Poll: GOP Holds Double-Digit “Enthusiasm” Edge Over Dems
The new Pew poll contains some potentially ominous signs for Dems, finding that anti-incumbent sentiment is running at levels comparable to the worst in two decades.
But this finding seems particularly noteworthy: Those planning to back a Republican next year are more enthusiastic than those backing Dems — by double digits:
However, voters who plan to support Republicans next year are more enthusiastic than those who plan to vote for a Democrat. Fully 58% of those who plan to vote for a Republican next year say they are very enthusiastic about voting, compared with 42% of those who plan to vote for a Democrat.
Big gap! The GOP’s “enthusiasm” edge helps explain the Democratic strategy of relentlessly elevating the Tea Partiers and the Palin/Bachmann wing of the GOP. The idea is to paint the national GOP as hostage to extremists and inhospitable to moderation in hopes of offsetting anti-incumbent fervor and limiting losses in 2010. But it’s also designed to pump up the Dem base’s flagging enthusiasm.
The big enthusiasm gap, you’d think, lends weight to the argument that Dems need to pass a health care bill without delay. After all, it seems pretty clear that passing a good health care bill would do a lot more to boost the Dem base’s enthusiasm than showcasing Michele Bachmann’s latest antics could ever accomplish.
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The big enthusiasm gap, you’d think, lends weight to the argument that Dems need to pass a health care bill without delay. After all, it seems pretty clear that passing a good health care bill would do a lot more to boost the Dem base’s enthusiasm than showcasing Michele Bachmann’s latest antics could ever accomplish.
AGREED!
Wasn’t that what yesterday’s visit by Bill Clinton supposed to remind them of?
“The idea is to paint the national GOP as hostage to extremists and inhospitable to moderation in hopes of offsetting anti-incumbent fervor and limiting losses in 2010.”
“Paint?” How about “draw attention to the incontestable fact that the national GOP as hostage to extremists and inhospitable to moderation in an effort to shake some sense of the stakes into sulky, pouty Democrats who are mad they didn’t get their pony and magic beanstalk”?
Ho hum.
About half (52%) of registered voters would like to see their own representative re-elected next year
Ethan — that’s actually a historically low number, Pew says.
And Steve — no objection here.
You know what’s really creepy in that poll? 34% think the initial decision to use force in Afghanistan was wrong.
Greg, 58% of 25% (tops ?) repug voters is about 15% of total voters while 40% of 50% dem voters (?) is still 20%. Jus’ sayin’.
“The big enthusiasm gap, you’d think, lends weight to the argument that Dems need to pass a health care bill without delay.” – Agree.
amk, I’d say the point is that enthusiasm goes to the heart of how successful fundraising and voter turnout will be — marginal shifts in the latter can be decisive.
Greg, I’ve been meaning to ask your take on polls for awhile but I guess now is as good a time as any.
We see a lot of polls and they are used by both sides to “prove” one point or another. Do you subscribe to the theory that you can poll a 1000 people and that represents (within m/o/e)the feelings of the overall American population?
Andy, in essence you’re asking if statistics is a valid method of inquiry. What would you replace it with, given that it exists as a field of study to find legitimate ways of describing that which cannot be completely characterized?
Jeez – I get back from my appointment to find Greg channeling Eric again.
*sigh*
Greg, going by the 2008 polls, I don’t have much confidence in any of the pollsters. So, I don’t freak out over their numbers.
But if any poll paints repugs in poor light, I’ll be strongly citing those polls. So, sue me.
Greg, this is crazy. The opposition is fired up just like I was when we were the opposition.
It’s always easier to get fired up to hate on someone than it is to get fired up for an off-year election.
Tena – “Greg channeling Eric again.”
I loved that “again” part.
Greg,
“Currently, 47% of registered voters say they would vote for the Democratic candidate in their district or lean Democratic, while 42% would vote for the Republican or lean to the GOP candidate. In August, 45% favored the Democrat in their district and 44% favored the Republican.”
