December 23, 2009

To Hawthorn Friends and Family –

           Sent with our very best wishes for the holiday season, below is Steve Lombardo’s final analysis for the year.

            I think he focuses on exactly the right points:

• While the Obama administration and congressional Democrats got themselves into a position where passing ANY form of healthcare legislation is better than being seen as unable to, public opposition to healthcare reform is so strong (36% favor, 49% oppose), it’s not clear whether, beyond demonstrating he can win a major legislative battle, the victory may NOT help the President politically (though, as noted, failure would have hurt him more) . . . and victory also may not prove helpful to Senators Reid and Dodd in their respective tough re-election battles in Nevada and Connecticut.

I think the “backroom” “vote-buying” deals will continue to draw attention (as they did in Ed Rollins’ CNN column this morning) and lower the public’s opinion of congress even further . . . IF that’s possible.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has stated that if any senator doesn’t have “…something important in [the healthcare bill] to them then it doesn’t speak well of them.”

It’s also not clear how much damage the “vote-buying deals” with the moderates have done to President Obama among the liberals.  The differences will get a lot of attention during the upcoming conference negotiation as the two houses reconcile wide differences.  My guess is President Obama won’t lose the liberals’ votes in ’12, nor the Democrat Party in ’10, but both may well lose their critical enthusiasm.  The Democratic leadership (and the President, who stayed in Washington, delaying his Hawaii vacation until the bill passes) is clearly hoping a Christmas Eve vote will produce lots of Christmas Day sound-bites about a “Christmas gift for the American people.”  Ah, but will the voters view it as a gift?  I remember those Christmases as a kid when I got the socks and pajamas I “needed,” wrapped as Christmas presents.

• President Obama’s year-end approval ratings DO look grim, particularly compared to where they were on Inauguration Day (the highest – totally unrealistically – in modern presidential history) . . . but as Steve points out, Reagan with not dissimilar numbers, along with Clinton both rebounded from massive mid-term congressional losses to win re-election . . . while Bush Senior, with a 71% - 21%, 50-point margin, at the end of his first year, went down to re-election defeat.

I recently heard Bob Livingston, for whose political judgment I have enormous regard, suggest that, by far, the best predictor of Obama’s re-election prospects is unemployment.  If, in the run-up to ’12, it’s still nine or ten percent, he’s gone.  If it’s five or six percent, he’s re-elected.  If it’s seven or eight, then it’s a contest.  What will it be?  I have no idea, but he’s still got time for it to improve . . . tho’ I see no experts predicting a rapid recovery, probably not in time for the mid-term elections in ’10.

• The loss of support among Independents is particularly critical.  As we’ve observed before, in America, Independents decide elections.  Democrats vote for Democrats and Republicans vote for Republican.  Partisans only decide elections when they stay home and fail to support their party.  It’s Independents who are the “swing” voters that decide the outcome, and today they out-number both Democrats and Republicans.

In last year’s presidential election, Independents in Virginia voted Democrat 65%-35%.  In last month’s gubernatorial election, Independents in Virginia are thought to have voted Republican 65%-35%.  I’m not arguing it was (even laregly) disaffection with Obama that caused the shift.  I’m arguing that it’s a clear example of how critical the Independent vote is, especially when partisan turnout (in this case, among Africa-American and young voters) is down.

• I’m inclined to agree with the predictions I’m reading that this still-to-be-ended highly partisan fight on healthcare makes it more likely Congress will NOT enact climate change legislation next year (an election year), and may not complete financial regulatory reform (tho’ I think that one, because it doesn’t have a huge budget price-tag, is a LOT more likely to be enacted).  A key question is whether Obama’s failure to win THOSE congressional battles, as well as put an end to ear-marking, will further damage him/congress?

Regardless of all the things political “junkies” focus on, Americans are focused on only one thing:  their economic well being.  If their home values, 401k’s and IRA’s start to recover, if there are more and better jobs, voters – as Bob Livingston noted – will view the political scene very differently.  Absent that recovery, legislation on healthcare, climate change, financial regulation or the volume of television commercials (CNN even interviewed ME on how irrelevant that is), will mean little or nothing.  That other great Louisianian, James Carville, was never more right today than when 17 years ago he said, “It’s the economy, stupid.”  All else pales.

