After months and weeks of bad news for the Democratic Party, has the tide begun to shift a bit towards the Democrats? A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed the following movement
Vic Harville, Stephens Media Group (Little Rock, AR), Buy this cartoon
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WASHINGTON — With Election Day exactly five weeks away, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that the battle for control of Congress has tightened, as key Democratic-leaning demographic groups are expressing more enthusiasm about the upcoming midterms.
Among likely voters, Republicans now hold a three-point lead in the generic-ballot test for control of Congress, down from their nine-point lead last month.
First, the good news (see these two articles here and here). FULL POLL RESULTS HERE - pdf document
David Fitzsimmons, Arizona Star, Buy this cartoon
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- Both parties are tied 44%-44% among registered voters.
- Among likely voters, Republicans hold a 44%-41% lead, within the poll's 3.1% margin of error. In late August 2010, the GOP led 49%-40%.
- The movement towards the Democratic Party is due to increased enthusiasm amongst African-American (6% increase) and Latino voters (11% gain).
- 49 percent say they’d prefer that the Bush tax cuts expire for households earning more than $250,000 per year, while 45 percent say the cuts should be extended.
- About 1/3rd of voters expect the economy to improve in the next year, up from 1/4th in the previous poll.
- The Tea Party is viewed unfavorably 36%-30% by the electorate as a whole.
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What has not changed from earlier poll results is the sour mood the country finds itself in
Waly Handelsman, Comics.com (Newsday)
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- A shade under 60% believe the country is on the wrong track, a small decrease from last month. 65% think the U.S. economy will either get worse or stay the same in the next 12 months. And 73% disapprove of the job that Congress is doing.
- Young voters (18-34 years old) are far less enthusiastic than senior citizens. The gap is 35% to 65%, almost 2:1 in favor of seniors. This gap may explain tonight's political rally by President Barack Obama at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI.
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How can the Democratic Party change the narrative or the country's mood over the next five weeks? That may be a difficult and somewhat unachievable task. Here's what Democrats can do, according to Democratic pollster Peter Hart
I don’t think [Democrats] can change the mood, said Hart, the Democratic pollster. But they can change the turnout.
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Chan Lowe, Comics.com, see reader comments in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Finally, trends indicated in the above poll are also echoed by Editorial Cartoonist Chan Lowe of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. The key obviously is to motivate younger voters and traditionally Democratic constituency groups. The other important element of the Democratic push towards the election is to exploit divisions within the GOP's ranks and tie the worst elements of the Teabaggers to the Republican Party. Neither are very popular among the voters
Tea Party Zealotry
If you want an example of the ultra-right’s ability to flex its newly-pumped-up muscle in the Republican Party, go no further than Karl Rove’s embarrassing about-face on Fox News last week.
When confronted with the improbable news that Christine O’Donnell had won the GOP primary against the party’s designated standard-bearer in Delaware, Rove put on his independent news analyst hat and used words like "unelectable" and "nutty" to describe her.
By the next day, he was extolling her virtues and claiming that his statements of 24 hours earlier amounted to an endorsement. Sometime in between, Rove had gotten The Word.
YOU CAN SEE THE FULL NBC/WALL STREET JOURNAL POLL HERE
This NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey conducted by HART/McINTURFF polled 1,000 adults of which 200 were reached by cell phone. The poll was conducted from September 22-26, 2010 with a 3.1% margin of error. 52% of the respondents were female and 48% were male.
