According to a new CNN/ORC poll, “61% want Congress to leave the Affordable Care Act alone (12%) or make some changes to the law in an attempt to make it work better (49%),” reports Paul Steinhauser of CNN Politics.
E. J. Dionne, Jr.’s “The Democrats’ strategic ambiguity” discusses the importance and difficulty of finding a positive tone in Democratic messaging, even while holding Republicans accountable for the political paralysis that prevents economic recovery and progress.
From Chris Cillizza’s “In midterm elections, Democrats can have some hope of retaining control of Senate” at The Fix : “Senate races — featuring better-known candidates and lots more money — can buck national trends (although they don’t always). Senate races have become, in effect, mini presidential races and, like presidentials, can create their own gravitational pull . . .”The recent generic ballot numbers showing the GOP ahead add very little to the debate over whether Republicans will take over the Senate,” said Neil Newhouse, a prominent Republican pollster and partner at Public Opinion Strategies. “No one, repeat, no one on our side is measuring the drapes for GOP control of the Senate. Campaigns matter, and this one has only just begun.”
One take from Kyle Kondik’s post “The Surprisingly Unrepresentative 2014 Senate Map” at the Crystal Ball would be “a very small number of voters in some fairly conservative states could flip control of the Senate this year,” as the editors put it. Sounds like a downer — until you insert the word “progressive” in front of “voters,” which opens up a range of upset possibilities with some precision GOTV targeting.
Steve Singiser inaugurates a new feature, “The Daily Kos Elections gubernatorial power rankings.” Florida is the biggest deal on Singiser’s list, with the following states considered done deals: AL; NV; ID; OK; SD; TN; VT; and WY.
At HuffPollster Mark Blumenthal and Ariel Edwards-Levy address “Will Turnout Or Swing Voters Sway The 2014 Election?” and conclude “…As a campaign decides how to allocate its resources, other factors also need to be considered, including the costs and conversion rates of persuasion vs. mobilization in their locale and in their race. In sum, it’s not all about swing voters and it’s not all about base mobilization — it’s about both.” The thing about genuine swing voters is that they are few and hard to identify and target — which is why base turnout is most often a more cost-ecctive investment.
Re Mike Lux’s “Going Out of Our Way to Uniquely Screw People With Student Debt” at HuffPo, there has to be a way to awaken some righteous rage on the campuses of America and among young people saddled with these loans and turn it into a force that votes in the midterms.
Dems are cranking up their ‘Red to Blue’ House campaign with strong participation of women, as Donna Cassatta reports at Talking Points Memo: “Sixty-three of the 199 Democrats in the House are women, compared with just 19 of the 233 Republicans. Democrats have recruited 102 women to run for open seats and challenge incumbents this election, compared with 66 Republicans, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.”
Josh Harkinson’s Mother Jones post “Why the FCC Is Ditching Net Neutrality” provides a primer on the motivation behind a dangerous idea that apparently has a chance.