people on both the left and the right blast the Democrats, even going so far in some instances to make moral critiques of the party leadership. The argument seems to be that the Democrats could unite around something, but due to either a lack of vision or a lack of willpower, they have been unsuccessful.

The intuition behind this is that the ?normal? state of an American political party is unification. The Democrats themselves used to be unified, so the logic goes, and their lack of unity is their principal problem and a moral failing. In actuality, nothing could be further from the truth. American political parties are generally disunited, and the Democratic Party has been particularly disunited for quite a while. FDR Democrats have been a majority party for nearly 80 years; during that time, they have been a relatively loose affiliation of individuals who are tied together sometimes by issues, sometimes by history. Prior to Roosevelt, Democrats were more united, but they were also the minority party. Today?s pundits seem to demand a kind of programmatic, comprehensive unity ? a new Democratic ideology that unites the most diverse members of the party, from San Francisco?s Nancy Pelosi to Montana?s Brian Schweitzer to Massachusett?s Ted Kennedy to Arkansas?s Mark Pryor. In other words, they want to get rid of the FDR Democratic Party, return to the William Jennings Bryan Democratic Party, but still keep majority status.

These pundits are expecting something that no individual or set of individuals can possibly deliver. The current state of the Democratic Party is not something that happened because Clinton triangulated, because Dean did not win the nomination, because Pelosi beat Steny Hoyer, or because congressional Democrats are too cozy with business interests. The current state of the Democratic Party is the product of a process that began with the events of October 29, 1929 ? and the political settlement that followed. To blame Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi for not uniting the party is ridiculous. How can you blame somebody for failing to single-handedly undo the fruits of a political alignment now in its 77th year?

The big problem is not a problem with the Democratic Party, which is operating as it has always operated. It is a problem for the Democratic Party ? the combination of the Republican Party, the alignment of the electorate and the nature of congressional elections. The GOP has, since the FDR realignment, been much more ideologically unified than the Democratic Party. For most of that period, they were a minority party. However, the electorate has slowly but surely shifted such that the GOP, still as united as ever, is now also a majority party. This has created problems for the Democrats ? as it is hard for a disunited party to outmaneuver a united one. On top of this, the Republican breakthrough of 1994 meant that the GOP now only needs to play defense to keep Congress ? and our Madisonian system is much better suited to defense than to offense.

So, Democrats ? go easy on Pelosi and Reid. Being in charge of the Democratic Party is a hard job. And, while you are at it, send a thank you note to Dick Gephardt, who did a much better job at holding the House Democrats together than he is given credit for. Further, mind the moral critiques, Republicans. If you had a caucus as diverse and unruly as the Democratic one, you would not do any better.

Republican Disunity Indicates Trouble for the GOP

Today, we see the Republicans divided on issues like immigration and spending. This division seems to be a first in the post-1994 Republican Party. Unfortunately for Democratic partisans, their own history shows that internal divisions do not reduce a party to minority status.

The FDR Democratic Party has had unity problems since before the great architect himself passed away. Why do we remember fondly President Harry Truman and not President Henry Wallace? The former was a compromise vice-presidential candidate in 1944, designed to appease the conservative wing of the party. Since Roosevelt?s final election, the party has had a major split in its electoral coalition in 7 of the last 15 presidential elections. The first came when Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats abandoned Truman in 1948. The Democrats were severely disunited in the 1960s and 1970s ? the split between the northern and southern wings of the party was the animating feature of American partisan politics during those years. It stifled Kennedy?s agenda. It utterly ruined Carter. Nixon was able to exploit it. Johnson was able to manage it. All the while ? liberal success/conservative failure, conservative success/liberal failure ? the Democrats held the House.

Contemporary Republican disagreements are nothing compared to what divided the Democrats during the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Even if they were, history shows that division has nothing to do with possession of power. The logic of congressional elections indicates this as well. Incumbents almost always win or lose by themselves. Their party label is second in the minds of the voters. The average midterm voter is not going to punish his member of Congress because the Republican Party does not agree on some issues. Sentiment toward the party does not even strongly affect midterm turnout ? as midterm voters are the habitual ones who come to the polls every year. It is only in the on-year elections ? where turnout is much greater due to the presidential contest ? that a depressed party base is a real factor.

