In her NYT article “New Democratic Strategy Goes After Koch Brothers,” Ashley Parker quotes Democratic pollster Geoff Garin: “In 2012, Mr. Garin produced a research project for Patriot Majority PAC, an outside Democratic group, looking at the public awareness that swing voters and traditionally Democratic constituencies have of the Koch brothers. He found that his focus group respondents had an “overwhelmingly negative” reaction to the Kochs’ political involvement, with their top concern being that “the Koch brothers’ agenda will hurt average people and the undermine the middle class….Our research has shown pretty clearly that once voters recognize the source of the attacks, they tend to discount them substantially.”
Democratic message fact for the day: “According to the Commerce Dept. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Obamacare accounted for about three quarters of the overall rise in Americans’ incomes in January.” — from Tara Culp-Ressler’s ThinkProgress post, “Obamacare Is Already Helping Boost Americans’ Personal Incomes.”
Call me crazy, but I’m more encouraged than discouraged by this headline and the story behind it by Dan Balz and Scott Clement: “Poll: Democrats’ advantage on key issues is not translating to a midterm-election edge,” since most voters don’t start paying attention until the last month or so before the election.
Scott Bland has a National Journal update on the Democrats’ difficult “red to blue” campaign targeting 16 House seats.
Given Hillary’s impressive polling numbers, even with Republicans, might it be a good idea to send her out on the trail now to help a few competitive Democratic congressional candidates, since her lead will likely diminish later? The idea is to leverage popularity of Democratic leaders while we have it.
At The Hill Jessica Taylor explains new developments in the battle for control of the U.S. Senate, and sees Democrats’ best hope for pick-ups in GA and MS, with a tough map to overcome elsewhere.
in his WaMo post, “Limits of the Republican Senate Wave,” however, Ed Kilgore flushes GOP fantasies about picking up Senate seats in the double digit range.
Quite an opportunity for the Arizona Democratic Party in this ArizonaCentral.com report by Daniel Gonzalez and Erin Kelley “From 2008 to 2012, the number of eligible Latino voters in Arizona increased 24 percent, to 989,000, up from 796,000, according to the report. But only 52 percent of eligible Latinos were registered in 2012, and only 40 percent of those eligible actually voted, according to the report…By comparison, 71 percent of eligible White voters were registered in 2012, and 62 percent voted.”
Looking ahead, Chris Cillizza’s “The one chart you need to understand why Republicans should be worried about 2016” merits a peek.