The following article is cross-posted from a Democracy Corps e-blast and linked to a major new Democracy Corps study, “Not so fast: 2014 Congressional Battleground Very Competitive“:
Not so fast.
The first Democracy Corps Congressional Battleground survey of the most competitive House races will challenge serious commentary and the informed presumptions about the 2014 election. Analysts, pundits, and commentators have concluded that there will be fewer seats in play in 2014 and that neither party is likely to upset the current balance. To be honest, this poll surprised us. Republicans have lost half their lead from 2012 – despite the more Republican seats and a more conservative electorate. It shows Democrats could at least replicate the net gain of 8 seats they achieved in 2012 – and that Republicans are exposed as the country tires of Tea Party gridlock, Obamacare repeal efforts, threats to Medicare and Social Security, and politicians protecting the richest. The parties’ strongest attacks, including on health care, produce big gains for Democrats – bigger shifts than we have seen in a long time. In the past, that has been a precursor to future gains.
Democracy Corps’ Congressional Battleground poll is the only one where interviews are conducted exclusively in the most competitive Democratic and Republican seats, using the actual names of incumbents in their districts. This is not a generic test ballot. And this survey has been a pretty good guide to the expanding battlegrounds in the elections of 2006, 2008, and 2010.
Read more at Democracy Corps.
This year’s big media narrative has been the confirmation saga of Neera Tanden, Biden’s nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget. At New York I wrote about how over-heated the talk surrounding Tanden has become.
Okay, folks, this is getting ridiculous. When a vote in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the nomination of Neera Tanden was postponed earlier this week, you would have thought it presented an existential threat to the Biden presidency. “Scrutiny over Tanden’s selection has continued to build as the story over her uneven reception on Capitol Hill stretched through the week,” said one Washington Post story. Politico Playbook suggested that if Tanden didn’t recover, the brouhaha “has the potential to be what Biden might call a BFD.” There’sbeen all sorts of unintentionally funny speculation about whether the White House is playing some sort of “three-dimensional chess” in its handling of the confirmation, disguising a nefarious plan B or C.
Perhaps it reflects the law of supply and demand, which requires the inflation of any bit of trouble for Biden into a crisis. After all, his Cabinet nominees have been approved by the Senate with a minimum of 56 votes; the second-lowest level of support was 64 votes. One nominee who was the subject of all sorts of initial shrieking, Tom Vilsack, was confirmed with 92 Senate votes. Meanwhile, Congress is on track to approve the largest package of legislation moved by any president since at least the Reagan budget of 1981, with a lot of the work on it being conducted quietly in both chambers. Maybe if the bill hits some sort of roadblock, or if Republican fury at HHS nominee Xavier Becerra (whose confirmation has predictably become the big fundraising and mobilization vehicle for the GOP’s very loud anti-abortion constituency) reaches a certain decibel level, Tanden can get out of the spotlight for a bit.
But what’s really unfair — and beyond that, surreal — is the extent to which this confirmation is being treated as more important than all the others combined, or indeed, as a make-or-break moment for a presidency that has barely begun. It’s not. If Tanden cannot get confirmed, the Biden administration won’t miss a beat, and I am reasonably sure she will still have a distinguished future in public affairs (though perhaps one without much of a social-media presence). And if she is confirmed, we’ll all forget about the brouhaha and begin focusing on how she does the job, which she is, by all accounts, qualified to perform.
