On Friday, Dec. 6, the University of Virginia
Center for Politics will host the 15th annual American Democracy
Conference. The event will feature three panels of political
journalists, insiders and analysts discussing the 2013 Virginia
gubernatorial election, the 2014 midterm elections and the future of the
American electorate.
Beginning at 9 a.m. in Alumni Hall on the
Grounds of the University of Virginia, the conference will include a
number of well-known political commentators, such as PBS’s Christina
Bellantoni, RealClearPolitics’ Carl Cannon, The Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes, Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick, Business Insider’s Josh Barro and Center Director Larry J. Sabato. For more info and to register to attend the free conference, please click here. The event will also be live-streamed on the day of the event.
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The last month has been, on the surface, great
for the Republican Party’s electoral fortunes in 2014. President Obama’s
signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act, has been a mess, and it
remains persistently unpopular in polling. Obama’s approval rating has been on a steady decline
for months, and the recent events have driven it increasingly downward.
During the government shutdown, the Democratic lead in the House
generic ballot -- a simple poll measuring whether voters would support
the Democratic or Republican candidate in their local House race --
spiked to the high single digits in polling averages. Now Republicans
hold a small lead
in this key metric. Conditions such as these on Election Day 2014 would
suggest at least a small Republican addition to their House majority
and quite possibly a Senate takeover.
This is the macro view of the 2014 election,
which matters a lot; in the event of a wave, smaller-bore factors --
like the candidates running and the campaigns themselves -- can be
overwhelmed. But the candidates and campaigns remain important: Just
look at the Todd Akins and Richard Mourdocks of the world.
On the candidate front, the Republicans still
have a lot of work to do, and they largely have not turned their
positive polling into the recruitment of new candidates or the expansion
of the congressional playing field.
When Democrats were riding high around the time
of the government shutdown, a number of positive developments broke
their way beyond the fickle polls. A handful of House Republicans,
including Reps. Jon Runyan (R, NJ-3) and Tim Griffin (R, AR-2), retired,
making their open House seats more competitive for Democratic
challengers. Democrats announced
another handful of challengers in Republican-leaning districts --
candidates who are underdogs to win, but who will probably at least make
their GOP opponents work. In mid-September and early October, Democrats
scored two decent challengers in open Senate seats: Natalie Tennant in
West Virginia and John Walsh in Montana (John Bohlinger, another
Democrat, later entered the Big Sky Country contest, to the
consternation of national Democrats).
If Obama is circling the drain next November,
none of these developments may matter. Republicans could hold their open
seats, and all the Democratic recruits that looked so shiny and great
when touted in press releases could lose by double digits. But the key
thing for Democrats is that the retirements they arguably forced, and
the candidates they recruited, remain, even as their good polling has
disappeared.
Now let’s look at the Republicans. What do they
have to show for the last month, beyond their polling high? Not as much
as the Democrats got during their moment in the sun.
True, Rep. Steve Daines (R, MT-AL) announced
his long-rumored Senate bid in early November, although he perhaps just
delayed his official entry to avoid timing it with the shutdown fight.
However, not a single House Democrat has announced his or her retirement
(although some are vacating their seats to run for other offices). That
includes the nine Democrats who sit in districts that Mitt Romney won
in 2012. Rep. Ron Barber (D, AZ-2), who won a very tough reelection in
2012 after his special election victory in Gabby Giffords’ old seat,
recently announced
he would run again in 2014. Other red-district Democrats, like Rep.
Collin Peterson (D, MN-7), could eventually bow out, but they haven’t
yet. Republicans would have an easier time winning these seats if they
were open.
In the Senate, most analysts have rightly
focused intently on the seven Democratic-held Senate seats in states
that Romney won: Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina,
South Dakota and West Virginia. Republicans have a shot to win every
single one of them. But what about other Democratic-held seats, like
those in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Oregon?
Yes, Obama won all these states, but not overwhelmingly -- his best
performance was 54.2% in Oregon.
In all of these Obama states, there is at least
one quality Republican -- and in some cases several -- who chose not to
run; meanwhile, Democrats have much-ballyhooed candidates in a state
that was roughly as Republican as Oregon was Democratic in 2012
(Georgia, 53.2% Romney) and in another state that was much more
Republican on the presidential level (Kentucky, 60.5% Romney).
It feels like the Senate playing field
is largely set; in an era of perpetual campaigning, heaven forbid that a
candidate chooses to enter less than a year before the election. But it
doesn’t have to be true. In reality, Republicans -- and
Democrats -- still have plenty of time to enter races in most places.
