JONATHAN CHAIT JULY 13, 2010
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I've been writing a lot about the ways in which voting behavior is driven more by fundamentals like the economy or the fact of a midterm election than by ideological evaluations of the candidates. Today's Washington Post poll offers a good window into the dynamic. The Post's results are typical: they show an electorate whose views, taken as a whole, make no sense whatsoever except as a mechanical response to economic conditions.
The poll shows that, among registered voters, 47% plan to vote for a Republican in the House elections, and 46% for a Democrat. (Among voters most likely to vote, the GOP leads 49-45.) At the same time, the poll also shows that the public clearly favors the Democrats over the Republicans. The Post story about the poll leads with the fact that only 43% of the public has confidence in President Obama to make the right decisions for the country's future. That's low. But only 26% have confidence in Republicans in Congress to make the right decisions, which is far lower than Obama, and even lower than Congressional Democrats, in whom 32% have confidence. That's not an anomaly. Asked which party will do a better job of handling the economy, 42% say the Democrats and 34% say the GOP.
So, in sum, there's a crucial swing vote bloc that prefers the policies of the Democrats over the Republicans but plans to vote for the Republicans anyway.
Why would anybody do that? Delving into the psychology of voters is tricky. But clearly, it vindicates the sense that voters hold the governing party responsible for the state of the country, which mainly means the state of the economy. Voters in the middle are not going to compare the policies of the two parties. They're just going to vote yay or nay on how things appear to be going. That makes more sense when you consider things from the perspective of voters who don't follow politics very closely.
As it happens, the Post has a feature today about unemployed workers who are about to lose their unemployment checks. It focuses on a New Jersey man named Dwight Michael Frazee. The story does not devote much time to Frazee's political beliefs, but it does describe them like so
While searching for work, he lived on $585 a week in unemployment payments. But the checks were cut off in May when he reached 99 weeks. Now Frazee, who is married and has a 5-year-old daughter, is in a financial free fall with no safety net.
"My life has been total stress. I sleep maybe four hours a night, worrying about money," he said. "I understood the president and Congress had to stabilize the banks, get Wall Street going. I figured something would be done for middle-class Americans, that they couldn't abandon us. But I was wrong."
Frazee does not seem to realize that Obama and almost all the Democrats favor an extension of unemployment benefits, and Republicans oppose it. He just knows that Obama is in charge and Obama is not giving him what he wants. Of course, the dynamic works the other way, too. Under George W. Bush, most workers saw virtually no income growth, and this made them extremely predisposed to vote for Democrats.
12 comments
Your final paragraph shows how the GOP message machine is superior to the useless one the White House and Congressional/National Dem leadership have. It also reflects on poor party discipline when you have the likes of Ben Nelson.
- tnmats
July 13, 2010 at 2:01pm
I think that paragraph reflects more on the ignorance of the individual who is quoted in the article. Anyone who pays attention to the news at all should be able to understand who is responsible for ending unemployment benefits.
- kluhman
July 13, 2010 at 2:12pm
tnmats, No amount of messaging can overcome a 9.5% unemployment rate. And in truth, even the strongest of stimulus packages (one with far more unemployment benefits and aid to states) would have brought the unemployment rate down to 7.5% by now at best. Which of course isn't a trivial amount of pain averted, but still a significant level of pain. As Jonathan Chait says, Democrats were always going to lose a significant number of House seats this fall because of the economy. It's just a question of how well Democrats could minimize those losses.
- jimbomoron
July 13, 2010 at 2:16pm
Take a look at the latest generic ballot trend for the House on pollster.com as of today. Still favoring Republicans, but barely, barely, and the trend is currently (as of 7/12) in a Democratic direction. I predict the lines will cross in the next month, particularly if unemployment drops a hair more.
- timteeter
July 13, 2010 at 3:16pm
That is a ridiculous comment, tn, if you don't mind me saying so. Anyone who is so unplugged from basic political news and/or is highly obtuse, is not going to change his or her attitudes due too a superior partisan political message machine. If the GOP machine is so superior, why does the party poll so badly? God, we need better conmenters out here. Posts like this are depressing because they show how uninformed such vast slabs of the electorate are.
- liberal reformer
July 13, 2010 at 3:57pm
Sorry Lib for offending your sensibilities. When I see front page stories in a local paper about the country's finances and the main thing from the GOP is blaming the Democrats for everything under the sun, with Boehner and various Congressional publicans blaming the president and the Democrats for "tax and spend" and "the deficit is out of control" persistently but nothing or something weak to counter it from the Democrats' side, then you've got a message issue. The blame game works whether you like it or not, and the Dems need to blame GOP policies more. Reagan did it years into his term and people believed it was mostly Carter's fault, whether true or not. And don't lecture me, look at the disconnect between what people think of the GOP and how they're likely to vote. There's your proof.
- tnmats
July 13, 2010 at 4:37pm
You didn't deal substantively with what I said. I asked if your theory were true, then how to explain the fact that the Democrats poll far better than the Republicans on all sorts of issues? If Barack Obama's numbers were in the toilet and the Republican Congress polled a bit under fifty percent, then you might have a point. Epistemic closure on the left, here. You just repeated your talking point, without engaging in any way my critique of your first post. Once again, one immediately sees the vast difference in the quality of thought between a superstar journalist like J. Chait and a less-than-mediocre commenter here at TNR, like you, tn.
- liberal reformer
July 13, 2010 at 5:05pm
Well can we say as James Carville supposedly once said, "It's the Economy Stupid!"
- MikeB.
July 13, 2010 at 5:09pm
Gulp! . . . the vast difference in the quality of thought between a superstar journalist like J. Chait and a less-than-mediocre commenter here at TNR, like . . . ironyroad! But LTM commenter ironyroad thinks the vastest and most painfully existential difference by far is not the quality of thought but the presence/absence of a salary. Not that J. Chait doesn't earn his. No question.
- ironyroad
July 13, 2010 at 7:26pm
Well, I know, irony, but still. I am ever the optimist, ever the dreamer, and I should like to think that a little bit of Jonathan and Noam and the other Jonathan and Bradford, etc. would rub off on the commenters. I'm glad you realize that J. Chait earns his salary. I am sure he would be cheap at twice the price.
- liberal reformer
July 13, 2010 at 9:39pm
I, too, hope that some chafing (mutual, perhaps, upon occasion?) takes place from time to time, libref.
- ironyroad
July 14, 2010 at 10:10am
The Democrats most likely to loose their seats come November are the moderates to made sure that the stimulus was too small, and in general don't understand anything Keynes said. So in a sense, the voters are punishing the correct people. But problem is that result of the punishment will be more Republicans, who are worse than the people being voted out.
- vips73
July 14, 2010 at 4:16pm