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fertieg58 · Informatyk

First, the GOP’s Pledge to America was a complete dud. 66 percent said they had never heard of it, and of those who had, more people said it would make them less likely to vote for the GOP (29 percent) than said it would make them more likely (23%). Compare that to the Contract With America which had similar awareness numbers but was a small net positive for Republicans (24 percent more likely, 21 percent less likely).
There’s lots of analysis going on out there regarding the apparently improving fortunes of Democrats in the generic ballot, as evidenced in?a new ABC/Wapo poll. Pundits are walking back the 60-vote pick-up predictions for Republicans that we’ve literally been hearing since February, and are now sliding the midterms back into a toss-up scenario. What gives?
Two interesting numbers from the poll might tell us some of the story.
At DKos, Jed Lewison takes a crack at it:
1. The 10-point, Mighty?GOP Generic Voter Advantage was a crock. Something screwy is going on in Gallup’s “likely voter” model, which leans R on a good day, but which is apparently picking up nothing but angry old people in the respondent pool. The media went crazy over that outlier poll, because it reinforced the prevailing “Democrats are doomed” narrative. But Republicans, who have yet to win even a single preference contest with either Democrats or President Obama, are not popular. They are simply not Democrats, which gives unhappy, weary voters someplace to go to vent their spleen. Look, the party in power is going to lose seats, and for at least the last generation, they always lose independent voters two years in. That’s not a tsunami, that’s a midterm election.
At the end of the day, the Democrats will lose some seats, but there is no narrative, except for one: if Democrats get out their vote, they’ll be fine. If not, it’s going to be a very interesting Congress…

2. Polls close. They always close. Races always tighten at the end, and this one is doing what it’s supposed to do.
3. Democrats have a lot more on their minds than the horse race. Democrats have the blessing and the curse of having a highly diverse electorate — women, especially single women, young voters, and minorities — who historically lag in voting interest in midterms, and come in late in terms of paying attention to politics. Just reality. And Democratic constituencies, who again tend to be younger, more often single, and more often minorities, have been hit harder by the recession than the older,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], white males and married white women who form the base of the GOP. Therefore, these groups are more dispirited (hence that Pew Hispanic poll) and less interested in politics. They don’t see how it has made?a difference to them. Meanwhile,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the GOP base,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], enraged that “they are being forced to pay more taxes,” they think, to help the “deadbeat” foreigners, the “spoiled” unemployed laggards, the Mosque building Muslims who hate America etc., are rarin’ to go vote.
I actually think it might be much simpler than that. I’d boil the Dems’ improving position down to three things:
Tags: 2010, 2010 elections, enthusiasm gap, midterms, Polls, the narrative
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Rebound? Or was the previous tsunami narrative a joke?
Second, and probably more importantly, President Obama’s numbers have improved since he started campaigning after Labor Day. That they’ve improved isn’t exactly a surprise, but the extent of the improvement is a bit surprising. One month ago, his net approval rating was minus 6 — 46 approve, 52 disapprove. Now it’s plus 3 — 50 approve, 47 disapprove. That’s a nine-point swing in just one month. Obviously, there’s no single reason why the race is getting closer, but when one out of ten voters improve their rating of President Obama, that’s a really big shift, and it’s no doubt part of the explanation.