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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Month: March 2012

Dems Hope to Flip Five Senate Seats

Eliza Gray posts at The New Republic on “The Five Senate Seats Democrats Want to Flip in 2012.” Gray begins by quoting Democratic strategist Tad Devine, who says “Olympia Snowe is the straw that broke the camel’s back for the Republicans in the Senate contest…The smart money six months ago was Republicans are going to take the Senate. The smart money now is they’re not going to.”
Gray sees solid prospects for Democratic pick-ups, including U.S. Senate seats in Arizona, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada, with the best chances in the two New England states. She provides an overview of the political climates and potential candidates for each state.
Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball has an unsigned post, which also has good news for Dems:

Maine is now the Democrats’ top opportunity to win a Republican-held Senate seat, better even than Massachusetts, where Democrat Elizabeth Warren is challenging Republican Sen. Scott Brown in a titanic struggle, and Nevada, where appointed Republican Sen. Dean Heller faces a stern challenge from Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley. We recently switched Nevada to a TOSS UP, and Massachusetts has been a toss up in our ratings for some time. This gives Democrats another prime opportunity to play offense while they are defending many vulnerable seats across the country. The Senate is too close to call, but Harry Reid has a much better chance of remaining Senate majority leader today than he did at the start of the week…

With Dems having to defend 23 seats vs. the GOP’s defense of 10 seats, holding the Senate will still be a formidable challenge for Dems. But there is no question that Snowe’s retirement improves Dems chances dramatically.


Teixeira: Obama on Track to Match ‘O8 Numbers

Democrats can take encouragement from TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira’s article at The New Republic, “Why Obama’s Re-Election is Going to Look a Lot Like 2008.” Teixeira reviews the current political landscape’s GOP blunders and economic gains favoring Dems, and adds:

…It’s not just anecdotal evidence that suggests Obama’s re-election chances have improved–most of the polling data suggests the same. Obama has been running consistently ahead of his most likely challenger, Mitt Romney, in national polls–by an average of 4 points according to the Pollster.com website. Indeed, the closer you look at the numbers, the more reassuring the news: Obama, it seems, is well on his way to reconstructing the very coalition that elected him in 2008.
Consider these results from a recent Pew Center poll. In this poll, Obama is 8 points ahead of Romney, close to his victory margin in 2008 (7 points). But what is especially fascinating in this poll is its internals–how Obama is faring with key subgroups of voters. Start with minorities. Obama gets 93 percent of the black vote (he got 95 percent in 2008) and 79 percent of minorities overall (he got 80 percent in 2008). (The poll does not provide data on Hispanics, but the two most recent national polls of Hispanics give him 67 percent of these voters, identical to his 2008 performance.)
He also gets 44 percent of the white vote, compared to 43 percent in 2008. Moreover, if you break the white vote down by working class and college-educated, his performance is even more impressive. Among white college-educated voters he ties Romney 49-49, compared to the 4 point deficit he ran against John McCain, and loses white working voters by only 41-55, compared to his 18 point deficit against McCain.

Teixeira then takes a look at the factors driving forecasting models and sees more good news for Dems, especially in terms of the favorable change in the unemployment rate. Teixeira cites other improving economic statistics and notes that Nate Silver’s state-of-the-art forecasting model “gives Obama a 60 percent chance of winning, given a 2.5 percent growth rate this year and current job approval levels.” Teixeira adds that Alan Abramowitz’s forecasting model also give the President a good change to replicate his ’08 margins of victory.
In addition, notes Teixeira, President Obama’s rough first year in office may actually help him as voters contrast it with the recovery from those horrific economic numbers voters will hang on the previous administration. Teixeira adds that Larry Bartel’s forecasting model gives Obama an additional 7 percent bonus for managing the recovery.
Teixeira cautions against overconfidence, but concludes that “…the factors underlying these forecasts suggest that the recent re-emergence of Obama’s coalition is no fluke. If current trends continue, there’s a good chance that election day 2012 will look a lot like the one from 2008.”


Political Strategy Notes

Richard Wolf of USA Today reports a new poll by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation shows that 58% of Americans “trust Obama to make the right decisions on the 2010 health care law and on Medicare. By contrast, only 43% trust his closest Republican rivals on those issues.”
Robynn Tysver ‘s “Kerrey’s entry raises stakes” in the Omaha World-Herald preview’s the former Democratic Senator’s prospects, which may not be a cakewalk. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell has an excellent report on what Kerry’s candidacy can do for Democrats, with interviews with Robert Reich and E. J. Dionne, Jr.
Meanwhile, Nate Silver makes the case that “Democrats Favored to Pick Up Snowe Seat.”: Silver says “The retirement of Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine is about as damaging to a party’s electoral prospects as these things get, turning a seat that Republicans were very likely to retain into one they will probably lose. Despite the possibility of a “nasty primary fight,” Silver argues that “Conceived as a two-candidate race, however, Democrats are heavily favored in Maine, perhaps having an 80 percent chance of picking up the seat in a head-to-head race against one of the Republicans.”
Former Secretary of Education William Bennett has a CNN post making a credible case that Santorum’s not toast just yet, despite Romney’s big wins this week. It has to do with early voting in MI and Santorum’s edge in upcoming Ohio.
At The Daily Beast Amy Sullivan makes a compelling argument that “Rick Santorum Would Use Presidency to Help Forge an American Theocracy.” Sullivan says “Unlike George W. Bush, Santorum is a frightening theocrat who does not believe in the separation of church and state and who would use the White House to protect his ideal of a Christian America…That Santorum has largely escaped questioning on his theocratic beliefs so far suggests that we still can’t tell the difference between a religious politician and a truly frightening one.”
WaPo’s Amy Gardner reports on the unusually high stakes on the Ohio GOP primary: “No Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio. Thus, the challenge for the GOP candidates is to win the primary next week without turning off voters who they’ll need to carry the state in the fall…Ohio’s economy relies heavily on the auto industry, and Romney’s high-profile opposition of the government bailout of the industry is not likely to be received warmly by many voters. He supported an effort last year by Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) to restrict public unions’ collective-bargaining rights — an effort that was overwhelmingly overturned in the fall by voters in this union-heavy state.”
Demos has an interesting post on “Federal Appeals Court Ruling Finding NM Officials in Violation of National Voter Registration Act.” The “motor voter” bill requires public assistance agencies, not merely to provide voter registration forms to citizens, but to offer them the forms. Up till now, the law has been poorly enforced across the nation.
Aaron Gould Sheinin explains why “Candidates pile up endorsements, but their impact is questionable” in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
In the Wall St. Journal, Andy Kessler ponders “When Will Social Media Elect a President?” Kessler says “This viral marketing is what corporate and political campaigns increasingly thrive on, and today it’s mostly free. By the 2016 election, it’ll surely steal some of the $3 billion in TV ad money…For years Google has ranked Web pages according to an algorithm called PageRank. Now there’s a new field of study around ranking users in social networks–PeopleRank–according to their influence: how many of their tweets are read, re-tweeted, include links that others click on, etc…Those with social-media “influence” are most likely to help campaigns convert interest into votes. Finding them in the haystack of the real world is tedious and expensive. But harnessing fast servers and constantly upgraded algorithms to find them on social networks is already happening–and it’ll definitely sway who becomes our next president.”
California’s independent redistricting commission bags the House Rules Committee Chairman.