Accordingly, the Republican Party need not unite on the issue of immigration to win over the average midterm voter. It would be helpful for Bush in the marginal district here or there to increase his standing with the party?s base, but it is a bridge too far to argue that he needs to do that to keep the House. The Democrats were able to keep Congress for many decades despite being disunited on the key national issues of the day.

I would add to this that expecting your party to always be unified is like expecting the Steelers to win every Super Bowl: as much as you might yearn for it, the rules of the game are set up to make it virtually impossible. Just as our government is divided six ways from Sunday, so are the parties that manage our government. There are state party organizations, national party organizations, local party organizations, congressional parties, state legislative parties, the party base, the party elite, the party donors, party social clubs ? the list goes on and on. There is nobody sitting atop this massive, diverse group of people with the capability of ordering them around. Given the incredible plurality of political interests in the nation, is it any wonder that the parties tend to internally disagree? Is it any wonder that they act similar to the way Madison, in Federalist #10, expected the government would act ? interest counteracting interest such that nothing is accomplished? It seems to me that the real wonder is that the Republicans have managed to have a hand in government for the last 23 of 25 years without serious disagreements coming to the surface until now.

Current ?Right Track? Poll Numbers Indicate Trouble for the GOP

The intuition behind this is that a positive right track number helps the President and his party; a negative one hurts the President and his party. The principle bit of evidence for this is 1994 ? right track was heavily negative that year, and Clinton paid the price for it.

Once again, I have two responses. First, a positive right track rating does not necessarily help a president?s party, and a negative one does not necessarily hurt it. People with good memories will recall that this was one of the big arguments that the Kerry/Edwards people made in 2004. Remember May, 2004? I sure do: ?Gallup has right track at -25! Bush is doomed unless that number goes positive!? Of course, it never did. By Election Day, right track was -9, and Bush still managed to increase his share of the vote. In 2002, Republicans won 49.2% of the House vote ? this was an increase over their share in 2000 and their largest margin since 1994. Undergirding that was a tepid +1 right track. Right track was positive prior to the 2000 election, but that should have elevated Gore. In 1998, the Democrats failed to take the House, despite the ?advantage? of right track being +25. In 1996, Gallup had right track at -26 before the election. Clinton won despite it.

Second, changes in right track/wrong track do not correspond to changes in the partisan share of the vote. In the last five cycles, an increase in the right track percentage ? which should help the party of the president ? has only corresponded to the ?correct? result twice. The other three times, right track goes in one direction, final vote totals go in the other. In other words, this statistic has been weakly correlated with final electoral outcomes for the last decade. Random guessing would work better!

So, while it is true that right track was at this level when the GOP was swept into power in 1994, it is also true that it has been an extremely poor predictor of final vote totals. The fact that it was in sync with 1994 is not compelling, given the fact that it has been out of sync ever since. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Current ?Congressional Job Approval? Poll Numbers Indicate Trouble for the GOP

Congressional job approval is also an extremely poor predictor of final vote totals ? for exactly the same reasons. Positive job approval does not help the party controlling Congress, and vice-versa; positive changes in job approval do not help the party controlling Congress, and vice-versa.

Why are congressional job approval and right track/wrong track such poor predictors? It is because voters do not view congressional elections as a referendum on the state of the nation. Congressional elections are almost always a referendum on the incumbent. When they are not, it is usually because they are Senate elections (which can sometimes, but not always, become proxies for the national debate) or elections where there is no incumbent running.

So, accordingly, voters will tell Gallup that they think the nation is on the wrong track. They will tell AP-Ipsos that they disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job. Then, in December, they will tell the University of Michigan that they voted for their incumbent member of Congress ? he or she, in their minds, is not part of the problem.

Bush?s Job Approval Will Cost Republicans the House Majority

Those who argue this are probably correct that Bush?s approval rating will be a factor. The intuition that lingers behind their assertions, however, is incorrect. Most pundits tend to assume that voters punish/reward members of Congress based upon what they think of the President. However, cross-sectional survey data indicates quite clearly that is not how voters think. Presidential job approval has an extremely complicated relationship to midterm congressional elections: individual voters do not claim that it matters, but it seems that aggregate seat changes depends in part upon it. Thus, referencing job approval minimally requires theoretical sophistication, which by and large has been lacking.