For “historic” lows complicated by the economy, afghanistan, and as-of-yet not passing health care reform, I think the Dems are doing great.
I bet Greg will be giddy when Obama hits 49% approval ratings in Gallup!
It’ll be a race to see which blogs can get that number up first. I can’t wait, this is so exciting.
No amount of spin can make this number feel better.
Pass Health Care Reform, now. Move on to the next priority, and push push push this country forward. It’s the only way to show voters that the best thing would be to keep you in office.
The teabaggers will just get more and more exhausted.
oddjob,
I am not saying we should get rid of polls, but the sampling for national polls seems out of whack to me (BUT I AM NOT A STATISTICIAN). Local polling seems more accurate but I am sure some would argue that.
I really was just curious if Greg had an opinion since he has to use polls a lot.
I do agree with the President when he said there really is only one poll for him and that’s when the people go to vote to decide to re-elect him or not.
Here is a chart that I find interesting.
As you can see, National Party ID of both Independents and Democrats is virtually tied, the first time this has been the case since early June while the Republican ID continues to go down into the dirt.
There’s also THIS Pollster National Congressional Ballot showing Dems still have an advantage.
Party Id is suspect.
According to the Pollster page it was
35% Democrat, 27% Republican, 32% independent
But the actual numbers are:
1,644 registered voters
564 Republicans
Which = 34.3% of the sample were republicans.
Pollster.com’s average national party Id for Republicans is at 21.5%
Any ideas as to why these numbers are all over the map?
At best, given the sample size, the ACTUAL numbers should be MUCH better for the Dems and Obama.
This is good news that we get decent-to-good numbers even in a poorly weighted poll.
Ethan, that generic ballot matchup seems uncomfortably close for Dems, particularly when you factor in margin of error…
“uncomfortably close for Dems, ”
You have to enjoy teetering on the brink, Greg – you are always pulling us along to join you there!
Is this why Rs are so excited?
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/colorado-state-senator-lets-roll-against-the-obama-agenda.php?ref=fpblg
Greg, do you agree with my assertion about the sample being overly generous to the Republicans?
What if the sample size was more reflective of national party ID — which pollster has at 21.5% on average? This Pew poll sample is 12.7% HIGHER for the GOP!
The right wing dominates media:
90% of talk radio is conservative (pushed by corporate-radio-monopolists despite the market for progressive radio).
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Republican Propaganda Channel has NO equivalent.
MSNBC has three pure hours of far right Republican politician Joe Scarborough, CNN has right wing extremist Lou Dobbs (and CNN launched the right wing mad hatter Glenn Beck’s TV career), CBS has Republican McCain fan-boy Bob Schieffer pushing right wing memes every week, NBC has Republican Karl Rove’s dance partner David Gregory pushing Republican narratives every week, even Disney-ABCnews-radio pushes Republican narratives on progressive radio shows.
There is NO media equivalent on the left to what the right wing mainstream corporate media pushes.
Still, while corporate-media is pushing right wing nonsense, Dems are too often complicit in accepting those Republican narratives.
It’s a sad world when the only moderate Republicans that remain are all in the Democratic Party.
Greg wants to ensure any bit of enthusiasm left in us is sucked out by posting every bit of bad news for Dems. lol
Before you know it, Republicans will be back in control in the House/Senate and Sarah Palin will be President and we’ll all be standing around looking at each other going wtf just happened?!?
“Before you know it, Republicans will be back in control in the House/Senate and Sarah Palin will be President and we’ll all be standing around looking at each other going wtf just happened?!?”
LOL
You all can stand around and look at each other if that happens – I’m frakking outta here!
Indeed, even RASSMUSSEN shows a dip in Dem support in July and a rebound since:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/mood_of_america_archive/partisan_trends2/summary_of_party_affiliation
I think this Pew poll is borderline garbage, but in light of the sampling, I think these numbers show that the Dem agenda is broadly supported.