Whether any do could tell us a lot about how both parties actually feel about their chances next year -- certainly better than any press release bluster could, anyway.
Filing deadlines still largely months away
Quietly, the first mini-milestone on the road
to the 2014 midterms passed earlier this week. Monday was the last day
for Democratic and Republican candidates to file to run in Illinois
primaries. Yes, the Land of Lincoln forces candidates to decide whether
to run more than 11 months before Election Day.
Illinois is closely followed by Texas, where the filing deadline is next Monday (Dec. 9).
However, the filing deadlines in most states
are months away, in part because the nation’s primary season stretches
from March all the way through September. Check out Chart 1, which
includes the filing deadlines for the primaries in all 50 states, as
well as the dates for the primaries and, where applicable, primary
runoffs.
Chart 1: Filing deadlines for 2014 primaries
Source: Daily Kos Elections; for certain caveats about these various deadlines, we recommend clicking on the link.
Now, remember the six states noted above where
Republicans should have at least a chance to win, but might not because
their best candidates remain on the sideline? Well, the nearest filing
deadline for any of those seats is March 11 in Oregon -- more than three
months away. Let’s quickly assess the state of play in all six states:
Oregon (March 11 filing deadline):
Given that Republicans couldn’t win the governorship here in an optimal
year -- 2010 -- and that Sen. Ron Wyden (D) coasted to reelection by
nearly 20 points that same year, it’s understandable why Sen. Jeff
Merkley (D) is in good shape for reelection. But if the national winds
were really blowing the Republicans’ way, it’s not unimaginable that a
Republican could beat Merkley, who beat Sen. Gordon Smith (R) by less
than four points in 2008’s pristine Democratic climate. Granted, Rep.
Greg Walden (R, OR-2) already has a big job -- chairman of the National
Republican Congressional Committee -- but perhaps he’d do his party a
greater service by running here. Maybe one of the actual candidates in
the field, like physician Monica Wehby (R), will emerge, but it’s a
longshot. Crystal Ball rating: Likely Democratic
Iowa (March 14 filing deadline):
There’s a big catch that probably kept out a lot of bigger name
Republicans: If no one gets more than 35% of the vote in the primary,
the Republican Senate nominee will be chosen by a convention. Still,
Rep. Tom Latham (R, IA-3) -- who comfortably won over another incumbent
in an Obama district last year -- would be a much better general
election candidate against presumptive Democratic nominee Rep. Bruce
Braley than any of the cast of thousands currently vying for the
nomination. Crystal Ball rating: Leans Democratic
Colorado (March 31 filing deadline): Polling here shows both Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) and Sen. Mark Udall
(D) with soft support, and Udall is not doing all that well in trial
heats with weak candidates, such as 2010 Senate loser Ken Buck (R). What
if well-regarded Rep. Cory Gardner (R, CO-4) reconsidered his decision
to pass on the race? We’d certainly reevaluate our current Crystal Ball rating of Likely Democratic.
Michigan (April 22 filing deadline):
Former Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land (R) has cornered the
nomination here as she prepares to face Rep. Gary Peters (D, MI-14) for
the seat of the retiring Sen. Carl Levin (D). But national Republicans
never seemed all that enthusiastic about her candidacy and they pushed
Reps. Mike Rogers and Dave Camp to enter, both of whom declined. But
there’s plenty of time here -- more than four months -- for either to
reverse course. Crystal Ball rating: Leans Democratic
Minnesota (June 3 filing deadline):
After the narrowest of wins in 2008, the failure of Republicans to
attract a top-tier challenger to Sen. Al Franken (D) remains a mystery.
It’s possible that one of the many nondescript Republicans running, such
as businessman Mike McFadden, will emerge, but Republicans would feel
better about investing in Minnesota if Rep. Erik Paulsen (R, MN-3)
reconsidered. Again, he has months to do so. He’s also sitting on $1.5
million in cash on hand; fundraising for him, or the other potential
candidates mentioned here, would not be a problem even with a “late”
entrance. We’re in a world of SuperPACs, so individual fundraising is
not necessarily as important as it once was. Furthermore, Republican
funders would be dying to give their money to someone like Paulsen, or
many of the others on this list. They are exactly the kinds of
candidates the establishment wants elected, as opposed to Tea Partiers. Crystal Ball rating: Likely Democratic
New Hampshire (June 13 filing deadline):
Finally, there’s the Granite State, where there’s actually some buzz
around the possibility of former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown (R)
switching states and challenging Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D). (Brown set
Twitter ablaze the other day when he removed “MA,” for Massachusetts,
from his Twitter name.) Coincidentally, New Hampshire is a state where a
candidate who wasn’t going to run actually did change his mind and
hopped in, but that candidate is ex-Sen. Bob Smith (R), who lost a
primary to former Sen. John Sununu (R) in 2002 and has tons of enemies.
