JONATHAN CHAIT AUGUST 12, 2011
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Tom Jensen shouts for people to pay attention to the growing chance that Democrats take back the House:
I think most national pundits continue to be missing the boat on how possible it is that Democrats will retake control of the House next year. We find Democrats with a 7 point lead on the generic Congressional ballot this week at 47-40. After getting demolished with independent voters last year, they now hold a slight 39-36 advantage with them. And in another contrast to 2010 Democratic voters are actually slightly more unified than Republicans, with 83% committed to supporting the party's Congressional candidates compared to 80% in line with theirs.
This poll is certainly not an outlier. We have looked at the generic ballot 11 times going back to the beginning of March and Democrats have been ahead every single time, by an average margin of about 4 points. This 7 point advantage is the largest Democrats have had and if there was an election today I'm think that they'd take back the House. Of course there's plenty of time between now and next November for the momentum to shift back in the other direction.
Why is this possibility receiving so little attention? Wave elections in the House usually involve a backlash against the incumbent party, so it seems hard to imagine a pro-Democratic wave occurring while President Obama sits in office during an economic crisis. But the Republican Party remains deeply discredited from the Bush years. Republicans largely avoided voter blame in 2010, in part by dint of not controlling anything, but the high-profile way in which they've exercised power has given the party more responsibility for the status quo than a Congressional party usually has.
What's more, the House Republicans seem to be pursuing a strategy that hurts Obama and themselves simultaneously. The wild behavior of the House GOP caucus has dragged down Obama, but dragged the House GOP caucus down much farther. It's almost a suicide mission to help elect a Republican president, though I doubt House Republicans actually see it in those terms.
And this collapse has occurred largely outside the context of a debate over the Ryan budget, which will probably dominate the House Democratic message in the fall. Republicans could insulate themselves from that vote by cutting a Grand Bargain, by they simply do not want to. I can hardly think of another example of high-level politicians so unable to discern their political self-interest. Would they rather help their party win the White House than keep their own majority? Or are they simply not thinking clearly about the politics?
14 comments
Chait: "Would they rather help their party win the White House than keep their own majority? Or are they simply not thinking clearly about the politics?" A number of House freshmen have explicitly stated that they don't care about getting reelected. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/us/politics/17debt.html So it's not that some of them aren't thinking clearly about the politics, it's that they don't care about the politics. They think they've been sent to DC on a mission, and they're going to act on that conviction regardless of the consequences. And that includes disregarding what their own "supporters" think. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/us/politics/02teaparty.html: "In a nationwide CBS News poll in mid-July, 66 percent of Tea Party supporters said that Republicans in Congress should compromise on some of their positions to come to an agreement with Democrats on the debt-ceiling increase. By contrast, 31 percent said Republicans should stick to their positions even if it meant not coming to an agreement. Twenty-two percent of respondents identified themselves as Tea Party supporters to begin with. "When Tea Party supporters were asked if the debt-ceiling agreement should include only tax increases, only spending cuts, or a combination of both, the majority — 53 percent — said that it should include a combination. Forty-five percent preferred only spending cuts." This isn't about politics. It's about a bunch of ideologues who don't really care what they do to their own party, and Boehner's inability to do anything about it.
- dsimon
August 12, 2011 at 10:54am
Don't even joke about a "President Perry". If you think shrub was bad, Perry is the apocalypse by comparison.
- tmmats
August 12, 2011 at 11:10am
Amen, tmmats, if you'll pardon my Texan.
- GeoffG
August 12, 2011 at 11:15am
Sure, Republican Tea-Party newbies will claim "we don't care about getting re-elected, it's doing the Right Thing that we care about!" They'll also claim "compromise is important!" But what they mean by both statements is, we hate Government of the People, by the People, and for the People, and we're trying to bring it down. Because we want our "Free Market" Corporate Donors to have the power. And "Compromise" to us means "Our way or the highway", so give us what we want or will shut down the Government. The bare-knuckled way they're pursuing their agenda has become obvious. They've become proud that they're luddites. The party of "Hell No!" doesn't really deserve to be re-elected, especially when they're saying "Hell no!" to things this country desperately needs.
- AllanL5
August 12, 2011 at 11:31am
Geoff and tmmats, I'm sure a Democratic-controlled House would cut off funding for President Perry's hairstylist and bootmaker, as well as his newly-formed White House Office of New Covenant Outreach and Spiritual Relations. And they would hold the debt ceiling hostage to get their way. Bet on it.
- wildboy
August 12, 2011 at 11:32am
Fevered believers never understand such tactical nuous. They're Pasleyites. "Never! Never! Never!"
- IggyPop
August 12, 2011 at 11:55am
It's probably occurred to Chait that the best result for economic recovery may well be President Perry and Speaker Pelosi. When Perry's re-election depends on economic recovery, I suspect he'd experience a Keynesian conversion equivalent to Saul's conversion to Messiah Jesus.
- rayward
August 12, 2011 at 12:11pm
Perry’s Entitlement Problem Rick Perry kicks off his campaign tomorrow, but is he electable? In an interview last fall, the Texas governor advocated dismantling Medicare and Social Security. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/12/rick-perry-exclusive-newsweek-interview-calls-for-dismantling-social-security-and-medicare.html
- wkwami
August 12, 2011 at 12:13pm
"Why is this possibility receiving so little attention? Wave elections..." Hey don't look at me, I've commented on this and even posted polls that points to potential for a wave election in 2012.
- wkwami
August 12, 2011 at 12:19pm
The Democrats have corporate donors, too, A. You mash everything up. Here, once again you conflate the Tea Party with the Chamber of Commerce, which is ludicrous. The other day, you ran the supply-siders together with the denizens of the Chicago School.
- liberalref
August 12, 2011 at 12:47pm
What if we get President Perry and Speaker Cantor, along with Senate Majority Leader McConnell? Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse . . . I'm in a black mood.
- BillW
August 12, 2011 at 1:54pm
Getting rid of Republican control of the house is tantalizing. Let's do that.
- Nusholtz
August 12, 2011 at 2:20pm
Nice link, wkami. Thanks. In view of this and more dirt that I'm sure remains to come out on Perry, I remain less concerned about his chances of getting elected than of Romney and certainly Huntsman. But also much more worried about what would happen if he were elected. Of course, so much also hinges on factors that have nothing to do with who the Republican nominee is, not least the state of the economy a year from now and the kind of campaign Obama runs. The latter factor worries me much more than it used to.
- Thunderroad
August 12, 2011 at 2:58pm
Well, if we get President Perry and Speaker Cantor, along with Senate Majority Leader McConnell, we could move to Russia?
- Sophia
August 13, 2011 at 1:40am