Several Indicators Looking Very Good For Dems in Congressional Elections

[Time for change]

A USA Today/Gallup poll of registered voters throughout the United States, released on August 2nd, showed a Democratic lead of 51% to 40% in response to the question: “If the elections for Congress were being held today, which party's candidate would you vote for in your Congressional district”. This Democratic lead has been fairly consistent throughout 2006, and it is also consistent with data from the same poll, showing that 52% of respondents hold a favorable view of the Democratic Party (40% unfavorable), whereas only 43% hold a favorable view of the Republican Party (50% unfavorable). This is what Gallup has to say about the 51% - 40% current Democratic lead:

The generic ballot has proven to be an accurate predictor of the party vote for the House of Representatives in past midterm elections. If the current lead persists, Democrats would be in a strong position to win the majority of the national two-party House vote (that is, all votes cast nationally in House races), and quite possibly win control of the House for the first time since 1994….

Democrats have not had such consistently high support as has been measured this year since the 1982 midterm election campaign, which proved to be one of the Democrats' better recent performances in a midterm election year.

Anatomy of the Democratic lead

A Gallup poll from early July showed the reasons for the Democratic lead in the generic poll. There are three factors of importance: Party loyalty, the independent vote, and party identification, all which show slight leads for the Democrats.

“Disloyalty” among Republicans is about twice as great as among Democrats, with 6% of Republicans failing to indicate support for their candidate and only 3% of Democrats failing to indicate support for their candidate.

The margin among independents is greater, with 46% of independents saying that they will vote for the Democrat in their district, compared to only 30% saying that they will vote for the Republican.

In addition, more registered voters consider themselves Democrats to begin with – 37% Democrats vs. 33% Republicans.


The intensity factor

In June, a Gallup poll looked at some indicators of voter intensity, which predict likelihood of voting, and therefore serve as an additional predictor of the final results. This poll showed Democrats scoring higher in all the indicators of voter intensity, including “More enthusiastic about voting than usual” (Democrats 56%, Republicans 43%), “Extremely motivated to vote” (Democrats 49%, Republicans 44%) and “given quite a lot or some thought to the upcoming election for Congress” (Democrats 45%, Republicans 44%). Here’s what Gallup has to say about the likely effect of these intensity factor responses:

Democratic responses are elevated on all three indicators. If this keeps up, not only will it be a high turnout year, but it will be even harder for the Republican Party to overcome a major deficit in the party preferences of registered voters nationally.

And it is also important to note that the finding of Democrats being more enthusiastic about voting than usual and Republicans being less enthusiastic than usual is a completely new phenomenon, with polls from 1992 through as late as January 2006 failing to show anything remotely like that pattern.


Party preference by subject area

Asked the following question in a June Gallup poll, Democrats came out better than Republicans in all areas except one: “Do you think the Republicans in Congress or the Democrats in Congress would do a better job of dealing with each of the following issues and problems? How about…?”:

Abortion – Democrats lead 48% to 33%
Corruption in government – Democrats lead 44% to 24%
The economy – Democrats lead 50% to 35%
Gas prices – Democrats lead 52% to 22%
Health care – Democrats lead 59% to 25%
Immigration – Democrats lead 40% to 38%
Iraq – Democrats lead 47% to 37%
Same sex marriage – Democrats lead 47% to 34%
Social Security – Democrats lead 55% to 28%
Taxes – Democrats lead 50% to 36%
Terrorism – Republicans lead 46% to 35%


Senate races

Polls also suggest that the Democrats have an excellent chance of taking back the Senate. Democrats currently lead in all races where they currently hold the Senate seat, though in some cases not by a large margin. In addition, there are five Republican incumbents who are losing according to the last poll, including the following:

June 21 Quinnipiac poll of PA Senate race: Casey (D) 52% – Santorum (R) 34%
July 6 Rasmussen poll of MT Senate race: Tester (D) 50% - Burns (R) 43%
July 11 Rasmussen poll of RI Senate race: Laffey (D) 46% - Chafee (R) 41%
July 20 Rasmussen poll of MO Senate race: McCaskill (D) 45% – Talent (R) 42%
July 27 Rasmussen poll of OH Senate race: Brown (D) 44% - DeWine (R) 42%

So if everything stays as it is right now the Democrats would be one seat short of taking back the Senate. The most likely potential for picking up an extra seat may be Frist’s open seat in Tennessee, where Harold Ford is currently slightly behind.


