I came across some really cool graphs today and I decided to make some extrapolations with current-day data for some exciting results.
Let's start with congressional approval ratings:
As you can see, I added the average current congressional approval rating and it is lower than it has been for the last four elections. Since the Republicans currently control both houses, my guess is that it reflects mostly the public's disillusionment of their policies.
Likewise, the congressional disapproval ratings:
indicate similar conclusions. Note that the congressional approval/disapproval trends are very similar to those of the early 90s when the republicans took control of congress.
Perhaps a better analogy to the "Republican Revolution" is found in the generic congression ballots:
The Republicans are in green. The first thing I asked after I changed this picture was what fucking revolution? Pulling in just above 50% hardly constitutes a "revolution." Putting the last decade in perspective, it appears like the republican coup will be nothing more than a blip on the map; they've lost 16 points since 2002 (they went down 12 and we gained 4), almost completely reversing the "revolution" of 1994. There is no reason why we shouldn't crush the neoconservative movement in the next two elections- we've finally got the momentum, the money, and most importantly, the motivation. I think it's time that we start to expect to win the senate and the house, at the very least by 2006.