As Midterm Elections Loom, U.S. Voters Are Excited About...Nobody

Wall Street Journal

By Janet Hook

October 7, 2014

As Midterm Elections Loom, U.S. Voters Are Excited About...Nobody 

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, after an early scare, is cruising toward re-election next month in South Carolina. Yet, he isn’t sure what the deeper meaning of victory will be this year.

“There is no mandate other than, ‘We don’t like the other guy,’ ” he said.

Sen. Graham and his fellow Republicans hold a clear edge as the midterm campaign heads into its stretch run. The party is almost certain to keep control of the House, and may expand its majority. Depending on the outcome in several close states, the Republican Party could gain between four and seven seats in the Senate, giving it a good shot at capturing that chamber and, with it, control of Congress for the first time in eight years.

But the GOP’s advantage springs more from intense anti- Obama feelings than from a wave of voters who believe Republicans will transform Washington. Indeed, disillusionment with politics may help explain why Republicans’ edge isn’t wider at a time when job approval ratings of the Democratic president have slid into the 40% range.

The backdrop of this fall’s voting is a mood of voter anger over the status quo, polls suggest. Just one month before the Nov. 4 election, it isn’t even clear what exactly the midterm contests are about. No single issue dominates, except unhappiness with the established order.

In Virginia, one black voter was so eager to unseat a House incumbent, he voted in a GOP primary for the first time. In Wisconsin, an independent voter is looking to third-party candidates because he said neither Democrats nor Republicans address his worries about the economy.

Interviews and a review of polls reveal an electorate with less faith than ever in the political system. Two-thirds of registered voters believe the country is on the wrong track, while just a quarter say the U.S. is moving in the right direction—the widest gap before a midterm election in more than 20 years, The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found last month.

“In the past, there was a feeling that government was on their side; now they feel the government is against them,” said Rep. Nick Rahall (D., W.Va.), who is in a tough re-election fight. “It makes it doubly difficult for me to make my case.”

The relentlessly negative, low-interest congressional campaigns are likely to leave the winners without a clear mandate. That kind of outcome doesn’t bode well for action on the many issues the current Congress has left unresolved, including overhauls of the immigration system and the tax code.

The Center for the Study of the American Electorate found record-low turnouts in primary elections, likely foretelling a big drop in turnout this fall. And the sour mood of voters makes election outcomes—including which party will control the Senate—hard to predict.

“This stuff is totally up in the air,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker who led the GOP to its 1994 midterm victory. “You have no idea what’s going to happen next.”

In deep-red Kansas, for example, political pros are stunned by the spectacle of Republican Sen. Pat Roberts running scared against an independent candidate. In the Virginia primary, former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was ousted, and two college professors are running to succeed him.

Democrats have the most to lose as they struggle to defend more seats for control of the Senate. Polls suggest they are likely to lose ground in South Dakota, West Virginia, Montana and, possibly, Iowa as Democratic senators retire. At the same time, Democratic incumbents are struggling to win re-election in North Carolina, Colorado, Louisiana, Arkansas and Alaska.

Across the U.S., some races are so unstable that polls look promising one week and spell big trouble the next. “Polling in competitive districts is more erratic than ever,” said U.S. Rep. Steve Israel (D., N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The 2014 midterm campaign is likely to fuel falling confidence in Washington. Candidates are employing record levels of negative advertising, with a focus on mobilizing partisans rather than setting broad governing agendas.

North Carolina political activist Miriam Chu said it has been a struggle to persuade conservatives to vote for GOP Senate candidate Thom Tillis, who beat a tea party candidate in the primary. Ms. Chu has taken to Facebook to encourage conservatives to vote for Mr. Tillis—rather than risk re-election of Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan.

“There’s definitely less energy than there was in 2010,” said Matt Kibbe, president of the conservative group FreedomWorks. “One factor is the very risk-averse, almost issueless campaign that most Republicans are running.”

Neither party has a bold-strokes agenda. And voters have been mercurial about what issues matter most to them. In polling over the past year, the economy and jobs have typically topped voters’ priorities, but health care, immigration and, lately, national security have cycled up and down the list.

Voter hostility isn’t new. The lack of an animating political issue makes this year unusual.

