Tag: carville greenberg memo
Headline Writers Must Have Worked Overtime On New ABC News/Washington Post Poll

Headline Writers Must Have Worked Overtime On New ABC News/Washington Post Poll

James Carville called me early this morning to talk about the new ABC News/Washington Post poll, reported under the banner, “Poll: Democrats’ advantage on key issues is not translating to a midterm-election edge.”

The headline writers must have worked overtime to get to the interpretation that Democrats cannot translate the current mood into election gains.

This is probably the worst example yet of the official narrative requiring great contortions to get to the conclusion that this will be a Republican year.

Their whole interpretation of the 2014 midterms and trends is based on the U.S. Senate preference of about half the sampled respondents who will choose senators in this off year. They show the Democrats trailing by 8 points, but that is less interesting or surprising when you note — as Kyle Kondik did for Sabato’s Crystal Ball —  that the Republican presidential candidates won these states by 7 points on average since 2000.

With that digression, the Washington Post minimized the following results:

Two-thirds of respondents said they will not re-elect their member of Congress — up 5 points in a month. And as we know, the majority of voters think Republicans are in control of the whole business.

On how issues will affect their vote, let’s start with the new health care law — the centerpiece of the GOP strategy. On the question of whether a candidate’s position on the Affordable Care Act would affect the vote of those surveyed, the Republicans have only a 2-point advantage (36 percent say they are less likely to vote for a member who supports the ACA, and 34 percent say they are more likely to vote for someone who supports the law). Just four months ago this same poll showed Republicans with a 16-point advantage on a slightly different ABC News/Washington Post question. Furthermore, by 44 to 36 percent, voters favor Democrats to handle health care in general.

By the way, if you want to see an issue that matters, check out their results on the minimum wage. That issue helps Democrats by 50 to 19 percent — respondents are a net 31 points more likely to vote for a candidate who supports raising the minimum wage.

The Republicans have lost ground in particular on handling the economy, budget deficits, and immigration. Would that be every issue getting public attention?

Their poll is most stunning on the question they ask about each of the players: Are they “in touch with the concerns of most people in the United States today or out of touch”?  Nearly half, 48 percent, say both the president and the Democrats are in touch — an astonishing 20 points higher than the number saying that about the Republicans.

The pundits insist this is a Republican year. We doubt it.

Look at the Virginia gubernatorial election and the two state senate elections.  And let’s see what happens in Florida on Tuesday.

Inside The GOP: Why Boehner Is Halting Immigration Reform

Inside The GOP: Why Boehner Is Halting Immigration Reform

Just a year ago, the GOP appeared poised to rebrand itself as a more moderate and inclusive party. When the party released its “post-mortem” report on the 2012 election, one of the key findings was that the Republican Party “must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform.” And if you look at the numbers — demographic data and opinion surveys — you would say they were right.

So why did Speaker Boehner put a halt to any immigration reform this week? If you want to understand it, or fully capture the context for Rep. Raúl Labrador’s (R-ID) widely reported belief that “it’s a mistake for us to have an internal battle in the Republican Party this year about immigration reform,” you need to get inside the base of the Republican Party.

Support for immigration reform among all voters remains high—last week’s CNN/ORC poll found that 54 percent of adults nationwide would support a plan to allow those already in the country to become legal residents. Add to that employment, fluency in English, and back taxes, and support jumps to 81 percent.

But if you look at how this issue breaks down by party, just a third (34 percent) of Republicans say we should create a way to accommodate those already here. By contrast, 55 percent of Independents and 69 percent of Democrats believe there should be a way for those already here to become legal residents. The problem lies within the Republican Party—that same survey found just 29 percent of Tea Party supporters favor a path to legal residency.

Last summer, we conducted a major national survey and 6 focus groups among members of the Republican Party. What we found made us skeptical that House Republicans would take any action on immigration reform in the near future.

Why?

Moderate Republicans—who do support immigration reform—comprise just a quarter of the Republican Party. The core of the Republican Party (around 70 percent) is comprised of Evangelicals and Observant Christians, (47 percent) and Tea Party members (22 percent).

The activists who will vote in primaries and in the election next November are dominated by Evangelical and Tea Party adherents—and they staunchly reject immigration reform.

The whole notion is anathema to Evangelical Republicans, where this hits at the core. As they told us in our focus groups last summer,

“Don’t come here and make me speak your language. Don’t fly your flag. You’re on American soil. You’re American.”; “You come to our country, you need to learn our language.” (Evangelical man, Roanoke).

Why should I put “press 1” if I want to speak in English? You know, everything—every politically correct machine out there says, “Press 1 for English. Press 2 for Spanish.” (Evangelical man, Roanoke)

And among Tea Party Republicans, immigration reform sounds like another plot to boost both the welfare rolls—and the rolls of the Democratic Party.

There’s so much of the electorate in those groups that Democrats are going to take every time because they’ve been on the rolls of the government their entire lives. They don’t know better. (Tea Party man, Raleigh)

Moderates are not only open to immigration reform, but welcome it as a smart economic policy and as the only practical way forward. As moderate Republicans in our focus groups told us,

“I mean I don’t think it’s feasible to say, send everybody home;” (Moderate woman, Raleigh)

I mean it’s a huge struggle to get here illegally so I think if they are here illegally…they are not leaving. And that means they are going to be putting a toll on our roads…taking up space in classrooms…so it would be nice if they were legal and they actually could be contributing to that tax circle…I just think getting them a path to that would be great. (Moderate woman, Raleigh)

But these are not the constituents John Boehner is thinking about right now—nor should he be. He is listening to the anti-immigrant Tea Party members and Evangelicals—the real base of the Republican Party.