There are several major theories on congressional elections ? two of which I find to be the most compelling in the post-1994 era. One factors presidential job approval, real changes in disposable income and the extent to which a party is above its historical average. This one predicts about 11 seats to switch hands. The other one factors the extent to which a party has to defend open seats, the extent to which the President increased the party?s vote total in the previous election, and real changes in disposable income. This one predicts about 8 seats to switch hands. One uses job approval, another does not. One takes into account open seats, another does not.

Both job approval and open seats seem to me to be important, and my inclination is to split the difference between them, putting the final total at 9-10. I am further inclined to drop this number a bit once again, to 8-9, because I think that the unique distribution of congressional seats (with only 17 Republicans being in districts Bush lost in 2004) probably means that Bush?s job approval is more efficient at holding congressional seats.

Job approval, then, is not the decisive factor. It is a possible factor among five. And its effect in November is measurable ? and the measurement is that it will help cause about 9 net seats to change hands.

Current ?Generic Congressional Ballot? Numbers Indicate Trouble for the GOP

In fairness to those who assert this, the generic congressional ballot used to be a good predictor of congressional voting outcomes ? until, that is, the Republicans started winning. The generic question almost always and everywhere skews toward the Democrats. If one were to look at an archive of the 2004 polls, one would be amazed by the almost universal ?blueness? of it ? in comparison to the decidedly ?red? outcome. Among those polls spelling doom and gloom for the GOP was an LA Times poll from Spring, 2004 that had the GOP down an embarrassing 19% to the Democrats. Final result? GOP +3%. That would be a pro-Democratic skew of 22% -- or the misgauging of more than one in five voters. Yikes ? turns out it was the LA Times and not the GOP that should have been embarrassed.

If you look at the Gallup generic measure since 1994, you will see that the average poll skews toward the Democrats by an average of 6%. In 2002, the average skew was a whopping 8%. The final Gallup poll before the election has fared even worse. It has skewed toward the Democrats by 7% on average and by 10% in 2002.

Does this imply that we should correct the average generic congressional ballot poll by about 8%? Not really ? once again, the correlation between the generic result and final electoral outcomes has generally been poor in the last 10 years. A party?s improvement in the generic vote has only corresponded to an improvement in its share of the vote once. We should take this as a sign that this poll is a poor reflection of voting intentions. This makes intuitive sense. American voters are not like their British counterparts on the other side of the pond. Partisanship comes second to individual candidates. In America, your average respondent will say, ?Yeah, I want the Democrats!? in May, even in October. He will get to the ballot box in November, only recognize one name on the House ballot, recall that he likes that fellow, and vote for his Republican incumbent.

So the Republicans are going to pick up seats in the coming election?

OK.

 

[jlmadyson]

Originally posted by: arsbanned

Originally posted by: jlmadyson

Originally posted by: dullard
Jlmadyson, I agree with you that Republicans do better in voting than what general polls tell you the approval ratings are. Republicans simply are more likely to vote than Democrats.

However, you do need to reconsider posting all of those dated links. Your links are dated:
[*]Feb 8, 2006
[*]Feb 27, 2006
[*]Mar 7, 2006
[*]Mar 12, 2006

What happened in the last 2-6 weeks?
[*]Ramussen poll down 6%.
[*]Fox poll down 5%.
[*]CNN poll down 3%.

Half of that ~10% boost that Republicans get over the polls has already eroded. Those articles you linked are already well out of date. No, Democrats won't have a landslide victory. But, expect them to pick up seats in both the house and senate. Things are close enough that probably one of the two will switch control (and a slight chance both will).

Edit: Of course, elections are a long ways off, anything can and will change in that time period.

That is right elections are a long way off. Further, I do expect them to possibly pick up seats in both the House and the Senate; however I do not expect them to win back either one. Trying to make some trend out of recent polls in the political spectrum is faulty at best, and at worst Presidential polling isn't the end all be all for congressional elections (as some might like to believe, especially at 7-8 months out) as clearly noted by Jay Cost in his recent article as to why the Dems may gain, but will not take the House. Conventional wisdom at this point might say sure they will take back either/or, but that is far from the case. Moreover, the predictions of Kerry winning in 2004 were flat wrong and as it stands any prediction for the Dems taking back the House and/or Senate are certainly premature at best.

There are very good reasons why they will not take back the House, congressional elections are becoming tighter and tighter. Political scientists and soon to be myself are all watching those trends quite closely. Jay Cost?s article dated 3/12 is by no means out of date and further he makes observations that do not merely rely on Presidential and generic congressional polling numbers.