In the 1994 midterm election, voters believed the U.S. was on the wrong track; they blamed Democrats, who lost control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

In the 2006 midterm, voters weary over the war in Iraq returned control to Democrats. In 2010, the electorate turned against President Barack Obama over the ailing economy and the new health-care law. Crowds demonstrated on the Capitol lawn. Town hall meetings erupted into shouting matches. Tea party chapters popped up like wild mushrooms.

This year, frustrated voters aren’t flocking to either party. “The GOP may be heading to a good November, but its victory will truly be the lesser of two evils,” said Fred Yang, a Democratic pollster who conducts The Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll with Republican Bill McInturff. The poll has found voters mired in pessimism, political cynicism and economic anxiety.

“About three in 10 voters are disillusioned because they are feeling stuck in some quagmire that is a mix of political gridlock and economic stagnation,” said Micah Roberts, a Republican pollster who helped conduct the survey. Among the data points of disillusionment:

Political cynicism: More than half said Washington would be unchanged by the midterm elections, regardless of the result. Majorities in both parties said their preference for a Democratic or Republican Congress was motivated more by a desire to block the other party than to advance their own.

Economic anxiety: Even as signs of recovery multiply, just 27% of respondents said they expected the economy to improve in the next year. In an August poll, three-quarters said they weren’t confident that their children’s generation would be better off than their own.

“I think the people of this country are feeling insecure—about the economy and about whether their jobs are really going to be there and whether upward mobility is available to them,” said Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who is up for re-election in a state where an improving economy is still marbled with insecurity.

Maine’s unemployment rate was 5.6% in August—the 17th lowest in the U.S. The state gained 9,400 private sector jobs that month. But over the past year, Maine has also been bruised by a series of paper mill closings.

“Those are communities where the mill is the economic mainstay, and it has a ripple effect on consumer spending throughout the region,’’ Ms. Collins said.

Adam Westphal, a political independent in Wisconsin who works in construction, said the local economy seemed to be improving but politics injects uncertainty. GOP Gov. Scott Walker is in a tight race for re-election, and Mr. Westphal fears a victory by Democratic Party candidate, Mary Burke.

“There’s a construction boom, yeah, but what if Mary Burke gets elected and wants to raise taxes?” Mr. Westphal said.

Ms. Burke hasn’t advocated tax increases, her campaign spokeswoman said.

For many economically beleaguered voters, politics presents no answers. “No one is talking for the little guy and the middle class,” said Michele Jeffers, a 58-year-old resident of Avon, Minn., who isn’t able to work for health reasons.

“We don’t live a lavish life. We have flip phones, and we don’t have any fancy cars,” said Ms. Jeffers, whose husband works for a grocery. “You can’t even have Sundays together. My husband can’t make it to church. He can’t even have Thanksgiving off.”

Facing a disengaged electorate, candidates in both parties have launched a barrage of ads to mobilize their base. That creates fertile ground for the drama unfolding in Kansas, where Mr. Roberts, after defeating a tea party opponent in the primary, is now running hard against Greg Orman, an independent.

Mr. Roberts is attacking Mr. Orman’s credentials as an independent, trying to link him to the Democratic Party in general and Mr. Obama in particular. When the two men debated, Mr. Roberts kept mentioning Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid —a Democratic power broker whose name inflames GOP stalwarts.

Mr. Orman’s latest ad speaks directly to disaffected voters: “That’s exactly what’s wrong with Washington today. They would rather attack opponents than the problems we face.’’

Anti-Washington sentiment also poses risks to Democrats among such voters as Sam Giles, an African-American in Glen Allen, Va. He voted in a Republican primary for the first time so he could help oust Mr. Cantor, the former House Majority Leader.

Mr. Giles, a two-time Obama backer, voted for Dave Brat —a professor at Randolph-Macon College who defeated Mr. Cantor—knowing little about him. But now, Mr. Giles said, he is inclined to support Mr. Brat in the general election because he is so hungry for change.

“I’m glad you are out here,” Mr. Giles told the Republican at a community fair in Glen Allen. “I’m looking for some new ideas.”

Mr. Brat is favored to beat another Randolph-Macon professor, Democrat Jack Trammell. They agree on one thing: Voters have had it with Washington. And the two revel in their status as political amateurs.

“I’m one of the two professors running for Congress; I’m the Democrat,” Mr. Trammell said at the fair. “The joke is that the loser gets tenure.”

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