Yes, the Republican Nightmare is coming to a city near you: their base is (slowly) shrinking but the vast political middle of the country is waking up. Fear is no longer working. Everything 9/11 changed is changing back, and then some.
Pew's generic House ballot shows even `safe' Republicans are vulnerable. People are voting on national, not local issues, and the top issue is Iraq. Since 2002, major survey categories have swung towards the Democrats: moderates, women, and young folks. These are amazing numbers - are moderates the Democrats' new base?
Click to enlarge. Numbers show by how many points we're winning the group.
Join me below to see just how bad it is, get a boost of euphoria, and then harness that happiness and get back to work. (And of course, I've got lots of graphs for those of you who enjoy that sort of thing.) Cross-posted on MyDD.
The Numbers.
(Skip this section to get to the main course.) These numbers are from Pew's survey of the generic House ballot, a total of 3055 registered voters for 2006. I calculated Republican and Democratic voting preferences based on those who expressed preferences for candidates of either major party only, what I'm calling `the two-party split' (except for in the section below, Pew Highlights). For this diary, let's assume that those without a preference won't vote, will vote for a third party, or will vote in the same proportion as the others in their group. If you calculate the two-party vote the Pew survey had for 2002, they nailed it. (Pew: 52R, 48D; Election: 52.4 R, 47.6 D) I would argue in 2002 undecideds were more likely to swing towards Republicans (9/11 hype, fear, etc) compared to this year, so any error in the following analysis would favor the Republicans. Anyways, the main points wouldn't change no matter how you do it.
Pew Highlights
The Pew report is subtitled "GOP Troubles Extend into Home Territory." I'd like to emphasize that: it's been said many times, many ways, but there's a good chance some so-called `safe' Republican House seats aren't all that safe after all.... And here's why:
Of 582 registered voters in `safe' Republican districts, Republicans are only favored by 44% - 42% . That's a tie. In the safe Republican districts. And some districts truly are safe, where the incumbent will get 60% of the vote. That means some other Republicans will lose. So, as others have said, we may have a couple of good surprises come election day. If we work hard enough.
Another point is that this election has been nationalized. Conventional wisdom in the summer was that the House is hundreds of separate elections, and when the politics get local, the Republicans won't have to worry so much. Well, yeah, there's some local politics going on - some local Republican corruption that is. But as a whole, the election is nationalized around Iraq. About half of respondents said national issues were most important, and only a quarter said local issues.
So, even safe Republicans are not truly safe. Let's get back to work.
Who's the Base?
Let's define each party's base as groups that give more than 70% of the two-party preference to a given party.
Democratic Base:
Democrats Blacks <$20,000 Income
Liberals Single Moms Moderates
Single 18-29 Seculars Women 18-29
Republican Base:
Republicans
Conservatives
Whoa, that didn't seem to work. The Republicans have got to have a better base than that. What about all those good Christians? Soccer Moms? Security Moms? Suburban voters? The rich? Let's lower our definition to 60% support.
Who's the Base? Do-overs.
Republican Base:
Republicans
Conservatives
Evangelical White Protestants
........ah, that's better.....
But then we have to do the same for Democrats:
Democratic Base:
Democrats Blacks <$20,000 Income
Liberals Single Moms Moderates
Single 18-29 Seculars Women 18-29
Working Moms Single 65+ Single 50-64
Single 30-49 18-29 Women
Women 65+ Men 18-29 Church Seldom/Never
Church Monthly Catholic White Catholic
White Protestant Independents Labor
Urban Northeasterners 20,000-$30,000 income
High School/Less Post Graduates Hispanics
Just look at at this list! If you consider white evangelicals to be the Republican base, then you must also consider vast demographic swaths of the public to be the Democratic base: Women, for instance, and youth; Independents, for crying out loud! Self-described moderates support the Democratic candidates by a margin of 71 to 29! Now, we can all sleep a little better: the Republican base voters are not going to overwhelm the Democratic base voters this year.
Middle America Wants Democrats.
Let's look specifically at the much-romanticized (by conservatives) Middle America, the church-going, middle-class suburban families who think of themselves as normal and moderate, with a picket fence, a college sticker on their SUVs, and two and a half kids. So, here's the margin in support of Democrats for some relevant demographic groups (two-party vote, again):
Working Mothers +21
Mothers +3
Attend Church +5
White Catholics +23
White Mainline Prot. +2
Moderates +43
Suburban +7
$50-$100k Income +7
Midwest +16
Some College +8
Yeah, I'm cherry picking the data, I admit it. Here's the rest that are related to this Middle American profile:
Working Fathers -7
Fathers -5
30-49 Married w/Kids -13
College Grads -6
Still, the point is clear: the suburbs are a great place to go mining for Democratic voters. All the hard work the Republicans have done to turn rural and suburban America red - it's coming unraveled. Good people know when they've been suckered; some of us may realize it a little later than others, but hey. Welcome, folks, to the reality based community.
A Closer Look
Pew released their data for 2006 along with their data from the 2002 midterm election. Let's see how things have changed in the past four years. A guide to reading the following graphs can be found here.
Basically, look for the blue lines to go up: that's good - the left side of the line is 2002 Democratic preference, the right side is 2006 preference. The steeper, the better. Also look at the Margin Increase at the bottom of each graph: this shows the net improvement in the margin (D-R preference) for Democrats since 2002. The bigger the number, the better.
By far the biggest Margin Increases come from those who are not married (Margin Increase from +26 to +43 depending on age), young men (+34), white Catholics (+30), and moderates (+30). These numbers are simply stunning.
Men 30-49 favor Republicans modestly; all other age groups favor Democrats. The gender gap is alive and well though. Not shown is the unwieldy chart for race.
Click to enlarge.
College graduates and the wealthy favor Republicans modestly. Among income groups, the upper middle class changed the most, switching from strongly Republican to moderately Democratic, while the lower income brackets became even more strongly Democratic.
Click to enlarge.
It doesn't matter where you live now, Democrats are favored. The strongest increases are the West (c'mon, Idaho!) and the suburbs.
Click to enlarge.
And religion? Republicans do not have a monopoly on religion. Never did, and especially don't now. White Catholics, most notably, have swung heavily for the Democrats.
Click to enlarge.
Looking at party and ideology, most of the conservative categories have bled a little support for Republicans over the last four years. Also, remember, there's fewer people calling themselves Republicans now too. Democrats, on the other hand, have joined together, and are, in fact, more unified in their voting intentions than Republicans. And Independents? Well, they look pretty close to Democrats.
Click to enlarge.
That's it; that's the Republicans' nightmare in a nutshell: the liberals and moderates in an unholy (but often church-going) alliance rising up to... vote. Now let's all get back to work. There's a lot to do.
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