He’s not likely to excite Republicans. Crystal Ball rating: Likely Democratic
Watch the real weathervanes
In politics, you don’t need a weatherman to
know which way the wind blows -- you just need a politician. That’s why
the Democrats’ successes in October, combined with some Republican House
retirements, were telling: Democrats apparently were making a
compelling sale to their candidates that they had a path to victory, and
at least a few Republicans were fed up enough to throw in the towel.
The polls and the environment were moving politicians both to the
entrance and to the exit. Republicans, despite the Democrats’ current troubles, haven’t forced the same kind of movement.
They still might. Will Democrats in the House,
and maybe even the Senate, retire in the face of what they perceive to
be a Republican wave? And will Republicans step up in some of the states
described above to ride that wave?
As demonstrated by the filing deadlines, there’s plenty of time for them to do so.
Note that many of the Republicans who took
passes on running for the Senate in blue/purple states are members of
the House. They might be paralyzed by fear of the Tea Party, which has a
real antipathy toward many sitting members of Congress.
This is another area where the Tea Party is
problematic for Republicans: Its presence is quite possibly putting so
much fear into quality GOP candidates that they are simply afraid to run
for higher office.
Dispelling that fear is the job of national
Republican leaders. It’s fair to say that they are having difficulty
making the sale, but -- again -- there’s more time left on the clock
than they might think.
Conclusion
Last cycle, Republicans looked like they were
in a good position to win the Senate -- until the end of February 2012,
when Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) retired. After that point, almost every
major Senate development broke against them. What does this cycle hold
-- what surprises are coming? As should be clear from just the primary
filing deadlines, let alone the eventual winners of those primaries,
there’s plenty of time to go, and plenty of time for members of both
parties to create their own surprises.
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| THE THREATENING THIRTIES Obama’s approval rating slide and what happened to his predecessors | |||||||||
| By Geoffrey Skelley Associate Editor, Sabato's Crystal Ball | |||||||||
For the first time in his presidency, Barack
Obama finds his aggregate approval rating hovering right at 40%. In some
polls, he has already fallen below it: According to Gallup, the
president’s approval dropped to 39% three times in November. Currently, RealClearPolitics’ aggregation of approval polls finds the president’s approval right at 40.1% while HuffPost Pollster shows 41.5%. Both show a consistent downward trend over the last few months.
While Gallup’s three-day tracking had the
president’s approval at 41% on Wednesday, it has been lower. In August
2011, Obama’s approval rating in Gallup dropped to 38%, remaining around
40% until late October. This previous encounter with the “dirty thirties”
buoyed Republican hopes that Obama could be beaten in the 2012
presidential election. But as events proved (for the umpteenth time), a
year in politics is a long time.
Looking back at Gallup’s approval polls since
World War II, Obama’s predecessors have a varied history in their
tangles with sub-40% approval ratings, with some recovering, some
stagnating and others falling further into the disapproval abyss. And
as the 2014 midterm elections approach, it is worth noting that only
two presidents in the Gallup era have had approval ratings below 40% at
the time of a federal midterm: George W. Bush in 2006 and Harry Truman
in both 1946 and 1950. The electoral trouble their poor numbers inflicted on their parties is detailed in Table 1.
Table 1: Presidential party performance in midterms when president has sub-40% approval rating
Note: Approval ratings listed are result from last Gallup poll prior to midterm election.
Sources: Gallup and Vital Statistics on American Politics 2011-2012.
While the limited sample size makes it
pointless to average these three election results, it’s striking that in
both 1950 and 2006 the president’s party lost six seats in the U.S.
Senate, precisely the net gain Republicans must achieve in 2014 to take
control of the upper chamber. If Obama’s approval rating continues to
plunge further, it will bode poorly for Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-NV) chances
of retaining the Senate majority leader post in the 114th Congress.
Below is a brief history of modern presidents’ ups and downs once their approval fell below 40%.
The history of sub-40% approval ratings
Like Obama, Harry Truman slid below 40% prior
to his reelection bid, landing at 33% less than two months before the
1946 midterms. Truman rebounded, winning the 1948 election; at the time
of his inauguration in January 1949, his approval was close to 70%. That
was fleeting, and his approval dropped below 40% permanently in
December 1950, falling to 24% in the period of time after he removed
General Douglas MacArthur from command in Korea in April 1951. In
February 1952, Truman’s approval reached its nadir, 22%, and upon
leaving office, his approval sat at 32%.