Last Week?s Myths About 2006

The conventional wisdom has obviously congealed around the idea that the Republican Party is headed for trouble this November. Last week alone, I encountered nearly two dozen opinion pieces making the same argument. While I agree that the Republicans will lose seats in the House ? probably about nine ? I was also amazed at the reasons upon which so many professional pundits based their predictions. Many columnists seem downright naïve when it comes to congressional elections, content to repeat commonplace arguments without first checking if the facts fit the theories. In instance after instance, they do not. So many pundits last week were demonstrably wrong that, for the sake of sensible and prudent thinkers everywhere, a corrective is required.

Democrats Need To Unify Around Issues To Take the House; They Are Failing Because of Leadership Problems

I have two responses to this. First, even if the Democrats could rally around a set of issues, they could not take the House. The national trends do not favor it. The economy is too strong and Bush is not sufficiently unpopular. Democrats are not capable of making Bush more unpopular, and certainly not interested in weakening the economy. Further, the number of open seats does not favor it. 95% of House incumbents are running again, and the reelection rate of incumbents in the last three cycles has averaged 99%. Democrats cannot undo what is one of the most important, yet least appreciated, secular trends in American politics: the movement toward perfect incumbent retention. Further, the tight alignment of the electorate does not favor it. 93% of Republican members of Congress are in districts Bush won. What kind of issues could the Democrats put forward that could win red districts without losing blue districts?

Second, the Democrats are structurally incapable of unifying. I find it fascinating that people on both the left and the right blast the Democrats, even going so far in some instances to make moral critiques of the party leadership. The argument seems to be that the Democrats could unite around something, but due to either a lack of vision or a lack of willpower, they have been unsuccessful.

The intuition behind this is that the ?normal? state of an American political party is unification. The Democrats themselves used to be unified, so the logic goes, and their lack of unity is their principal problem and a moral failing. In actuality, nothing could be further from the truth. American political parties are generally disunited, and the Democratic Party has been particularly disunited for quite a while. FDR Democrats have been a majority party for nearly 80 years; during that time, they have been a relatively loose affiliation of individuals who are tied together sometimes by issues, sometimes by history. Prior to Roosevelt, Democrats were more united, but they were also the minority party. Today?s pundits seem to demand a kind of programmatic, comprehensive unity ? a new Democratic ideology that unites the most diverse members of the party, from San Francisco?s Nancy Pelosi to Montana?s Brian Schweitzer to Massachusett?s Ted Kennedy to Arkansas?s Mark Pryor. In other words, they want to get rid of the FDR Democratic Party, return to the William Jennings Bryan Democratic Party, but still keep majority status.

These pundits are expecting something that no individual or set of individuals can possibly deliver. The current state of the Democratic Party is not something that happened because Clinton triangulated, because Dean did not win the nomination, because Pelosi beat Steny Hoyer, or because congressional Democrats are too cozy with business interests. The current state of the Democratic Party is the product of a process that began with the events of October 29, 1929 ? and the political settlement that followed. To blame Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi for not uniting the party is ridiculous. How can you blame somebody for failing to single-handedly undo the fruits of a political alignment now in its 77th year?

The big problem is not a problem with the Democratic Party, which is operating as it has always operated. It is a problem for the Democratic Party ? the combination of the Republican Party, the alignment of the electorate and the nature of congressional elections. The GOP has, since the FDR realignment, been much more ideologically unified than the Democratic Party. For most of that period, they were a minority party. However, the electorate has slowly but surely shifted such that the GOP, still as united as ever, is now also a majority party. This has created problems for the Democrats ? as it is hard for a disunited party to outmaneuver a united one. On top of this, the Republican breakthrough of 1994 meant that the GOP now only needs to play defense to keep Congress ? and our Madisonian system is much better suited to defense than to offense.

So, Democrats ? go easy on Pelosi and Reid. Being in charge of the Democratic Party is a hard job. And, while you are at it, send a thank you note to Dick Gephardt, who did a much better job at holding the House Democrats together than he is given credit for. Further, mind the moral critiques, Republicans. If you had a caucus as diverse and unruly as the Democratic one, you would not do any better.

