New York Times (Opinion)
By Thomsa Edsall
November 4, 2014
The 2014 election will be a four-part test that will tell us more than who will win control of the Senate.
First, how much damage has been inflicted over the past six years on the Democratic Party’s brand?
Second, has the political calculus shifted enough to give Democratic presidential candidates a shot at Georgia, breaking the Republican Party’s grip on the Deep South? Have two traditionally Democratic states in the Midwest, Michigan and Wisconsin, become viable targets for Republicans in 2016?
Third, after the investment of millions of dollars by the Republican National Committee and conservative organizations affiliated with the Koch brothers, has the Republican Party caught up with or surpassed Democrats in this year’s technology-intensive, data-driven voter turnout operations?
Fourth, have Republican candidates found ways to lessen the liabilities of hard right views on abortion, same sex marriage, contraception and other sex and reproduction linked issues?
A Pew poll on Oct. 23 found that voters believe Republicans could do a better job than Democrats of dealing with the threat of terrorism (plus 17 points), the budget deficit (plus 15), the economy (plus 6) and immigration (plus 5). On health care, traditionally an issue that favors Democrats by double digit margins, the Democrats had only a 6 point edge.
The Republican advantage on national security and terrorism is of particular importance because of the growing political salience of the threat posed by the Islamic State militant organization, known as ISIS. An October Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that 29 percent of voters put the threat from the Islamic State at the top of all issue priorities; these voters support Republicans over Democrats by a two to one margin.
Similarly, Gallup found that 24 percent of the public worries about the Ebola virus, and confidence in the ability of the federal government to deal with the threat declined from 61 percent to 52 percent in a matter of two weeks, from Oct. 5 to Oct. 19. The drop in confidence was much sharper among Republicans and voters who lean Republican than it was among Democratic voters.
The current finding that voters prefer Republicans over Democrats on immigration differs from polls in 2013 and earlier, which showed a preference for Democrats on the issue. The shift suggests that the recent surge of immigrant children crossing the border illegally has moved a substantial proportion of voters toward the more hard-line policies advocated by Republicans.
Equally if not more critical, loyalty to the Democratic Party among two key constituencies — Hispanics, according to the Pew Research Center, and young voters, according to Harvard’s Institute of Politics — has diminished. In addition, the level of support for the Democratic Party among whites, especially working class whites, continues to fall, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal June 2014 poll.
In 2010, Pew found that Hispanic support for Democrats over Republicans stood at 65-22. Going into the current election, support for Democrats over Republicans declined 14 points to 57-28.
The Harvard Institute of Politics “Millennial voter” survey found that among 18- to 29-year-olds who “definitely” will vote, 51 percent said they would prefer a Republican-run Congress; 47 percent said they favored Democratic control. This compares to a 55-43 margin in support of Democratic control of Congress in a 2010 I.O.P. survey of this age group.
The Gallup Poll has found a slow but steady reduction in Democratic support among whites over the past two decades and a parallel increase in support among white voters for the Republican Party. In the Clinton years, whites favored Republicans over Democrats by 4.1 percentage points; in the Bush years, the Republican advantage grew to 5.4 points; in the Obama years, the Republican Party has pulled ahead by 9.5 points.
Extensive polling has already demonstrated that some of the states considered reliable sources of Democratic or Republican Electoral College votes are shifting to a more competitive status.
In Georgia, two Democratic candidates, Michelle Nunn, who is the daughter of former Senator Sam Nunn, and Jason Carter, a grandson of Jimmy Carter, have mounted surprisingly strong bids for Senate and governor, respectively, against David Purdue, a Republican businessman, and Nathan Deal, the incumbent Republican governor.
Win or lose, Nunn and Carter’s respectable showing in a low turnout midterm election is virtually certain to turn Georgia into a Democratic presidential target in 2016. The last Democratic presidential candidate to carry Georgia was Bill Clinton in 1992 (who then lost Georgia to Bob Dole in 1996).
At the same time, if two Republican governors, Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Rick Snyder in Michigan, win re-election, these two Midwestern states will shift in 2016 from the reliably Democratic column to competitive status.
Details down to precinct level results in all the competitive races this year will be studied closely by party officials and political scientists to determine whether Republicans have caught up with Democrats in the world of big-data, high-tech voter mobilization.
In the last two presidential elections, the Obama campaign and Democratic interest groups remained far ahead of Republicans in the so-called ground war techniques of locating favorable voters wherever they can be found, registering citizens likely to be supportive, and making sure every supporter casts a ballot, in person, by mail, or through early voting processes.
In the current contest, however, both the Republican National Committee and the network of conservative groups allied with the Koch brothers have invested millions in microtargeting innovation, and are attempting to level the playing field.
Estimates of the effectiveness of microtargeting vary, but, if the 2016 election is close, new digital strategies developed in recent years to marshal favorable voters will be crucial to the outcome.
As the election campaign comes to a close, polls suggest that Republican candidates vulnerable to “war on women” accusations have learned how to successfully revamp.
Senate candidates in Virginia, North Carolina and Colorado have adopted the strategy of signaling support for women’s reproductive rights by pointedly endorsing access to over-the-counter “morning after” contraceptive pills.
Representative Cory Gardner, the Republican challenging Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, has not only called for the availability of the day-after pill, he has repudiated his past support for a “personhood” constitutional amendment that would effectively ban all abortions. Initially considered the underdog, Gardner has pulled ahead of Udall in most polls leading up to Election Day.
If Republicans find an effective means to combat Democratic charges that the Republican Party is anti-women, Democrats will lose one of their most potent political weapons.
The 2014 election suggests that the intermittently heralded new Democratic majority in presidential elections is not inevitable, that the strong allegiance of core Democratic constituencies is not assured, and that the state-by-state Electoral College map is changing.
Taken together, the current contest and the 2010 election demonstrate the strength of the Republican Party in low-turnout, midterm years. Perhaps the most significant development in 2014 is the ability of Republican candidates to break with hard right conservative orthodoxy – even candidates whose own roots are in the hard right. This capacity, insofar as it is carried over into 2016, has the potential to break the pro-Democratic tilt of presidential elections and to force a major strategic re-evaluation by politicians and operatives in both parties.
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