Rasmussen’s latest Congressional generic poll has the Democrats only up 43%-38%.
While I think Rasmussen has been touting that 2008 will be more of a Republican year, this poll result should be a cause of a lot of worry.
We’re likely going to field fewer candidates than 2006, and the Republicans will need one less
seat after March 11 (I’m very pessimistic about
this special election).
What’s to blame? I think it’s a combination of poor leadership, the surge (let’s admit it–it hasn’t really worked, but a brilliant political move), and the effect of consistently poor approval ratings. You can’t escape 25% forever.
Any thoughts?
than you think. The year that this could be compared to is 1956. That year Democrats were barely ahead in the generic Congressional ballot all year and many thought the House could go Republican, especially with the Eisenhower landslide that ended up devoloping later in the year. What ended up happening was that Democrats did indeed lose the national popular House vote 49%-51%, but actually managed to gain two House seats thanks to winning many key House races by very narrow margins.
… keep in mind that Rasmussen is run by Republican operatives that frequently do push polls to achieve results that will doctor their results so that there will appear to be a good outcome for the GOP. Disregard this poll until other pollsters show similar findings.
In fact, I would recommend that people stop citing Rasmussen polls all together.
We have inherent advantages this cycle which will easily protect our majority (fundraising, very few open seats, Republicans with a lot of open seats, etc.)
It would a reverse wave in order for the Republicans to take control of the House.
First, the poll does show a 5 point generic lead rather than a deficit.
Second, Democrats in 2006 underperformed in terms of winning seats. Republicans won a lot of close seats. This means that the number of truly vulnerable Republican opponents is probably equal to or greater than the number of truly vulnerable Democrats. Democratic gains of 30 House seats and 6 Senate seats were substantially below say the gains of 1958 (+49 House, +16 Senate) which gave Republicans 20 House seats in a 50/50 election won by the Democrat. The average wave election picked up 45-50 seats; since we won only 30 (with a generic advantage enough to do better) we are unlikely to give back the 16 to 20 seats you fear losing.
Third, Democrats enjoy a substantial cash advantage in many of these races and Republicans have had trouble recruiting candidates.
Fourth retirements and scandals seem to strongly favor Democrats at this point.
Using Progressive Punch scores, 7 of the bottom 12 Democrats and 10 of the bottom 18 are freshman. A couple non-freshmen like the GA twins (Marshall and Barrow) are also on this list. Safer freshman like Joe Sestak, Keith Ellison, or Yvette Clark are pretty much more progressive.
What we may well see from the House standpoint is a consolidating election in which eight or ten conservative Democrats lose to really horrendous Republicans (think Marshall or Altmire) and a greater number of Democrats win in seats like NJ-7, CT-4, or PA-6 that should have been picked up in the last wave.
Following the Republican wave of 1994, this was exactly what happened. Democrats won back seats in places like California, New York, Washington, and New Jersey but continued to lose more seats in the south.
Post 94, for example, California had 26 Republicans and 26 Democrats. Now it is 33 Democrats and 19 Republicans. New York went from a 16-15 Democratic edge to a 23-6 Democratic edge. Republicans dropped two seats in Jersey and IIRC 4 in Washington state.
A purging of backbiting Bush Dogs in exchange for an equal or greater number of progressives would really be great from a message standpoint. The dissonance of the Bush Dogs would be severely toned down and Congressional Democrats would speak and vote in a more consistent voice (leading to higher approval numbers).
I tend to give more weight to a Rasmussen poll when it shows a Democrat in the lead. There polls tend to be biased towards the Republican candidates. I tend to believe Survey USA polls when a Republican is in the lead because their biasness tends to lean towards the Democrats.
As the election draws nearer, I will average out Rasmussen, Zogby, and Survey USA. Zogby tends to be the least bias of the three.
…the math for the GOP taking back the House is awful (or, from my perspective, great). They’d need to hold on to every seat they have, including the open swing seats (OH15, OH16, AZ1, IL11, NM1, NJ3, NJ7 and MN3), and then run the table in every remotely-vulnerable Dem seat, all on a shoestring budget.
You’d have to imagine that they’d hold all of their own territory and defeat (roughly in declining order of likelihood – your list may vary) Lampson, Boyda, Marshall, Carney, Mahoney, Kagen, McNerney, Hill, Mitchell, Altmire, Gillibrand, Shea-Porter, Hall, Bean, Shuler, and Walz. Is it possible that, say, four of those seats could flip back? Sure. All 16? That strains plausibility.