It took another 15 years before a president’s
approval rating fell below 40%. Neither Dwight Eisenhower (partially, at
least, because of his military hero status) or John F. Kennedy (because
of his abbreviated time in office) came close to the black mark. But
the troubles at home and in Vietnam pushed Lyndon Johnson under 40% in
August 1967. After a brief recovery, Johnson’s approval fell to 36% in
March 1968 in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive.
Once he announced that he would not accept the Democratic nomination in
1968, LBJ’s approval jumped back up to 50% in April 1968. Still, his
approval rating fell to a low of 35% in August 1968.
Before the Watergate scandal took hold, Richard
Nixon never saw an approval rating lower than 48%. But after winning a
massive landslide in the 1972 election, Nixon’s presidency unraveled
with further revelations regarding Watergate. In 1973, Nixon’s approval
rating fell below 40%, and by the time he resigned from office on Aug.
9, 1974, it was at 24%, nearly equal to Truman’s all-time low of 22%.
Gerald Ford, Nixon’s unelected successor,
entered office with a 71% approval rating. But his honeymoon proved to
be very short, beginning with his pardon of Nixon after just one month
in office. However, Ford’s approval rating didn’t fall below 40% until
January 1975, remaining in sub-40% territory for the next few months due
in large part to a struggling economy. But Ford’s rating improved
sharply to 52% by the end of June 1975, perhaps on account of his
military action in the Mayaguez Incident. After that, Ford’s approval generally remained in the 40s, with a 39% approval blip in December 1975.
During Jimmy Carter’s time in office, the U.S.
experienced assorted economic, energy and international crises. Carter’s
approval rating first slid below 40% in the summer of 1978 but
recovered to top 50% by the end of the year. It then fell to 28% in the
summer of 1979 during the energy crisis of that year, prompting Carter’s
(in)famous “malaise” speech (though he never used that word). Carter’s
approval remained in the low 30s until early November 1979, when the
hostage crisis in Iran boosted Carter’s approval rating back above 50%
as a result of the “rally ‘round the flag” effect. However, as the hostage crisis wore on, Carter’s approval fell back below 40% for good in May 1980.
Ronald Reagan only saw a brief sub-40% period
in early 1983, falling to 35% in late January thanks largely to the
country’s economic struggles. But the economy recovered, lifting Reagan
all the way to a 59% landslide reelection in 1984. Showing that timing
can be everything in politics, Reagan’s successor, George H. W. Bush,
saw his approval rating drop just as his reelection year rolled around.
He had been in solid shape until then, but not once in 1992 did Bush
touch 50%. The last Gallup job approval survey taken before the 1992
election, in mid-October, had him at just 34% -- and he received 37.5%
on Election Day.
Bill Clinton’s timing was much better. Clinton
recorded ratings in the 30s just twice, in June 1993 and September 1994.
These low early ratings helped to oust dozens of fellow Democrats in
the 1994 midterms. But revived by GOP-inspired government shutdowns,
Clinton’s rating never fell below 50% again after February 1996, even
during the trials of the Lewinsky scandal.
Partially because of 9/11, George W. Bush had
the most bipolar presidency since the dawn of presidential approval
polling. In his first term, the younger Bush spent a mere four months
below 50%, never lower than 46%. Conversely, discounting a few points in
the first half of 2005, Bush was never above 50% for the entirety of
the second term. After May 2007, he never got above 37% approval,
falling at times into the 20s.
Conclusion
Besides Eisenhower and Kennedy, every other
post-World War II president has experienced a period of sub-40% approval
ratings. But as the record shows, the lengths and depths of those
slides has varied immensely. Some, like Reagan and Clinton, saw their
public perceptions recover markedly after temporarily dropping into the
30th percentile in approval. However, other presidents, like Truman and
George W. Bush, never bounced back. They left office discredited in the
court of public opinion, although that court’s rulings are never final
and are quite changeable over time. Sure enough, Truman’s reputation has
greatly improved in the six decades since he exited the White House,
and Bush’s ratings have begun to warm somewhat.
As for Obama, he was the fourth president to
win reelection despite falling into the 30s in the Gallup poll during
his first term, joining Truman, Reagan and Clinton on that list. But
unlike the latter two, Obama has again found himself in the 30s, with
potentially serious consequences for his party in the U.S. Senate and
House as the 2014 midterms approach.
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