OT:
Jon Stewart, the host of “The Daily Show,” presented excerpts from a segment of Mr. Hannity’s show in which he discussed the so-called tea party protests in Congress last Thursday with Michele Bachman, the Republican representative who had urged supporters to turn upat the Capitol to protest the health care bill.
Beyond questioning the crowd estimates cited by Mr. Hannity, Mr. Stewart demonstrated that the Fox News program had included several scenes of the crowd, one of which he conclusively proved had not been shot the day of the health-care protest but at the much larger tea party protest in Washington last summer.
Fox News would not comment on the use of the video Wednesday beyond having a spokeswoman say: “Sean will address this on his show tonight.”
Among the ways Mr. Stewart was able to show the events were separate was shots of trees that were still green with leaves and the obvious difference in the color of the sky. He also matched the exact video Mr. Hannity had used to video from the summer event.
Mr. Stewart did not point out that Fox News had put a one-word label “earlier” on the screen when the older footage was shown; but footage that is from an earlier date is usually described by news outlets with either the actual previous date inscribed on screen or some other description like “file footage.”
Mr. Stewart did include a comment from Mr. Hannity saying that the crowd depicted in the earlier scene was especially large “for a Thursday,” reinforcing the point that he was talking about the protest last week and not the earlier protest, which took place on a Saturday.
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/hannity-to-address-protest-video-questions-tonight/?hp
Corporate media asserts: “The two Democratic wins in the House of Representatives is good news for the Republicans!”
In right wing Orwellian world, the loss of a Republican Representative in a solid Republican district is a “win”, and the corporate media uses it’s megaphone to repeat that nonsense over and over.
Right wing cheerleading con-artists telling the big lie over and over again is unfortunately effective, it excites the right wing base that never even blinks when they’re told lies by the authoritarian-corporatist leaders (Beck, Limbaugh, Palin…).
Tena, you can’t run far enough from the destruction Sarah Palin would cause to this earth as President.
Science – Out
Peace – Out
Renewable Energy Sources – Out
Common Sense – Out
Separation of Church and State – Out
Evolution Scenes at Smithsonian – Out
Bill Kristol having the ear of the President – In
Oil Rigs dotting our shores – In
Scenes of Genesis in Smithsonian – In
War with anyone who isn’t a Christian Nation – In
Weaponize every inch of this earth and beyond – In
mike – Someone noted, rather wittily, that George W Bush proved teh constitution is idiot-proof. I don’t think it’s Palin proof.
But the clear advantage we have is that Sarah wouldn’t last 6 months. She’d probably not last 3. She’d quit or else Congress would boot her idiotic iincompetent rear end out. You cannot let someone taht stupid be in charge of an entire country.
Good god!
And lest sbj take my typos for a reflection of my current state of being, let me say: I’m sorry – my keyboard has gone nuts. I need a knew one.
Keys fail to strike, keys stick, keys go crazy and erase whole parts of sentences…keys make my verbs and subjects disagree. They’re out to get me.
@tena: Naw. You don’t seem high today … yet!
It needs said, so here goes:
This is Great News for John McCain!
re: Palin-
To paraphrase the late, great Molly Ivins: “if her IQ dropped any lower, we’d have to water her twice a day”.
“This is Great News for John McCain!”
LOLOLOLOL!!!!!!
I have another golden oldie that goes even further back – actually to the midterms in ‘06:
And Karl Rove is a GENIUS! We’re dooooooooooooooooomed!
well, sbj – that’s how much you know about it.
LOL!
Karl Rove knows The Math. Republican Math.
Republican* Math**: Where the error always fails in favor of the Republican and there are always errors.
* “Republican” is replaceable with “right wing” and includes “conservative” and “libertarian”.
** “Math” is replaceable with “science”.
Karl Rove no longer gives a rat’s a*s*s who wins or who loses.
TJI:
Charlie Crist………..
…is giving out his cell phone number…
…to JOURNALISTS!
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1109/Crists_woes.html
Bwaaaaaaaaaahahahahaha!