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Forget The Conventional Wisdom: What The Numbers Really Say About President Obama

Forget The Conventional Wisdom: What The Numbers Really Say About President Obama

ABC News and the Washington Post have released a new poll indicating that the president is in trouble — and warn that both his standing and the Affordable Care Act hang over the 2014 elections. As ABC News’ Gary Langer put it: “Barack Obama starts his sixth year in office with the public divided about his overall leadership, dissatisfied with his economic stewardship and still steaming about his rollout of the health care law – all factors threatening not only the president but his party in the midterm elections ahead.

Dan Balz and Peyton Craighill write, “Obama’s general weakness and the overall lack of confidence in the country’s political leadership provide a stark backdrop to the beginning of a potentially significant election year.”

While the president surely needs to raise his standing and address many issues, this is a remarkably biased reading of their own poll. Too bad the last month has not fit the narrative of a failed president on a downward trajectory — like George W. Bush.

What is wrong with their interpretation?  It’s hard to know where to start.

  • They have the president’s approval rating at 46 percent. The average in all the polls is up, not down. Congressional Democrats would be quite content if the president’s approval rating were in the upper 40s. This is not a blip, but rather the trend based on multiple polls. Commentators should pay attention.
  • The congressional generic vote is even, but they failed to note that Republicans had taken the lead at the end last year — and that this is an improvement for Democrats.
  • Republicans in Congress are at a remarkable low, relative to the president and congressional Democrats. They are 18 points lower than the president on confidence and 8 points behind the Democrats in Congress. How could you ignore that in a congressional election year—especially when voters in this poll express a strong commitment to vote against incumbents? Did they pay attention to earlier polls from Democracy Corps that showed 50 percent (in an open-ended question) think Republicans are in control of the whole Congress?
  • Health care produced one of the more amazing contortions in the poll. They focus on Obama’s handling of the rollout and bury the fact that the country is evenly split on whether they favor or oppose the law. As we have said, the issue unites Republicans and is not a winning issue for them in 2014. Maybe the voters are paying attention to Congress’ failure to extend unemployment benefits and pass a minimum-wage bill— issues that have 60 percent support. Maybe there is a reason that Republicans’ standing continues to drag them down.

Many compare Obama’s number after his inauguration and make that the standard for his standing. He took a very hard hit that hurt Democrats. But his position is improving and health care is no wedge issue. The Congress is on the ballot in November, and I urge those reporting on polls to escape the conventional wisdom about the narrative.

AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski

This Is What The President Needs To Say In His State Of The Union Address

This Is What The President Needs To Say In His State Of The Union Address

In his State of the Union address next week, we expect that President Obama will discuss the Affordable Care Act, NSA reform, immigration reform, and climate change. More important, we anticipate that he will renew his commitment to mitigating economic inequality — a theme he began emphasizing last month. We have discussed here and elsewhere the perilous trend of rising inequality. Stan and James devoted much of their book It’s the Middle Class, Stupid to diagnosing and offering solutions for this defining issue of our time.

When the president turns to this theme next week, we hope that he does not dwell on the successes of the economy, which may be apparent in employment statistics, the GDP, and stock market gains, but are not felt at the grocery store.

When he talks about jobs, he should talk only about good jobs. The country needs more jobs, but not jobs that pay $7.25 an hour — a wage that falls short of the federal poverty level for a family of two. The president ought to renew his demand that Congress raise the minimum wage. But he should also demand much more.

Americans need opportunities — real opportunities for affordable education, high-quality job training, and jobs that will invest in their skills.

Americans need economic security. While the housing market has recovered and the credit crisis of 2008 seems long gone, Americans live with more long-term debt than in the past — a drag on middle-class mobility.

Finally, he should call on the private sector to once again invest in its employees and in the American economy — not by sucking all the rewards up toward the top few, but by seeking to decrease inequality with better wages and opportunities.

We know about this because we hear it in our focus groups. This is not the wisdom of people with PhDs, but the wisdom of people who clip coupons:

  • “Back six years ago, I was making double the income I’m making now.”
  • “Raises aren’t happening, the cost of living continues to rise, bills continue to go up, child care continues to go up.”
  • “Cost of food going up but raises aren’t happening in the workplace so it’s going to be really hard for people to afford food.”
  • “[The new jobs] are those jobs…you can live off of?  Does it balance with the cost of living…how many of those are actual livable wages?”
  • “Places are having two part-time workers versus one worker.”
  • “Most of my family and friends are…making ends meet, but they’re struggling so I would say they’re pretty much…average people in the economy.  They’ve got financial…worry in the back of their minds: ‘if something happens, what am I going to do?”
  • “The best word to describe my household finances is ‘precarious.'”

This is the wisdom of people who experience the economy not through macroeconomic data, but through their everyday lives. And these are the policies that will make a tangible difference for them.

We doubt, however, that John Boehner and the House Republicans will allow any of these policies to come to a vote on the floor of the House in 2014. We can only hope American voters will hold them to account for their inaction next November.

For more polling and expert analysis, visit DemocracyCorps.com

Photo via Wikimedia Commons