Zogby seems to be pushing the concept of the - frequent - Wal-Mart shopper as the new swing voter for 2006.
This phenomenon explains why Rove has been pushing what we see as "pandering to the base" issues such as gay-marriage and flag burning. These are the voters which Republicans need to hold to retain control of Congress in 2006.
I think these are the "Reagan Democrats" who are coming home with people like Jim Webb in Virginia.
Sources:
http://www.hillnews.com/...
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/...
From Ryan Sager's article in Real Clear Politics:
He's definitely on to something. And it's a big something: Weekly Wal-Mart shoppers make up about one-fifth of the U.S. population.
Zogby finds that while 85 percent of frequent Wal-Mart shoppers voted for President Bush's reelection in 2004 (and 88 percent of people who never shop there voted for Sen. John Kerry), Wal-Mart voters have turned on the president dramatically. In a poll taken earlier this month, they gave Bush a 35 percent approval rating.
Sager suggests these are "Pro-government conservatives." These are the voters who actually agree with us on economics and the environment:
Wal-Mart voters are simply not a viable, reliable conservative constituency. When Pew looked at the opinions of those pro-government conservatives in a 2005 study, it found that 94 percent favor a higher minimum wage, 63 percent favor the government guaranteeing health care to all citizens, and fewer than half favor drilling in ANWR. What's worst: more than half of pro-government conservatives held positive views of both Bill and Hillary Clinton.
What's more, this seems to be a wedge we can drive into the heart of the Republican constituancy. As Sager implies, what Rove is doing to keep these voters tends to drive libertarians, especially in the Mountain West, into our arms.
I think we can and will make inroads into both groups in 2006.