Greg, Got any more polls for us ?
heh. I’m sure he’s already got his Gallup at 49% approval blog entry already typed out in anticipation.
@Ethan…Charlie Crist is not only the Governor of my state..he is also from the town I reside in..St. Petersburg. That makes him a double embarrassment.
He is moving from a centrist R to the right of Attila the Hun faster than Linda Blair’s head spun in the exorcist. Talk about whiplash trying to keep up with Charlie. His challenger is a very right wing Cuban-American from Miami named Marco Rubio. Rubio has always been right wing…but apparently not enough..even he is trying to move even farther to the right. They are fortunately running for a seat held by R quitter Mel Martinez and so the Dems have nothing to lose…but the opportunity to pick up a Senate seat!!!
Alas we have uninspiring Kendrick Meek set to take on the Rubio/Crist winner. This is exactly the time the Dems need to field a significant candidate at all costs!
By the time Crist and Rubio finish proving their bona fides as “true palinista conservatives” they will make Mussolini look like a progressive. It’s hard to imagine anybody but the true 20%ers getting excited by either of these candidates…again..alas..it’s also hard to get excited by Kendrick Meek. The DNC needs to jump into this and try to steal another seat from the R’s because I believe the internecine warfare of the rethugs makes this seat vulnerable to a great Dem candidate.
Ethan – o that’s going to last for about a day a half – Crist acting as his own communications director.
What a moran! LOL
Ha, Tena.
RUK, what’s the beef with Meek? I think he’s great.
“His challenger is a very right wing Cuban-American from Miami named Marco Rubio. ”
Love these first generation immigrants’ kids who want to shut the borders. Now that they got theirs…
If we wind up how it’s looking we might here in America, with one batshit insane far right party and the Democrats, it’s going to be hella bumpy when we change governments with elections. I don’t see how we can get a damn thing done if the Batshit Right really does prevail against saner Republicans – which I really wonder anymore if they exist – and I wonder why the hell they haven’t switched parties yet. Listenin’, Olympia?
I guess the lesson is: The Democrats better hold on the majority and the White House – at least until the Rabid Right is settled back down.
mike – LOL. He will also ‘predict’ the sky is falling on the dems.
what good does it do to excite the dem/lib base if doing so pisses off the independents whose votes are needed? there aren’t enough dems to win, just as there aren’t enough republicans for them to win, the winner is the side that wins the independents.
and you’re not going to do that by pushing policies they oppose. remember, they’re not like you, if they were, they wouldn’t be independent, would they?
just as the hard right has to temper their desire to push their agenda on people who don’t want it, so too do liberals. you can be pure or you can win elections, you can’t do both.
@Ethan I don’t have anything “against” Meek..he just lacks statewide name recognization and appears to be riding Mama Carrie’s coattails. I shall certainly vote for him if he is the nominee but he has little statewide recognition and fundraising has been tough compared to either repub. I just wish we had a ‘big name’ to throw at Crist/Rubio.
For the longest time everybody ceded the seat to Crist…including high profile Dems…but now with the Palin purge and Rubio it’s a new ballgame.
Would love to see the Big Dog and Obama both push for Meek. I’m sure they will, but it would be nice to see people get behind him NOW esp that Crist/Rubio is turning into a spectacle.
I haven’t been watching cspan much lately, but I used to love watching the Thirty-something Working Group (Meek, Wasserman-Schultz and Tim Ryan (OH))…… Great stuff.
“what good does it do to excite the dem/lib base if doing so pisses off the independents whose votes are needed?”
I don’t see that the one thing leads to the other, necessarily. How do you know that liberal policies will turn the Independents away? How do any of us know that? Liberal government kept FDR in office for 11 years.
News Reference, if you say “corporate” and “corporatist” enough times, you’ll begin to sound smart!
“I ate a corporate cheeseburger from Burger King.” See now I sound like someone struggling for workers’ rights! Yes!
