Dems Facing the Perfect Storm

In polls, rank-and-file Democrats appear satisfied with the state of the nation. Unfortunately for Obama, happy voters often don’t vote.

The further one digs into the cross-tabs of last week’s Rasmussen Reports poll on the congressional generic ballot the more unnerving the political situation looks for Democrats heading into the fall elections.

There has been a debate over the merits of Scott Rasmussen’s polling techniques that I’d like to address briefly.  A “house bias” in Rasmussen’s methodology has been alleged and, to my mind, refuted by impeccably fair (and liberal) commentators like Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight.  For those who want to stick their toe into the issue, Silver contends that a) Rasmussen has proven accurate in past cycles and b) to the extent a bias exists it is probably in the wording of questions rather than in other methodological issues like the weighting of Republicans, Democrats and Independents.  With regard to generic ballot testing (“If the election were held today would you vote for the Republican or Democratic candidate?”) wording bias is not a factor.

So, what are the key take-aways from the poll?  In the top-line number, Republicans now lead Democrats on generic voting preferences by 10 points, 46% to 36%.  That’s a big lead for Republicans, perhaps an historic one, and supports the growing body of data that points to a wave election resulting in substantial GOP gains in the House and Senate.  To get a sense for just how much the electoral environment has changed in the last 18 months, I compared this week’s Rasmussen numbers to those from January, 2009 when Democrats led on the generic ballot 42% to 36%.

In early 2009, independent voters were almost evenly split, with Republicans holding a narrow 32% to 28% lead.  This week’s poll has Republicans leading among independent voters by 44% to 23%.   Amplifying the collapse among independents is the movement toward Republicans of, well, Republicans.  In early 2009, 9% of GOPers said they would support a Democratic candidate for the House; today that number is 5%.  The Republican share of Democratic votes has almost doubled from 7% to 13%.

The final area of interest (to me) in the Rasmussen poll is the “right-direction/wrong-track” data.  With a federal budget deficit of $1.4 trillion and 9.5% unemployment, it is unsurprising that 67% of voters are saying the country is on the “wrong-track”.  The partisan breakdown is stark:  91% of Republicans and 71% of independents agree the country is on the wrong track.  (By the way, when was the last time 91% of Republicans agreed on anything?)  The eye-popping number is the 53% of Democrats who think the country is headed in the “right direction”.

The disjunction between the perceptions of Democrats and those of the rest of the country is, to say the very least, politically problematic.  Some voters, chiefly rank-and-file Democrats, appear to be relatively satisfied with the state of the nation.  Unfortunately for Democrats, happy voters often don’t vote while unhappy ones do – in droves.  The president’s victories on the stimulus and healthcare have dramatically reshaped the electorate by energizing Republicans, alienating independents and pushing moderate and conservative Democrats toward the Republican party.  The net result is a hostile electoral environment that leaves moderate Democratic incumbents (the ones who were pressed to vote for health reform because “success begets success” and “we have to show we can govern”) to pay political bills run up by others.