I asked a Democratic operative the other day what to make of the latest generic ballot polls, which show Democrats gaining ground they had lost to Republicans over the summer -- this poll average has the GOP only up about 1.9 points. A good sign? It's hard to say, he replied, because no one knows the voter model -- i.e. who exactly will comprise the electorate this year.
We saw this problem during the PA-12 special election earlier this year, when Republicans committed heavily to taking the late John Murtha's House seat and were surprised by a strong Democratic win. It turned out that the voter model used by Republican pollsters had "forgotten" about statewide Democratic primaries that bumped up turnout for their opponent, and overestimated conservative excitement about the race.
Now pollsters are trying to figure out what the mix will be for this fall's midterm elections. It goes practically without saying that election observers anticipate a higher-than-normal conservative turnout given the Tea Party and the energy the Republican base draws from opposing a president they despise. Poor economic news, we also know, tilts the field away from the incumbent Democrats. But there's also some evidence that Democrats are under-represented in the generic ballot.
Part of the Democrats' advantage are their candidates, who tend to run ahead of the generic ballot in their districts. Look at Virginia's Tom Periello, who has (admittedly internal) polls showing him running neck-and-neck with a conservative Republican in a very tough district. And Dems are bullish about a pickup opportunity in Florida, where Democrat Joe Garcia is leading the race to replace retiring Republican Mario Diaz-Balart. Democrats expect to pick up at least three and perhaps as many as six seats, making the Republicans' task that much harder: 45 seats is a tougher "magic majority number" than 39.
It's clear, at least, that Democratic warnings about the Republican majority are starting to resonate with their base voters, weakening the Republican advantage in enthusiasm. Democratic candidates still have a cash advantage, even if they're getting creamed by outside groups. The question now is whether the Democrats' campaign infrastructure -- including a very solid field operation -- can take advantage of any late shifts in public opinion and hold on to their majority. As Marc Ambinder points out, nothing succeeds like success: The more Democrats appear to be competitive this year, the more competitive they'll actually be.
"What we've seen in the last three or four weeks is that the pendulum is shifting back towards the Democrats," Pennsylvania State Rep. Mike Gerber, who is running his caucus' political operation, told me. "Look at the cross-tabs: Voters who had been voting for Democrats over the last 10 years are coming back home and are again supporting Democrats."
-- Tim Fernholz