This is what happens when you bait-and-switch a leftist like Obama as some kind of moderate. I can’t wait to read the hysterical comments from you nutjobs as these results are repeated in poll after poll.
All of you who protest the “wing nuts” of the Repugs should look in the mirror and ask yourself how far left has the Democratic party gone. This country is either center left or center right depending on economic conditions. The curren administration is trying to govern from the far left and will be held accountable in the next election. Palin is a joke-end of discussion. Pelosi is a joke to most independents and she and Reid will destroy what should have been a great change in electing Obama. Over reach and what you get is a nasty reaction and you will in fact get that reaction.
Love these first generation immigrants’ kids who want to shut the borders. Now that they got theirs…
The second & third generation kids are no better. I can’t imagine what my viscerally WOP immigrant hating grandparents would have made out of today’s immigrant haters being led by someone whose surname ends in a vowel (Tancredo)!
L. Kash, you truly haven’t got a clue if you think this White House is far left. I’m a political moderate. This White House is firmly in the center left.
If you think otherwise I suggest you go learn a bit more about American history before coming back to argue again.
You really don’t know what you’re talking about.
Obama is a conservative centrist by any traditional political measure.
The problem is that the right wing is so extreme that it completely distorts the political dial (and let’s be clear, there is NO realistic “far left” in America, that’s just a fantasy of right wing extremists that didn’t get the memo that the Wall fell).
On the right side however, check who the extreme right wing in America are represented by: Anti-American secessionists who want to tear America apart by force.
And that’s not “fringe” right wingers that advocate anti-American right wing secessionism, it includes the current Republican Governor of Texas and also the husband of the former Republican Vice Presidential Candidate.
Core Republican leaders and right wing followers are now openly advocating for the destruction of America.
This blog has it’s very own anti-American secessionist: “Bilgeman”.
Less extreme, but still crazy extreme: Some extreme right wingers within the Republican Party want to dismantle things like the FDA, which is the government agency that literally keeps corporations from selling rat meat in their cheeseburgers and regulates certain basic standards of hygiene for the food corporations sell you.
By that extreme right-wing standard, anyone that wants to deny corporations the “right” to sell you rat meat as hamburger is now “far left”.
By that right wing measure, all of the moderates and independents that want to prevent corporations from selling rat meat as hamburger are “far left”.
And yes, “sigh”, there really were corporations that used to legally sell rat meat as hamburger, and then those darn “far left” liberals had the radical idea of denying corporations that “right”.
Snark alert:
But don’t worry, libertarians are at the forefront of the right wing’s movement to eliminate pesky things like the FDA’s restriction on corporation’s “right” to sell you rat meat as hamburger.
And there’s nothing like pre-19th century standards of sanitation to cut expenses for corporate-food industries.
And once the right wing eliminate all of those pesky trial-lawyers the consumers of rotten rat meat won’t be able to sue those noble corporations any more.
/snark
I shudder to think the future of this country hinges on you people. And one final remark if Texas wants to secede and retained that right many years ago who in the heck are you to object. Maybe you should be glad to get rid of us; that would make it easier for people like you to destroy what AMERICA stood for and if you knew your history fella you would know what a difficult time all new immigrants had coming to this country. But the strong succeed. But I see none of you people seem interested in what your (and my) forefathers did to the original Americans (of which I am also a descendant)so you are an intruder as far as I am concerned. So all of you self righteous people stand down and remember your forefathers were among the worst in the world’s history who killed in order to take the lands legally and morally belonging to others.
“How do you know that liberal policies will turn the Independents away? How do any of us know that?”
if Independents liked liberal policies, they wouldn’t be independent, would they? They’re in the middle for a reason, they don’t like most of what either side pushes. And the more you try to force them eat your menu, the more they’ll rebel and vote with the side that isn’t trying to cram stuff down their throat.
Liberals,
You constitute 15-20% of the total electorate and perhaps 10% of the white electorate, yet virtually all of you very white-bread liberals think you represent Middle American opinion. You do not! Any reading of national polls will tell you that, but you are deniers by necessity. Accepting reality is accepting that you are still those nerdy kids no one liked in grade school.