One new idea for Democratic victory this fall – Putting impeachment on the ballot

Beyond the usual campaign activities, aggressive voter registration and get out the vote drives, and vigilant efforts to prevent more election fraud this fall, what can Democrats do to enhance the likelihood that the above noted promising signs don’t deteriorate into another Republican Congress for the next two years or longer?

Anti-gay marriage initiatives have been used by the Republican Party to increase the voter turnout of their base, and many believe that this strategy has been very effective. Some believe that it was effective enough in the 2004 Presidential election, most notably in Ohio, that it caused a decrease in John Kerry’s lead to the point where the election could be stolen. What would be a comparable issue that the Democrats could use to generate enthusiasm and increase turnout?

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), among other organizations, believes putting impeachment on state and local ballots would be a big winner for the Democratic Party this fall. That impeachment is far from unacceptable to the general U.S. population has been shown in several polls, such as a poll that showed a 50% to 44% majority of Americans answering yes to the question: “If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable by impeaching him.” But even more important than that are the very strongly held pro-impeachment views of a sizable minority of Americans, as evidenced by the creation of numerous pro-impeachment groups, rallies and demonstrations throughout our country, and even consideration of impeachment resolutions by the states of Vermont, Illinois, and California.

CCR has held and is continuing to hold impeachment teach-ins throughout the country, where they advocate putting impeachment on local and state ballots, explain the rationale for impeachment, and describe what ordinary citizens can do to further this effort. Efforts to impeach the Bush/Cheney regime are not only the right thing to do, and perhaps even a necessary step towards restoring our democracy, but I believe that they are likely to be of much value helping the Democrats to take back Congress in 2006.

[msongs]

1. who is the author of these various segments???

is this all from gallup? does gallup put out reports suggesting impeachment is a plus for democrats?

is the OP writing opinion and has collected various sources?

which segments of this post are the OP and which are gallup or some other source?

not too clear to me at least.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/2007political-calendars.htm

[John Q. Citizen]

2. Fortunately, the OP has included links to the various segments so

the reader click on the links and follow them to more information about each segment.

At least that's how it appears to me.

I personally think impeachment is a winner for the Dems. It would allow the American people to actually believe that their is some accountability for criminal actions by the executive branch.

While impeachment leading to the removal of the president and vice president is highly unlikely because of the 2/3 of the Senate require to sustain, I still hold out the hope that American would rather see us a nation of laws instead of an empire run by a emperor.

[Time for change]

8. Thanks for the clarification

After thinking about it more, I can see how s/he was confused, since the section on impeachment was a little off subject from the rest of the post. But I just felt that it was important to put it there.

I believe that impeachment is the right thing to proceed with now for a number of reasons. It is true that there is not a snowball's chance in hell that this Congress will remove Bush from office or even impeach him -- the Republicans in Congress are way too partisan and corrupt.

However, by making the case to the American people the Republicans are put in an awkward position, I believe. Just considering a resolution in Congress will lead to numerous investigations that will result in new findings, as well as clarifications of old findings that are well known to some, but not to the majority of the American people. Putting these findings and issues before them will be an eye opening experience for many. And then Republicans who try to obstruct or ignore these issues will be made to be seen as the corrupt politicians who they are.

Then we can finish off the job after the new Congress takes there seats in 007.

[never_get_over_it]

18. If we took back the House

which I personally do not think we will because of the voting machines - and pray to God I'm wrong - there is an excellent chance that the freak could be impeached/indicted because that only takes a majority vote - however you are correct there is not a snowball's chance in hell he will be convicted/removed from office as that take 67 votes....but remember they passed two articles of impeachment on Clinton - he was impeached - and Bush could be too if we got the majority.

Impeached or not at least we know he will be investigated and that will shut these idiots down for their last two years which is why I support impeachment. It is also why "they" can't afford to lose and why "they" will do ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING to see that they don't.