Republican Disunity Indicates Trouble for the GOP

Today, we see the Republicans divided on issues like immigration and spending. This division seems to be a first in the post-1994 Republican Party. Unfortunately for Democratic partisans, their own history shows that internal divisions do not reduce a party to minority status.

The FDR Democratic Party has had unity problems since before the great architect himself passed away. Why do we remember fondly President Harry Truman and not President Henry Wallace? The former was a compromise vice-presidential candidate in 1944, designed to appease the conservative wing of the party. Since Roosevelt?s final election, the party has had a major split in its electoral coalition in 7 of the last 15 presidential elections. The first came when Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats abandoned Truman in 1948. The Democrats were severely disunited in the 1960s and 1970s ? the split between the northern and southern wings of the party was the animating feature of American partisan politics during those years. It stifled Kennedy?s agenda. It utterly ruined Carter. Nixon was able to exploit it. Johnson was able to manage it. All the while ? liberal success/conservative failure, conservative success/liberal failure ? the Democrats held the House.

Contemporary Republican disagreements are nothing compared to what divided the Democrats during the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Even if they were, history shows that division has nothing to do with possession of power. The logic of congressional elections indicates this as well. Incumbents almost always win or lose by themselves. Their party label is second in the minds of the voters. The average midterm voter is not going to punish his member of Congress because the Republican Party does not agree on some issues. Sentiment toward the party does not even strongly affect midterm turnout ? as midterm voters are the habitual ones who come to the polls every year. It is only in the on-year elections ? where turnout is much greater due to the presidential contest ? that a depressed party base is a real factor.

Accordingly, the Republican Party need not unite on the issue of immigration to win over the average midterm voter. It would be helpful for Bush in the marginal district here or there to increase his standing with the party?s base, but it is a bridge too far to argue that he needs to do that to keep the House. The Democrats were able to keep Congress for many decades despite being disunited on the key national issues of the day.

I would add to this that expecting your party to always be unified is like expecting the Steelers to win every Super Bowl: as much as you might yearn for it, the rules of the game are set up to make it virtually impossible. Just as our government is divided six ways from Sunday, so are the parties that manage our government. There are state party organizations, national party organizations, local party organizations, congressional parties, state legislative parties, the party base, the party elite, the party donors, party social clubs ? the list goes on and on. There is nobody sitting atop this massive, diverse group of people with the capability of ordering them around. Given the incredible plurality of political interests in the nation, is it any wonder that the parties tend to internally disagree? Is it any wonder that they act similar to the way Madison, in Federalist #10, expected the government would act ? interest counteracting interest such that nothing is accomplished? It seems to me that the real wonder is that the Republicans have managed to have a hand in government for the last 23 of 25 years without serious disagreements coming to the surface until now.

Current ?Right Track? Poll Numbers Indicate Trouble for the GOP

The intuition behind this is that a positive right track number helps the President and his party; a negative one hurts the President and his party. The principle bit of evidence for this is 1994 ? right track was heavily negative that year, and Clinton paid the price for it.

Once again, I have two responses. First, a positive right track rating does not necessarily help a president?s party, and a negative one does not necessarily hurt it. People with good memories will recall that this was one of the big arguments that the Kerry/Edwards people made in 2004. Remember May, 2004? I sure do: ?Gallup has right track at -25! Bush is doomed unless that number goes positive!? Of course, it never did. By Election Day, right track was -9, and Bush still managed to increase his share of the vote. In 2002, Republicans won 49.2% of the House vote ? this was an increase over their share in 2000 and their largest margin since 1994. Undergirding that was a tepid +1 right track. Right track was positive prior to the 2000 election, but that should have elevated Gore. In 1998, the Democrats failed to take the House, despite the ?advantage? of right track being +25. In 1996, Gallup had right track at -26 before the election. Clinton won despite it.

Second, changes in right track/wrong track do not correspond to changes in the partisan share of the vote. In the last five cycles, an increase in the right track percentage ? which should help the party of the president ? has only corresponded to the ?correct? result twice. The other three times, right track goes in one direction, final vote totals go in the other. In other words, this statistic has been weakly correlated with final electoral outcomes for the last decade. Random guessing would work better!

So, while it is true that right track was at this level when the GOP was swept into power in 1994, it is also true that it has been an extremely poor predictor of final vote totals. The fact that it was in sync with 1994 is not compelling, given the fact that it has been out of sync ever since. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Current ?Congressional Job Approval? Poll Numbers Indicate Trouble for the GOP

Congressional job approval is also an extremely poor predictor of final vote totals ? for exactly the same reasons. Positive job approval does not help the party controlling Congress, and vice-versa; positive changes in job approval do not help the party controlling Congress, and vice-versa.