Liberals depend on deception to maintain power. Note that Kerry’s “nuance” was actually contortions to avoid stating his true opinions, which he knew would reduce him to Mondale status if stated forthrightly.
Except in a few liberal enclaves, liberals politicians must camoflauge their true opinions. Obama correctly identified himself as s Trojan horse in his acceptance speech. He mostly presented himself as a moderate, which he assuredly is not, yet some of you bizarrely and against all evidence consider him excessively moderate!
Note that liberal politicians will generally deny being liberal and true moderates hotly deny being liberals. However, moderates rarely object to being called conservatives (except in a few states now circling the drain) and conservatives are quite proud to be labelled conservatives. Why is that?
Finally, the term “liberal” historically should properly be applied to those who support the traditional American attitude of stoutly resisting giving excessive power to the government, the only entity capable of denying or restricting liberty, the root word for liberal. A necessary corollary to avoiding the danger of overweening government is supporting the diffusion of economic power to many centers by supporting a capitalist economic system. All other economic systems necessarily enhance the power of government.
You so-called “liberals” are actually statist “progressives.” You are anti-liberal because you lobby ceaselessly to increase the power of government (note the barely half-hearted liberal fight against Obama’s renditions, war, and security surveillance). Despite your self-congratulations of moral superiority, you are often acting in your own self interest. You are liberals most often because you suck at the government *** directly as employees or indirectly as members of groups subsidized by the rest of us, including “arts” and other subsidized groups, members of unions that would no longer exist without government support of industries you long ago crippled (e.g., steel, automobiles, railroads, etc.) or as employees of rent-seeking companies. You also include students who have never had to hold down a real job and hope to work for the government some day where you will devote yourself to “service,” not to mention incredibly generous retirements and medical care.
You progressives are generally willfully ignorant of the often vile history of your own movement, which includes the wholly owned subsiderary eugenics movement (Margaret Sanger and almost all prominent progressives supported it as a way to reduce and improve the black “stock”), and the re-segregation of America through the Jim Crow laws (vigorously supported by Woodrow Wilson, an ardent racist). Even minimum wage laws were explicitly proposed and supported as a way to price black workers out of union jobs. Yes, some laws passed because of progressives were good things, but the amount of ugliness mixed in was and is appalling.
Middle America distrusts you and fears you if you have influence because your goals are counter to the interests of the great majority. Since you will never be a majority or lead the majority by stating your goals clearly, you act by manipulation of the system (e.g., judicial fiats, activist inner circles of influential organizations, etc.) and by claiming to promote interests that are only vehicles for your true goals (the public option as stalking horse for a government run system).
Under incredibly favorable circumstances, your hero won with 53%, a pittance compared to the landslides of Nixon, Reagan, and Bush I. I predict that Obama will match the landslides of Mondale and Dukakis in his reelection bid.
Even George McGovern discovered that those whining companies were right about government paperwork and excessive regulation when he tried to run a business. It would do the rest of you good to have the same experience with the reality you wish to impose on the rest of us. Perhaps the rapidly approaching collapse of government finances will ultimately save this country by liberating you from your opium.
Right winger “Steve” is apparently against “liberal” policies like: Clean air to breath, safe water to drink, safe food to eat, and safe products that don’t blow up in your face.
What other “liberal” policies are you against, “Steve”?
The liberal policy that criminalizes slavery?
The liberal policy that allows women to vote?
The liberal policy that won’t allow child labor?
And while independents and moderates now accept all of those liberal policies as mainstream, it wasn’t very long ago that those were crazy radical left wing ideas.
Speaking as a lifelong independent, I celebrate the left wing policies of clean air, safe water, pure foods, safe products, women’s right to vote, the abolition of slavery, and the prohibition of child labor.
And not only did right wingers historically fight against each of those liberal, government mandated protections, the right wing, to this day, would destroy those protections.