2008: The Making of A Landslide -- A Progress Report

Posted by Paul Rosenberg at 9:48 PM on June 8, 2008.

Reprinted from Open Left:

I just want to do a brief review here of some of the recent signs pointing to an ever-more-likely landslide victory scenario this November, with special emphasis on the House.

I'm combining information from three sources: Rasmussen, Democracy Corps and Cook Political Report.

First, there's the latest information on Partisan ID from Rasmussen, based on their daily tracking polls.  Here's the chart I generated from their data. It shows how Democratic Party identification jumped sharply from the beginning of the primary season, after falling into the doldrums during 2007, when the Democratic Congress basically failed to deliver much of anything. It's remained fairly steady the last few months, but at record high levels:

A bit explanation and the table the chart is based on can be found on the flip, along the goods from Democracy Corps and Cook Political Report.

Democracy Corps:  Battleground Disticts Extremely Promising

First, Democracy Corps makes it clear that their battleground polling is increasingly focused deep into Repubican territory:

Even as we modified our sample design to include more hard-to-reach Republican-held districts, Democrats have significantly expanded their lead in this totally Republican battleground that Bush won by 12 points in 2004 and Republican members won by the same margin in 2006. You have to remind yourself that this is not a national poll but a poll in Republican-held seats where Democrats have moved to a 7-point lead (50 to 43 percent). Further, Republican incumbents have a very weak standing to be reelected while Democratic challengers enjoy a larger pool of winnable voters to approach in this election, win the issue debates and prove to be resilient to the most vicious Republican attacks. The underlying dynamics of the race show that the battleground could expand even further into Republican territory as more voters are open to vote Democratic in November.1

Will there be a second wave election in a row? Obviously, Democrats will not win all of
these competitive seats but there is no reason to think they cannot win a majority of these seats in an environment that is increasingly Democratic.

[T]he structure of the race as well as Democrats' advantage across the board show that 2008 can be another wave election for Democrats. To take advantage of this opportunity Democrats will have to expand the playing field further into Republican territory.

 Releasing its latest numbers, this is what Rasmussen had to say, in part:

The Democratic Party maintained its huge edge in party identification during the month of May. Barack Obama's Party now has the largest partisan advantage over the Republicans since Rasmussen Reports began tracking this data on a monthly basis nearly six years ago (see history from January 2004 to present).

During the month of April, 41.7% of Americans considered themselves to be Democrats. Just 31.6% said they were Republicans and 26.6% were not affiliated with either major party. This is the third straight month Obama's team has enjoyed a double-digit edge.

Forty-seven percent (47%) of women say they're Democrats and just under 30% identify with the GOP. Men are more evenly divided-36% say they're Democrats and 34% Republican.

Democrats have the advantage among all age groups and also lead among those who earn less than $75,000 a year. The two parties are even among higher-income adults. Party identification is essentially even among Investors but Democrats have a 47% to 25% advantage among non-Investors.

May was also the fourth straight month that the number of Democrats topped 41%. Prior to February of this year, neither party had ever reached the 39% level of support. Rasmussen Reports tracks this information based upon telephone interviews with approximately 15,000 adults per month and has been doing so since November 2002.

Even as we modified our sample design to include more hard-to-reach Republican-held districts, Democrats have significantly expanded their lead in this totally Republican battleground that Bush won by 12 points in 2004 and Republican members won by the same margin in 2006. You have to remind yourself that this is not a national poll but a poll in Republican-held seats where Democrats have moved to a 7-point lead (50 to 43 percent). Further, Republican incumbents have a very weak standing to be reelected while Democratic challengers enjoy a larger pool of winnable voters to approach in this election, win the issue debates and prove to be resilient to the most vicious Republican attacks. The underlying dynamics of the race show that the battleground could expand even further into Republican territory as more voters are open to vote Democratic in November.1

Will there be a second wave election in a row? Obviously, Democrats will not win all of
these competitive seats but there is no reason to think they cannot win a majority of these seats in an environment that is increasingly Democratic….

[T]he structure of the race as well as Democrats' advantage across the board show that 2008 can be another wave election for Democrats. To take advantage of this opportunity Democrats will have to expand the playing field further into Republican territory.