Why are congressional job approval and right track/wrong track such poor predictors? It is because voters do not view congressional elections as a referendum on the state of the nation. Congressional elections are almost always a referendum on the incumbent. When they are not, it is usually because they are Senate elections (which can sometimes, but not always, become proxies for the national debate) or elections where there is no incumbent running.

So, accordingly, voters will tell Gallup that they think the nation is on the wrong track. They will tell AP-Ipsos that they disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job. Then, in December, they will tell the University of Michigan that they voted for their incumbent member of Congress ? he or she, in their minds, is not part of the problem.

Bush?s Job Approval Will Cost Republicans the House Majority

Those who argue this are probably correct that Bush?s approval rating will be a factor. The intuition that lingers behind their assertions, however, is incorrect. Most pundits tend to assume that voters punish/reward members of Congress based upon what they think of the President. However, cross-sectional survey data indicates quite clearly that is not how voters think. Presidential job approval has an extremely complicated relationship to midterm congressional elections: individual voters do not claim that it matters, but it seems that aggregate seat changes depends in part upon it. Thus, referencing job approval minimally requires theoretical sophistication, which by and large has been lacking.

There are several major theories on congressional elections ? two of which I find to be the most compelling in the post-1994 era. One factors presidential job approval, real changes in disposable income and the extent to which a party is above its historical average. This one predicts about 11 seats to switch hands. The other one factors the extent to which a party has to defend open seats, the extent to which the President increased the party?s vote total in the previous election, and real changes in disposable income. This one predicts about 8 seats to switch hands. One uses job approval, another does not. One takes into account open seats, another does not.

Both job approval and open seats seem to me to be important, and my inclination is to split the difference between them, putting the final total at 9-10. I am further inclined to drop this number a bit once again, to 8-9, because I think that the unique distribution of congressional seats (with only 17 Republicans being in districts Bush lost in 2004) probably means that Bush?s job approval is more efficient at holding congressional seats.

Job approval, then, is not the decisive factor. It is a possible factor among five. And its effect in November is measurable ? and the measurement is that it will help cause about 9 net seats to change hands.

Current ?Generic Congressional Ballot? Numbers Indicate Trouble for the GOP

In fairness to those who assert this, the generic congressional ballot used to be a good predictor of congressional voting outcomes ? until, that is, the Republicans started winning. The generic question almost always and everywhere skews toward the Democrats. If one were to look at an archive of the 2004 polls, one would be amazed by the almost universal ?blueness? of it ? in comparison to the decidedly ?red? outcome. Among those polls spelling doom and gloom for the GOP was an LA Times poll from Spring, 2004 that had the GOP down an embarrassing 19% to the Democrats. Final result? GOP +3%. That would be a pro-Democratic skew of 22% -- or the misgauging of more than one in five voters. Yikes ? turns out it was the LA Times and not the GOP that should have been embarrassed.

If you look at the Gallup generic measure since 1994, you will see that the average poll skews toward the Democrats by an average of 6%. In 2002, the average skew was a whopping 8%. The final Gallup poll before the election has fared even worse. It has skewed toward the Democrats by 7% on average and by 10% in 2002.

Does this imply that we should correct the average generic congressional ballot poll by about 8%? Not really ? once again, the correlation between the generic result and final electoral outcomes has generally been poor in the last 10 years. A party?s improvement in the generic vote has only corresponded to an improvement in its share of the vote once. We should take this as a sign that this poll is a poor reflection of voting intentions. This makes intuitive sense. American voters are not like their British counterparts on the other side of the pond. Partisanship comes second to individual candidates. In America, your average respondent will say, ?Yeah, I want the Democrats!? in May, even in October. He will get to the ballot box in November, only recognize one name on the House ballot, recall that he likes that fellow, and vote for his Republican incumbent.

So the Republicans are going to pick up seats in the coming election?

OK.

Perhaps, actually try reading next time, does wonders.