• It seems to me what ought to worry Democrats most, at least for next year’s mid-term elections, are the retirements announced by House Democrats recently, four in ten days, including Science & Technology Chair Bart Gordon.   Gordon is a real loss.  Highly respected, he voted with his party on eight of 10 recent tough votes even though his district was weighted R+13.

When Clinton and the Democrats lost the House in 1994 – for the first time in some 50 years – the groundwork was laid by massive Democrat retirements.  Democrats left 31 seats open and the GOP snatched 22 of them, with the Dems keeping only nine. 

Watch the announcements.  If more retirements start getting announced (and senior “old bulls” like Ike Skelton, John Spratt and Nick Rahall are all being challenged by GOP contenders), the Democrats – who WILL lose seats – may lose enough seats to lose control of the House.  So far, 10 Democrats have announced plans not to seek re-election, compared to 12 Republicans.  However, only four of those GOP seats (33%) are “in play,” while seven Democrat seats (70%) are “in play.”

• Even more worrisome to Democrats – especially if it starts the kind of “run” of Democrat defections to the GOP that happened in the Reagan years – was yesterday’s announcement by Congressman Parker Griffiths (D-AL 5) that he is switching to the Republican Party.  That’s hardly surprising, with President Obama enjoying maybe a 30% favorable rating in north Alabama (the President got nine percent of the white vote in Alabama last year), but it gives the GOP control of this district for the first time since 1866, 144 years of Democrat control.  And that’s one (more) seat the Republicans are guaranteed to pick up.

• Finally, as we look toward 2010, it will be very interesting – certainly for this Democrat – to watch over the next six months to see if Republicans continue their internecine battle for the heart and soul of the Republican party during the primary season.  As you may recall in the recent NY-23 House district special election, national Republicans rallied around the Conservative candidate, Doug Hoffman, forcing the pro-choice, pro-gay marriage Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava out of the race, and eventually out of her NY Assembly leadership post.  This battle most likely handed Democrat Bill Owens the victory in a district that a large portion of it last saw a Whig as the most recent non-Republican Representative, just to give you an idea of how long Republicans have held the seat.

Early indications are that “Scozzafavaing” is only going to increase in the near future.  In the Florida US Senate race, the conservative Club for Growth has thrown its support behind former state house Speaker Marco Rubio, who is challenging the already anointed Governor Charlie Crist for the Republican nomination.  Early indications are this race will be the primary race to watch as both Republican Congressman Diaz-Balart brothers, Lincoln and Mario, have pulled their endorsements of Crist.

Meanwhile, in Kentucky, perhaps the most “anti-GOP” GOP candidate out there,  Rand Paul, the son of current Representative and former Presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX 14) is giving the establishment candidate, Secretary of State Trey Grayson, a run for his money.  Despite being well behind in polls a few months ago, Paul now leads Grayson by double digits and is raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars by relying on the same grassroots network that fueled his father’s 2008 presidential bid – banking an additional $236,000 last Wednesday via an internet fundraiser and is now on track to raise $2 million by the end of the year, staying on par if not ahead of Grayson.  Paul, according to a recent Public Policy Poll, is drawing his strongest support, not surprisingly, from those Republicans unhappy with their party; leading Grayson by 32 points with those unhappy with the GOP in Congress and 36 points with those who think the party has grown too liberal. 

In 2008, the “punditocracy” of “talking heads” proclaimed a national Democratic political realignment was forming that would last a generation.  However, what we are seeing is the final realignment of the Republican Party for this generation, from the geographic defeats in the Northeast and defects in the South, to the strict adherence to party ideology for candidates via a litmus test being considered by the Republican National Committee.  Nothing unites better than a common enemy and now being the minority party in Congress while also out of the White House at the same time in 16 years, Republicans have exactly that.

            Enough – more than enough – politics at this holiday season!  For all Hawthorn’s Friends and Family, our wish was best expressed by Tiny Tim, who said,

“God bless us, every one!”

John … and Dr. John, Michael, Suzanne, James, Jack, Rex, Harvey, Scott B, Peter, Christina, Anthony ,Scott D, Charles, Jonathan, Janice, and Donald

Friends,

The merits of this weekend’s health care reform legislation can be debated elsewhere; our focus here is on its potential political impact.  And while the process was more protracted and contentious than many predicted, there is little doubt that this was a tremendous political achievement for President Obama and the Democrats.  Our assumption is that the White House’s political apparatus hopes that this will stop the President’s job approval rating erosion.  We aren’t sure that it will.