[alfredo]

19. I think the people know if the Dems win impeachment is a

possibility. If the republicans come back and say it is payback for Clinton we can say, no because impeachment was a plus for Dems and a negative for Republicans. If we impeach, it will not be something frivolous like the Clinton impeachment.

[Time for change]

20. I think one could ask them which is more important:

Getting our country into an illegal war and lying to the American people and Congress about the reasons for that war AND

Spying on thousands of US citizens without a warrant in violation of US law, and with no legitimate reason whatsoever AND

Holding prisoners indefinitely and without charges and torturing them in violation of international law


OR

having alterous consensual sex.

If that doesn't shut them up then I don't know what would.

[alfredo]

24. I think the Dems plan to fully investigate those issues and let's

see if the American people want bush and cheney removed.

[Time for change]

5. Answer to your questions

The first five polls that I discuss and provide links to are Gallup polls, and I've labelled four of the five as such in the OP.

None of those polls deal with impeachment. Gallup has not conducted any polls on impeachment. They say that they will not do so unless and until a major news source begins to talk about it. So we have kind of a catch 22 here.

The opinions that I state and put in the indented boxes are Gallup's opinions, and I state that. What I've done is put together a bunch of Gallup polls to make a more comprehensive case than what you can get from any single poll. Also, I should add that those opinions make sense to me and I agree with them, which is why I've posted them.

The polls on the Senate races are Rasmussin polls and a Quinnipiac poll, and I've labelled them as such.

The opinion that impeachment would be a winner for the Democrats is that of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which I state in the third paragraph of the last section of the OP. I attended their teach-in in Washington DC, and I felt that they made a convincing case for that.

[bananarepublican]

7. Thanks Time for Change. Your post gave my spirits a boost. n/t

[Time for change]

15. That's great to hear bananarepublican

Welcome to DU :toast:

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

3. All I'm Doing Is Crossing My Fingers From Now Till November.

We need this so badly. So very very badly. I hope to hell that when the smoke clears, we own the house, and by a further dream the senate as well.

We need this. We must make it happen.

[Time for change]

11. Yes we do need it badly, because the more power they get the more they

use it to consolidate their power and steal our democracy.

[LostInAnomie]

4. The Repukes have one VERY big indicator in their favor.

Electronic voting.

The Democrats had better be ready to fight the results of any close election tooth and nail because Diebold is going to play a huge role in November.

[Time for change]

10. Absolutely - And more important than being ready to fight the results is

doing everything they can to prevent election fraud.

Here are some ideas that I have on that:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=710029&mesg_id=710029

[Awsi Dooger]

6. Great thread

The key numbers to me are the 52% approval rating for Democratic Party in general, and the restored 37-33 edge in Party ID.

That verifies where Rasmussen feels the country is. He is now using Democrats +3.3 in his party weighting.

[Time for change]

12. Thank you - Can you tell me what you mean by Rasmussen's +3.3

party weighting? I hadn't heard about that.

[Awsi Dooger]

23. It's an estimate of what the voting populus will look like in November

Most pre-election pollsters weight their polls so the sample reflects true partisanship. It was fairly stagnant in the '90s so this really wasn't much of an issue. Democrats had a 3-4 point lead in party ID.

But 9/11 changed that toward the GOP due to national security concerns. Many indications that white women and Hispanic men drifted toward the GOP in party ID, by a few percent. You might remember the disputes on DU and other liberal sites prior to the election in 2004, whenever a major poll came out. If it didn't give Democrats the +3 to +4 edge in party ID we screamed it was innacurate.

Your link is interesting because Gallup was one of the pollsters we didn't like in 2004, since their party ID survey concluded Democrats would not have a significant edge in party ID. In fact, I think they weighted their polls with Republicans having a slight party ID edge, at least for a while. If you look at the bar graphs on the Gallup link, the impact of 9/11 on party ID is evident. Democrats go from a big edge in 2000 to 34-34 in 2002 then 38-37 in 2004. That's a major reason for our subpar election results in 2002 and 2004, IMO.

The 2004 exit polls, while admittedly in dispute, generally confirmed the party ID was much closer to even, anywhere from dead even to +1.5 or 2 on our favor.