 

[Lemon law]

GWB decisions on public policy are catching up with him. To a certain extent the dems stampeaded to Kerry on 04 ---and lost---now about seven months away from election 06, Bush' poll number are mired in the mid thirties where it has stagnated for some time. And this is basically free floating anxieties about the competence of Bush. Likely if nothing major bad happens the repubs will hold on to one or more wings of congress in 06-------but the list of what can go wrong is extremely long---and the ability of Bush to manage a major problem is so limited------I have to guess in the seven remaining months something will major may well happen.

If Bush finds himself with approval numbers in the mid twenties around September, Republicans in congress may find themselves on the endangered species list. Already they must soon decide to run with Bush of away from him-----there seems no option for him to take the Nixon approach and talk about the new Nixon.-------if one major crisis or scandal comes in the next six months-------GWB and his approval rating may well be toast.

Six months is an enternity in politics. Only time and events will tell.

 

[Steeplerot]

No way, cons will always use guns god and gays and now they suddenly have their panties in a wad after 5 years of sitting with their thumb up their ass against immigration stirring up the xenophobe base, (and winning over new ones).

Rove will make sure the ball is in reps court once again as they can frame the debate.

cons are going to be very strong still until the media machine is broken, now how long america as we know it will last is pretty up for debate though.

I see minimal at best gains from dems, why vote for rep lite when you can get the whole godfearing brown person killing in mideast and deporting here package all in one, no filler.

If the dems are gonna refuse to be an opposition party then sooner or later a real third party one will show up, and I am sure after they have had plenty of time to screw us over with corruption for another decade the left will come up with a doozy, How about a loud and proud mainstream socialist democratic party? Just about every other developed nation has one, we don't? That would drive then batsh1t crazy but after rampant corrupt capitalism run amok for so long -blowback is a b1tch.

Push that pendulum as far right as you can cons while you are in the spotlight and have your few decades of fame, Go ahead, jump into bed with the craziest christian fundamentalists, its gonna come back and smack them upside the head, and it will be their own fault that their right wing paranoid fantasies of a socialist party come true one day.
It has already begun in the rest of north and south america as they neglect our sphere of influence and there core conservative values to step into the realm of far right-wing extremism bordering of theoracy and fascism to go on a glut of corporate corruption.

 

[conjur]

04/06/06 FOX Poll: Views on Illegal Immigration, Bush Job Rating Down
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,190857,00.html

...the new poll finds that the president's job approval rating has slipped a couple of points and currently matches an earlier low recorded back in November. Today, 36 percent of Americans say they approve of the job George W. Bush is doing as president and 53 percent disapprove.

Approval among Republicans has dropped from consistently being above 80 percent to 74 percent approval today. And approval among Democrats is in the single digits, as fewer than one in 10 approve (8 percent).

Still dropping.

 

[conjur]

Bush, GOP Approval Ratings Find New Lows (New AP-Ipsos Poll)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060407/ap_on_el_ge/troubled_republicans_4

WASHINGTON -
President Bush's approval ratings hit a series of new lows in an AP-Ipsos poll that also shows Republicans surrendering their advantage on national security ? grim election-year news for a party struggling to stay in power.

...

Just 36 percent of the public approves of Bush's job performance, his lowest-ever rating in AP-Ipsos polling.

...

"These numbers are scary. We've lost every advantage we've ever had," GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio said. "The good news is Democrats don't have much of a plan. The bad news is they may not need one."

...

? Only 40 percent of the public approves of Bush's performance on foreign policy and the war on terror, another low-water mark for his presidency. That's down 9 points from a year ago. Just before the 2002 election, 64 percent of registered voters backed Bush on terror and foreign policy.

? Just 35 percent of the public approves of Bush's handling of Iraq, his lowest in AP-Ipsos polling.

"He's in over his head," said Diane Heller, 65, a Pleasant Valley, N.Y., real estate broker and independent voter.

By a 49-33 margin, the public favors Democrats over Republicans when asked which party should control Congress.

That 16-point Democratic advantage is the largest the party has enjoyed in AP-Ipsos polling.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Any bets if this jackload will make it into the 20's?

 

[Engineer]

Well, Bush has joined the 30's (39%) for the first time in Rasmussen's poll. Now in the 30's in EVERY poll!

Sunday April 16, 2006--Thirty-nine percent (39%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. That's the lowest level of approval ever measured by Rasmussen Reports.

Sixty percent (60%) disapprove of Bush's job performance, the highest level ever recorded.