Our sense is that passing the Senate health care reform bill is better for President Obama and the Democrats than not passing anything.  Obama’s overall job approval (48% approve) and health care approval (51% disapprove) numbers have both fallen in step with declining public support for the health care plan (currently at 36% favor, 49% oppose).  The generic congressional ballot, which asks voters which party’s candidate they plan to vote for in the 2010 House races, has actually favored the Republican candidate in nine of 14 publicly-released polls since the beginning of November (the current average is 44% Republican, 42% Democrat).

The generic ballot and presidential approval rating are the two best general predictors of mid-term shifts in control of Congress, so this should trouble Democratic leaders who touted a permanent, Democratic realignment of the electorate 12 months ago.

Let’s tackle one of these and provide some historical context for the President’s current approval ratings. 

Obama’s First Year:  The Worst Ever?

Karl Rove’s latest WSJ editorial points out that Obama’s overall job approval has fallen to “the worst ratings of any president at the end of his first year.”  This is true, but only to a point: Obama’s current approval is within a cluster that has Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan all within the margin of error at the same point in their first terms.  In 1994, President Clinton and the Democrats lost a net of 54 seats in the House and eight in the Senate in the “Contract with America” tsunami.  In 1982, President Reagan and the GOP lost a net of 27 seats in the House and one in the Senate.  Of course, both Clinton and Reagan then went on to win re-election.

The below table shows the approval ratings for Obama and the previous six presidents at the same point in their presidency, approximately 325 days after their inauguration to their first term.  (All approval numbers are from the Gallup Poll except for George H.W. Bush’s approval among independents, which was taken from a CBS News poll that November.)

The most striking thing here is Obama’s diapproval number.  While Ford, Reagan and Clinton had similar approval ratings, only Obama has a nearly one-to-one ratio of approval to disapproval.  This might be a testament to the polarization of the contemporary electorate, or it just might be that Obama’s policies have engendered greater disapproval at a faster rate than his predecessors’.

For a pretty cool experience (or at least as cool as polling trend data can be), click the graphic below for a link to the interactive USA Today chart that allows you to compare Gallup’s historic presidential approval data.

Independents

While Democrats are still quite supportive of Obama, he is really struggling with independent voters.  In January, approximately 70% of independents approved of Obama’s job performance.  It would have been unrealistic for him to keep approval among independents at that level, but a 25-point drop is significant.

Below is a table that compares overall Presidential approval ratings with approval ratings among Independents for the last six Presidents.  As you'd expect, the two figures usually move closely together.  The spread between Obama's overall and independent approval ratings is currently on the high side of the typical range.  Keep a close watch on Obama’s job approval number with independents: if it drops into the low 40’s that would suggest a catastrophic collapse of support that could be a precursor to a major swing toward the GOP in 2010. 

Obama’s Approval Rating: What Happens Now?

This is the big question.  Any assessment of the current situation would suggest that Obama is due for at least a slight ratings bump with the passage of health care reform.  It is our belief, however, that there is a great deal of uncertainty about the bill; this is why support for comprehensive health care reform has plummeted in recent months.  While many voters oppose the bill because they disike it from a policy perspective, many others oppose it because they simply don’t understand it. 

Therefore, for Obama to realize some kind of January bump from health care reform’s eventual passage, he will need to explain to the American public a) what the bill does and b) why it will be a good thing for them personally.  Perhaps then, as is typical after these protracted legislative battles are won by a President and his party, Obama might get a modest (three-to-five point) bounce in his approval rating.    But that is far from a certainty.  Today, Quinnipiac University released another poll that showed a majority of voters disapprove of the Senate’s health care plan.  It is going to take some work to convince voters that this bill is a good thing.  Not impossible, but increasingly difficult.

After that, to predict the direction of Obama’s approval it would be best to watch the topline unemployment number, which has recently been a good leading indicator of Obama’s approval rating. 

Happy Holidays and we will be back in January.  Follow us daily on Twitter and read our postings—and the postings of others—on Pollster.com.  As always, thanks to John Zirinksy and Pete Ventimiglia for their insights and analysis.

Steve