Stuart Rothenberg, May 19, 2008:
According to a post-primary survey by Anzalone-Liszt Research, which polled for Childers (and Democrat Don Cazayoux, who won the special election recently in Louisiana’s 6th district), Davis came out of the GOP primary runoff with a 65 percent favorable and 10 percent unfavorable rating among self-identified Republicans, and leading Childers 73 percent to 13 percent among Republicans.
In the last Democratic survey before Tuesday’s special election, Davis had a 71 percent favorable and 13 percent unfavorable rating among Republicans and held a 71 percent to 17 percent lead among GOP voters.
Stuart Rothenberg, May 21, 2008:
And in Mississippi, Republican Greg Davis’ high personal negatives, combined with Childers’ ideology and personal appeal made the Democrat a safe choice for swing voters.
I suppose we could engage in some hair-splitting and say that Rothenberg was only talking about Republicans in that first excerpt. But really, in that piece, Rothenberg went out of his way to say that the GOP lost because “Republicans nominated a candidate from the wrong part of the district.” He also argued that “[p]olling in the district showed Bush’s ‘favorables’ well above 50 percent….”
If, three days ago, Davis had high favorables with Republicans, if Bush had high overall favorables in the district, and if Davis lost because he was from South Memphis rather than the “right” part of the district, how are we to believe that now, Davis lost because of his “high personal negatives”?
The contradictions don’t end there, though. From the first piece:
Democratic pollster Anzalone minced no words when he told me, Louisiana’s 6th and Mississippi’s 1st “are not referenda on Bush and Republicans in Congress.”
From the second piece:
Special elections often produce odd results when an unpopular president sits in the White House. They offer voters an opportunity to send a message. And swing voters and conservative Democrats surely did.
It’s like Rothenberg is trying to simultaneously argue and debunk every claim made about this election all at once. This bit, though, made me laugh:
Nor does the Mississippi 1st district result mean that “there is no district that is safe for Republican candidates,” as Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen said recently. That’s just silly hyperbole and something the Maryland Democrat undoubtedly will be embarrassed to have said.
Stuart Rothenberg seems to be forgetting that campaign committee chairs engage in a little thing called “pr” every day of the week that ends in “y.” I predict Van Hollen will be no more embarrassed about those remarks than Rothenberg will ever be about writing these two highly contradictory columns.
Is looking for a way to assure the Republicans that everything will be ok.
Bush was not as big a liability in this district as he is in most of the nation but he wasn’t helping either.
It seems Rothenberg is talking about personal favorability rather than job performance. In the numbers I’ve seen in this district, Bush’s Q rating was a wash: negatives and positives roughly equal in the upper-40s and neutrals in the low teens. No matter how you slice it, in the 40s on personal unfavorability is a drag. Hillary was supposed to be toxic with a 45 personal unfavorability rating, after all.
On job performance, Bush was in the low-40s/ high 30s range positive and high 40s negative.
Who the hell was Rothenberg talking to? Fred Barnes? Bush was not the albatross he is elsewhere but he sure as hell ain’t helping GOP candidates even in what have been historically strong areas for Republicans and twice delivered big majorities for Bush.
Anzalone does solid work, especially in the lower South. And he is likely right that in these particular districts the results were not referenda per se. It seems to me the wins are testaments to two good candidates well-suited for their districts.
What Rothenberg ought to try to explain is how Democratic candidates won in districts where the Democratic party polls poorly in favorability ratings.
Still, there is genius in his approach: if you blow the analysis, just keep spitballing until something sounds right.
Funny thing is, it can all be true but Rothenberg et. al. need to look deeper.
In many southern states, Democrats hold a huge voter registration edge over Republicans. I couldn’t find stats for MS, but in LA, Democrats made up 52.6% of voters; Republicans were 25.06%; “other” were 22.32%.
The swing voter is a registered “traditional” Democrat who will likely vote Democratic in many local races but may vote Republican at the federal level. Clearly, most of these Democrats backed Childers.
So yes, unless these registered Democrats who just voted for Childers “self identify” as Republican, everything can be factually correct but not true or in any sense accurate.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/…
who doesn’t understand, like Stu does, that its silly to think that the problem is with the Republican party as a whole, which means most of the entire country is dangerous for them.
Like he did when he mocked Chris Bowers for wanting serious challenges to more than 20 Republicans.
I have a lot of Republican friends down here. They have all adopted the same story on MS-01, that Greg Davis was a bad candidate. I never heard that until he got his ass whipped, now he is a “moron”, “idiot” etc…
Charlie Cook has made the following moves in his race ratings:
MS-B Wicker Likely Rep to Toss Up
NC Dole Solid Rep to Likely Rep
OR-05 – OPEN (Hooley) Toss Up to Lean Democratic
http://cookpolitical.com/
All three make sense, though he’s being far too cautious leaving NC-Sen “likely republican”. That race is easily leans republican.