The President earns approval from 49% of entrepreneurs, 38% of private sector workers and 37% of government employees.

 

[CessnaFlyer]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Think this needs to be a sticky so the liberal circle jerk can be confined.

---

I think you need a week elsewhere to consider improving your forum courtesy.

AnandTech Moderator

LOL

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Engineer
Well, Bush has joined the 30's (39%) for the first time in Rasmussen's poll. Now in the 30's in EVERY poll!

Sunday April 16, 2006--Thirty-nine percent (39%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. That's the lowest level of approval ever measured by Rasmussen Reports.

Sixty percent (60%) disapprove of Bush's job performance, the highest level ever recorded.

The President earns approval from 49% of entrepreneurs, 38% of private sector workers and 37% of government employees.

Why does it take so long for the Pollsters to sync up???

 

[trenchfoot]

i can't believe that rove is not up and on to something and that bush's current poll numbers is a sign that rove has finally lost control over the situation. he's got to have a hole card.

seems to me the main propaganda push for the '06 elections from the rnc is yet to come and when it does (say, 4th of july?), i think it will come in the form of which will make the controversy-plagued '00 & '04 elections look like a convention of blind deaf mutes. or, are they saving the big bang for '08?

the pnac crew have done very well for themselves, which only heightens their desire to tighten their grip on "their personal line of infinite credit".

would be really interesting to sit in on a few strat sessions concerning what to make of bush's poll #'s from both national parties right about now.

 

[catnap1972]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Engineer
Well, Bush has joined the 30's (39%) for the first time in Rasmussen's poll. Now in the 30's in EVERY poll!

Sunday April 16, 2006--Thirty-nine percent (39%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. That's the lowest level of approval ever measured by Rasmussen Reports.

Sixty percent (60%) disapprove of Bush's job performance, the highest level ever recorded.

The President earns approval from 49% of entrepreneurs, 38% of private sector workers and 37% of government employees.

Why does it take so long for the Pollsters to sync up???

Rasmussen = GOP shill

 

[Steeplerot]

Originally posted by: tweaker2
i can't believe that rove is not up and on to something and that bush's current poll numbers is a sign that rove has finally lost control over the situation. he's got to have a hole card.

seems to me the main propaganda push for the '06 elections from the rnc is yet to come and when it does (say, 4th of july?), i think it will come in the form of which will make the controversy-plagued '00 & '04 elections look like a convention of blind deaf mutes. or, are they saving the big bang for '08?

the pnac crew have done very well for themselves, which only heightens their desire to tighten their grip on "their personal line of infinite credit".

would be really interesting to sit in on a few strat sessions concerning what to make of bush's poll #'s from both national parties right about now.

Enter the immigration debate. They have been cooking this turkey for a year or so now.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Why does it take so long for the Pollsters to sync up???

Most pollsters measure the general American population's approval. Rasmussen measures American voter's approval. There is a major difference between the two groups. Republicans are simply far more likely to vote. Students (who are generally democrats) are far less likely to vote. Thus, Rasmussen tends to be several percentage points higher than the other polls.

Although in this case, I think Rasmussen is still showing 42% +- 3% approval. Bush has been wavering between 40% and 45% for weeks at Rasmussen. April 16th thus, may just be that random statistical variation that sometimes gives a -3% reading. Time will tell though if it stays below 40%. If Bush was truely 39% at Rasmussen, we'd get stable readings between 36% and 42%.

 

[conjur]

Gallup: 57% Say U.S. Won't Win in Iraq
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp..._display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002345019

NEW YORK A report on a new Gallup poll released today shows that President Bush approval rating on his handling of Iraq is now at 32% -- tied for the lowest rating Gallup has measured.

The survey, taken April 7-9, also shows that 57% of Americans think the United States will not win in Iraq.

In a surprise, the new poll found that 44% of Republicans now back withdrawing some or all troops from Iraq. The number for all Americans, 64%, is higher, but the fact that better than 4 in 10 Republicans back this idea is notable. Indepedents are tracking much closer to Democrats on all issues related to Iraq.

In another finding, 57% of Americans say it was a mistake to send troops to Iraq, while 42% say it was not. Since December 2005, either a plurality or majority of Americans have said it was a mistake.

 

[catnap1972]

Originally posted by: conjur
Gallup: 57% Say U.S. Won't Win in Iraq

Anti American SCUM I tell ya!