This year Rasmussen is estimating, probably using data from Gallup and Pew and others, that the political climate indicates Democrats will regain a significant advantage in party ID. I've been guessing +3.1 all year so I was encouraged his number more or less agreed. It's unusual for a pollster to release that party ID number but Mystery Pollster had it, regarding Rasmussen's 2006 weighting, a couple of months ago.

I think that's why we'll see Rasmussen polls that look unusually favorable this year. Like the recent one in Nevada regarding the Carter/Ensign race. If Rasmussen has us significantly behind in a race, I don't think we can easily dismiss it as slanted to the right, given that +3.3.

[Time for change]

26. Ok, thanks for the info - I didn't know that they worked like that

I figured that if their sample is random, which it should be (close anyhow), that they would just go with the Party ID that they came up with in their sample, so that they wouldn't have to worry about adjusting the numbers to come up with a final result.

[Awsi Dooger]

31. It's a tricky issue

Mystery Pollster, in particular, has done a number of interesting articles on the subject. He's generally argued party ID is more fluid than pollsters want to admit, greatly influenced by a convention or major event, and that weighting polls based on old party ID assumptions is a good way to come up with a lousy poll result. Rasmussen believes it's more ingrained, comparing it to loyalty to a sports team, varying in intensity and enthusiasm but not subject to change on a whim.

Here are some related MP links from earlier this year:

http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2006/04/the_tide_has_tu.html
http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2006/04/rasmussen_and_p.html
http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2006/04/rasmussen_and_p_1.html
http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2006/05/rasmussen_adopt.html

That final link mentions Rasmussen's change to a three month sampling to determine party ID weighting. I noticed on his site today it's now increased for August to Democrats +3.4: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Bush_Job_Approval.htm

"All polling firms use a weighting process to insure that survey samples reflect the population at large according to a variety of characteristics. At Rasmussen Reports, we adjust our party identification weighting targets each month based upon actual survey results from the previous 90 days.

For the month of July, our party weighting targets have been 36.6% Democrat, 33.3% Republican, and 30.1% unaffiliated. Beginning today, our party weighting targets for August will be 36.7% Democrat, 33.3% Republican, and 30.0% unaffiliated. There has been only minimal change in party weighting dynamics over the past three months."

[Vidar]

9. Good article. Thanks for posting.

[Time for change]

21. Thank you

[DavidDvorkin]

13. Time for a terrorist attack

Or at least a big, scary threat.

Will it work again, or will the American voter have more sense and skepticism this time around? Considering that it's the same voter who voted for Reagan and Bush I and then let Bush II steal two elections, I'm skeptical.

[Time for change]

16. I'm skeptical too, but I think that the American people are catching on,

as indicated by the overwhelming reaction against Republicans demonstrated in the polls I discussed in the OP.

[Blackhatjack]

14. There are lots of people who would show up to vote for impeachment of *

The anger in this country against * and his neocon pals is way underreported by the MSM. Given the opportunity to vote to impeach *, even if it did not lead to impeachment, would be a big factor in driving voters to the polls.

Match this with the "true" conservatives of the Republican Party "staying home" rather than vote for * supporters and this Administration.

[Time for change]

17. Yes - I believe all that is true

Unfortunately, it seems that the Congressional Democrats have elected to "play it safe" by not risking bringing up the "I" word. I think that's a mistake.

And it means that it will devolve to grass roots movements to make this an issue.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. I hate to say it

but it does not matter who votes, but who counts the votes

[Time for change]

25. Yes, it matters a lot

I think it's obvious that the Republicans don't have unlimited capacity to cheat. If they did, they wouldn't need to bother campaigning.

Certainly we can't just stay home on election day because we don't trust the elections - with that attitude we've lost before we start.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. Being aware that the will attempt to steal the elections

or worst steal them once again, does not mean I will stay home... goddammit let them work to steal my vote!

;-)

[Time for change]

30. That's good to hear

:toast:

[midnight]

27. All I can say is we need to count the votes.

The supreme court has got to support the constitution or be given the boot.

[Time for change]

28. 5 Supreme Court Justices should be tried for treason far as I'm concerned

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010205/bugliosi