por admin » Mar Sep 07, 2010 2:48 pm
56% de los republicanos, democratas e independientes dice que es hora de darle la oportunidad a otro que no este en el Congreso.
Todos los que estan en el Congreso corren el peligro de perder su puesto en las proximas elecciones de Noviembre. Los Americanos estan descontentos con los politicos y las politicas actuales, quieren sangre nueva.
Get Ready for an Anti-Incumbent Wave
Poll Shows Republicans Benefit From Fears About Economy; Democrats Need to Persuade Unenthusiastic Backers to Vote
By GERALD F. SEIB
This is about the time when Democrats thought—or perhaps hoped—the political clouds that have hung over them all year would begin to lift.
.Instead, those clouds may actually be getting darker.
Mounting economic gloom and a controversial agenda are exacting a heavy toll on their prospects for keeping control of Congress in the Nov. 2 elections, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
The poll, taken to coincide with the traditional Labor Day kickoff of the campaign's home stretch, shows the Democrats' biggest problem is a wide passion gap: Voters angry at Democrats are fired up to vote, while many who like them are yawning over the coming election.
When voters overall are asked whether they prefer that November's vote produce a Congress controlled by Democrats or by Republicans, they split evenly, 43% favoring Democrats and 43% Republicans.
But among those who appear most likely to vote, based on their level of interest in the campaign and their history of voting, the Republicans own a dramatic 49% to 40% advantage. If that kind of lead holds, Republicans would almost certainly take back control of the House.
..A tide of national unhappiness and disenchantment with Washington has been building all year and proving a threat to incumbents of both parties, as illustrated by the primary defeats of Republican Sens. Robert Bennett of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska by upstarts within their own party. But the sour mood is a particular problem for Democrats because they are in control of both the White House and Congress, and the few springtime signs that the economy might have significantly improved by Election Day have been snuffed out.
Indeed, the most striking finding in the new survey is the indication of a deep slide in economic confidence. Only 26% of those surveyed think the economy is going to get better in the next year, down markedly from 47% a year ago.
In the same vein, the share who think the country is generally on the wrong track now stands at 61%, up from 48% a year ago. Perhaps most telling for Democrats, approval of President Barack Obama's handling of the economy has slipped to 39%.
That reading, said Republican pollster William McInturff, who co-directs the Journal/NBC News survey with Democrat Peter Hart, was "a huge danger sign" for Democrats.
South Carolina Republican Nikki Haley beat three sitting officeholders to win the GOP gubernatorial nomination in August.
..GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, who was in charge of recruiting his party's candidates for House races this year, said he was cautioning his troops that "Democrats haven't unleashed their money yet" in many House races and would be using their war chest to attack aggressively in the two months remaining.
Still, Mr. McCarthy said the favorable winds for the GOP also meant the party should think about the range of seats it has a chance to seize. "Republicans should expand that field and look beyond, and not use past elections as an indicator" of what is possible this year, he said.
Jerry Seib discusses the latest WSJ poll, which shows that the clouds may be darkening for Democrats in the final run-up to November's elections.
.Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the second-ranking House Republican, said he was advising candidates "to stay focused on the issue the public is concerned about, and that is the economy."
While the survey illustrates Democrats' deep problems, it also suggests the strategy that party leaders are likely to pursue to limit the damage: devoting resources to energize their own voters and focusing attention on a Republican party that isn't particularly popular either, according to the poll.
One hope for Democrats is this: There are enough pro-Democrat, pro-Obama voters available to help the party head off disaster—if they can be persuaded to show up and vote. In the survey, those who expressed the very highest levels of interest in this year's election preferred a Republican Congress by a margin of 53% to 35%. Among all other, less interested voters, Democrats are preferred by a 20-point margin.
The Fall Campaign
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..So Democrats' most urgent challenge in the next eight weeks is to turn these uninterested voters into interested voters—a difficult task, but one party leaders insist they are tackling.
"We have had a voter contact program that has been going strong for more than a year," said Jennifer Crider, deputy executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Recognizing the challenge Democrats face, she says, the national party has helped put a field director and an average of five staff members in place in 75 of the most hotly contested House congressional districts, where they have been building a base of volunteers to turn out the vote. Democratic leaders say the party will be spending at least $50 million for mobilization efforts between now and the election.
The second Democratic tactic suggested by the numbers is to remind voters that they aren't fond of the Republican Party either. Amid all its woes, the Democratic Party is viewed positively by 36% of those surveyed, higher than the 30% with a positive view of Republicans. Fully a quarter said they'd vote for an independent or third-party candidate if they had the chance; a similar share said they were interested in voting for someone in the tea-party movement.
That suggests there will be a concerted strategy by Democrats to make the election as much about Republicans who seek control as it is about the Democrats now in control.
Still, even Democrats acknowledge they face big problems.
"We all know that there's a hurricane coming for the Democrats," said Mr. Hart, the Democratic pollster. "What we haven't determined at this moment is whether it's going to be a category three or a category five."
.Weak approval ratings for Mr. Obama aren't helping. The president's overall job-approval rating now stands at 45%, down from 47% earlier in August, while 49% said they disapproved. His approval rating has declined most noticeably among seniors, suburban women and Midwestern voters.
Mr. Obama is benefiting from his announcement last week that combat operations are ending in Iraq; approval of his handling of the war has risen to 52% from 49% earlier in the month.
But other parts of his agenda haven't gone over so well. More than four in 10 said the decision to provide government funds to rescue big banks, initiated under the Bush administrations, "made things worse." And a third said the same of the big health-care overhaul Mr. Obama championed.
Still, Mr. Obama doesn't seem to be the central cause of Democrats' problems. Just 12% of those who said they prefer a Republican-controlled Congress said they wanted to vote that way to protest the performance of the Obama administration, while more than twice as many—28%—said they wanted to protest the performance of Democrats in Congress.
Democrats argue it still will be tough for Republicans to pick up the net total of 39 Democratic-held seats they need for control of the House.
For one thing, Democratic leaders think the nation's general wave of unhappiness may wash away some Republican incumbents, as well. Indeed, 56% of all voters—Democrats, Republicans and independents—said it was time to give a new person a chance in their own congressional district.
As a result, Democrats think they have a chance to take perhaps four or five Republican seats, making the GOP climb to control that much steeper.