Starting With a Trend, Then Building On It
Each week, I check for Scott Rasmussen’s generic ballot polling. Each week, the story remains the same, give or take a point. This week fits into that pattern perfectly:
Republican candidates lead Democrats by eight points in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot, marking little change since the first of the year.
The new national telephone survey shows that 44% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 36% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Voter support for GOP congressional candidates is down one point from last week, while support for Democrats is down two points.
That’s a pretty substantial lead, one which suggests a difficult election cycle for the Democrats. Still, that number isn’t nearly as daunting as this statistic:
Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the GOP leads this week by a 46% to 20% margin. Support for Republicans among unaffiliateds held steady from the previous survey, but support for Democrats is down five points.
It isn’t that independents’ trust of Republicans is strong. It’s that they understand that elections are (a) essentially a binary choice and (b) about picking the better of the two options. This polling indicates that unafiliated voters still pick Republicans over Democrats at a 2:1 rate. That, too, is a trend first noticed last fall during the Christie-Corzine and McDonnell-Deeds races.
With terrorism and health care still dominating the headlines, and with unemployment staying high, it isn’t likely that trend will ebb, much less reverse, anytime soon.
In addition to the generic ballot polling, Democrats face a uphill fight in Pennsylvania, where Arlen Specter leads Joe Sestak in the Democratic primary by 15 points and with a special election looming to fill the seat vacated by John Murtha’s unexpected death.
I expect Sen. Specter to win the primary before losing to Pat Toomey in the general election. Rep. Sestak is doing the GOP a favor by continuing to run despite never beaking the 45 percent mark against Specter. According to TPMDC’s post, this hasn’t been that close of a race:
From the pollster’s analysis: “Specter’s support has ranged from 46% and 53% in the earlier polls. Incumbents who fall below 50% on a consistent basis are viewed as vulnerable, but this is the second month in a row where he’s crossed that critical line. In the five previous Rasmussen Reports polls on the race, Sestak’s support has ranged from 32% to 42%. He was most competitive in October when the numbers showed Specter with 46% of the vote and Sestak at 42%.”
The buzz making its way through political circles is that Republicans can pick off 5-6 seats in Pennsylvania. With numbers like these for Specter, that’s certainly believable. If a Republican wins the Murtha special election, that just makes that possibility that much more likely.
Based on this article, things will have to swing pretty dramatically for Democrats to have a legitimate reason for optimism. Here’s the important paragraph of the article:
With the new additions, the NRCC now has 63 candidates in its Young Guns program, which was designed to help GOP challengers develop well-organized campaigns to defeat Democratic incumbents. Thirty-three have reached “On The Radar” status, the first of a three-step process toward becoming a Young Gun, and 30 are now ranked as a “Contender.”
“These candidates are putting the pieces of a winning campaign in place by meeting the rigorous goals laid out by the Young Guns program and aggressively paving their way toward victory on Election Day,” said NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions. “The progress of these candidates is not only a testament to the Young Guns program, it is a sign of the hostile political environment that Democrats have created for themselves.”
According to this article, here are the things that the NRCC looks for in Young Guns, Contenders and On the Radar:
The Young Guns system ranks candidates in three levels from “On the Radar” to “Contender” to “Young Guns.” Candidates are named to the program by meeting individualized benchmarks set by the committee, which include developing grass-roots support, fundraising and creating a media plan. Those benchmarks become higher and more stringent with each level of the program.
In other words, people have to prove that they’re viable candidates capable of running a serious campaign. I suspect that the numbers of viable candidates will grow over the next month, especially in the aftermath of Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts.
Based on the information I’ve seen, Democratic strategists should be very worried. They should be worried about the reversal of the Democrats’ upward trend. More importantly, they should be worried that the NRCC has built on those trends.
Technorati Tags: Polling, Generic Ballot, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Pennsylvania, Primary, Arlen Specter, Recruitment, Pete Sessions, Young Guns, Contenders, NRCC, Election 2010
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
February 10th, 2010 at 8:53 am
“…(b) about picking the better of the two options.”
All too often the national has left us with the option of voting for a socialist Democrat or voting for a Republican - socialist democrat lite. To me, that is not an option.
When Republicans run as jackass lites, even in deep blue states, they get their collective donkey tails kicked. It is only when they run as fiscal AND social conservatives that they win. Not always, but more often than not.
‘Course, I wouldn’t expect the genii at national to be able to figure that out - they’re still trying to figure out how to feel the love from the MSM if they just bend a little bit. They haven’t figure out that some issues are worth standing tall and strong for.
February 10th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
And yet another “poll” from the GOP national in my mailbox yesterday.
I quit returning those a long time ago because my opinions were obviously either what they didnt want to hear, or not read anyways.
The Repubs are in the catbird seat right now with healthcare, because for all their overwhelming numbers, the Dems dont have the votes now to pass the damned thing as written. So now they are a-a-lll invited to the White House on the 25th for ice cream and cookies! Oh boy, gee whillikers, the White House!!
Talk about leading the sheep into the wolf’s den. I hope there is enough starch among the lot of them to stand to that seductive brew. I hope it, but I got my doubts.
February 10th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
Look for a couple of “Republicans” (I use that term very loosely here) to get tingles up their legs in the meeting, specifically Snowe and Collins. I don’t think either of them has ever had a spine, any more than Mr. Specter ever did.
And with the Professor-in-Chief lecturing and controlling the discussion from the git-go, there’s not much chance the Republicans present will have much effect on anything except the news reports making them look like obnoxious contrarians, exactly how the Democrats and Duh-1 want them painted. It will all be there, conveniently edited, for the whole country to see that Duh-1 was giving it his best shot.
Oh, and expect to hear “I won” again, just to make sure the elephants don’t forget who’s in charge, and to remind them again this has nothing to do with “bipartisanship.” The arrogancia will have their day here.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Of course! Sebelius has already said, they arent budging, so why the hell have a conference?
To be lectured to? To be pilloried and disemboweled at Tyburn Cross for treason?
The best thing the Repubs can do, assuming they are given equal time, is to put out a few sensible ideas, such as litigation reform, allowing interstate competition among the insurers, stuff they have already proposed that Czarina Pelosi shit canned out of hand.