Their first chart shows the solid position of Democrats in the low-hanging fruit districts, as well as the harder-to-reach ones:

Democrats lead the congressional vote not only in the most competitive districts (51 to 42 percent), but also in the harder-to-reach districts (48 to 45 percent).

And next, a breakdown into demographic regions:

Next, they move on to a measure of the strength of voter support:

The structure of the congressional race is still dynamic but it seems to be moving further away from Republicans. Unlike the presidential race, where Obama and McCain have nearly identical patterns of support, the congressional race shows Democrats are in a stronger position to hold on to their vote and expand their lead. The Voter Choice Scale below uses eight questions to determine intensity of support, the probability of it being eroded, the scale of winnable voters and the number that are unreachable. In this survey Democrats have more strong supporters and winnable voters than Republicans while Republicans have more vulnerable voters than Democrats.

Next, we see that support for Democratic challengers is way up since already very promising levels in January-this is against named incumbents:

Next, they try to look ahead to what the campaign may bring in the way of attack messages:

The strongest attacks and impact

One of the most important findings in this survey is the fact that Democrats hold on to their lead in this battleground even after we replicate a campaign environment and respondents are exposed to an equal number of Democratic and Republican attacks. Nevertheless, there are some attacks that Democrats must preempt. Republican attacks on Democrats for increasing taxes and supporting big government run health care programs work fairly well (54 and 52 percent total serious doubts, respectively) and are also strong predictors of the congressional vote. An attack focused on amnesty is somewhat stronger (64 percent total serious doubts), though it is not a strong predictor of vote behavior.

There are two lines of attacks that can be used against Republican incumbents that raise serious doubts, which are also strong predictors of the vote and the incumbents' favorability.

That Republican incumbents are following Bush's direction in Iraq and the economy (51 percent total serious doubts) and that they will provide tax breaks for the rich, while offering nothing for the middle class which raises doubts for nearly two thirds of voters. These hits are important to show a sharp contrast between the status quo incumbents and their Democratic challengers that will deliver change.

Of course, this doesn't really account for the full depth of Republican sleaze attacks.  But, then, it doesn't realloy account for the full depth of Republican sleaze that's going to keep coming out in the papers, either.

On the most salient issues, the Democrats remain in very good shape:

Good News On Iraq

On Iraq, there is good news for Democrats all around with polling that explicitly links Democratic candidates and Obama, Republicans and John McCain.

Good News On "Values"

There is further good news as the ground continues to shift on gay civil unions-can marriage be far behind?

Surprisingly, Democrats even win the values debate in this Republican battleground. By a significant 9-point margin, voters favor a Democrat who supports civil unions and opposes a constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage over a Republican who favors such a constitutional amendment and characterizes Democrats as out of touch with mainstream values. More importantly, Democrats win this debate among independents and vulnerable/winnable voters though voters who are undecided in the congressional vote side with Republicans on this issue.

All in all, the Democracy Corps report leaves us with only one question: "What's not to like?"

Cook Political Report-GOP In Retreat

Finally, Mother Jones reports:

10 House Races All Headed in One Direction

Charlie Cook and the folks at the Cook Political Report have changed their ratings on 10 different House races. A Republican is the incumbent in all of them. Guess which direction they're heading:

CA-04 - OPEN (Doolittle) - Solid Republican to Likely Republican

CO-04 - Marilyn Musgrave - Lean Republican to Toss Up
CT-04 - Chris Shays - Lean Republican to Toss Up
IL-10 - Mark Kirk - Lean Republican to Toss Up
NM-02 - OPEN (Pearce) - Likely Republican to Lean Republican
NY-29 - Randy Kuhl - Lean Republican to Toss Up
NC-08 - Robin Hayes - Lean Republican to Toss Up
OH-01 - Steve Chabot - Lean Republican to Toss Up
VA-02 - Thelma Drake - Likely Republican to Lean Republican
WA-08 - Dave Reichert - Lean Republican to Toss Up

We're still a long way from November, of course.  But that means even more opportunities to make even greater inroads.

Tagged as: landslide, democrats, election 2008

Paul Rosenberg is a regular blogger for Open Left