| According to the latest CBS / New York Times poll, Americans favor at least partial troop reduction in Iraq by a margin of 66%-27%:
CBS News/New York Times Poll. July 20-22, 2007. N=889 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults).
"From what you have seen or heard about the situation in Iraq, what should the United States do now? Should the U.S. increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, keep the same number of U.S. troops in Iraq as there are now, decrease the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, or remove all its troops from Iraq?"
Increase: 12%
Keep Same: 15%
Decrease: 30%
Remove All: 36%
Unsure: 7%
The reason I bring this up is because there appears to be some Democrats who are wavering on troop reduction in Iraq. From BooMan Tribune:
Clyburn, in an interview with the washingtonpost.com video program PostTalk, said Democrats might be wise to wait for the Petraeus report, scheduled to be delivered in September, before charting next steps in their year-long struggle with President Bush over the direction of U.S. strategy.
Clyburn noted that Petraeus carries significant weight among the 47 members of the Blue Dog caucus in the House, a group of moderate to conservative Democrats. Without their support, he said, Democratic leaders would find it virtually impossible to pass legislation setting a timetable for withdrawal.
Now, many Blue Dogs are from moderate and conservative districts, and so they probably think that they will face electoral repercussions if they support troop withdrawal legislation. However, considering the 66%-27% margin in favor of at least some troop withdrawal, here is a map of the Unites States, by congressional district, of where majorities exist in favor of troop reduction (troop reduction majority districts are in blue):
(Hawaii and Alaska are not seen here, but all three of those districts would also be blue)
I produced this map by taking the partisan voting index of every congressional district and comparing it to the 66%-27% figure. The partisan voting index, produced by the Cook Political Report, measures how pro-Republican or pro-Democratic congressional districts are relative to the rest of the nation. Assuming a general correlation between how pro-Democratic or pro-Republican a district is and how pro-troop reduction that district is, it would take a congressional district with a partisan voting index of greater than Republican +19.5 in order for even a plurality of the voters in any congressional district to oppose troop withdrawal. One district, the Indiana 5th, has a partisan index of precisely R +19.5 (shown in yellow), while eleven others have a partisan index even more favorable to Republicans: Alabama 6, Georgia 7, Georgia 10, Kansas 1, Nebraska 3, Texas 8, Texas 11, Texas 13, Texas 19, Utah 1 and Utah 3. The other 423 congressional districts in the United States all currently have either pluralities or, far more often, majorities in favor of troop reduction. In fact, the number is probably higher than 423, because according to this methodology 15 districts are more than 100% pro-troop reduction, and because I do not have the updated figures on the partisan indexes of Georgia's newly redrawn congressional districts. At least three or four of the districts I listed above as anti-troop reduction probably have pluralities in favor of troop reduction, too.
So there, Democrats who are wavering on troop reduction, and Republicans who refuse to support it. Virtually every single one of you is defying the will of your constituents. They want out. You want to stay. Hopefully, either you will wise up and listen to them, or they will wise up and throw every single one of you out of office next year.
Oh yeah, and the accompanying map for Senators
Way to go Utah! No wonder Mitt Romney is doing so well in the campaign for the Republican nomination.
Update: To add to the above visual representation of the coming wave for those who refuse to support troop withdrawal, here is some amazing polling data from Democracy Corps (PDF):
- In the battleground of the 70 most competitive congressional districts (35 Democratic and 35 Republican-held), the Democratic incumbents, including the big class of freshmen, have quickly moved into dramatic leads in the named congressional ballot (52 to 40 percent)2. Whatever is happening for
Congress is not evident for the individual members whose named job approval is rising along with their vote advantage over the Republicans. (These battleground results are based on 1,451 interviews in a survey of 1,600 that will be completed tomorrow.)
- In the 35 Republican battleground districts, the named Republicans trail their generic Democratic opponent by 5 points (49 to 44 percent). Republicans are almost in as much trouble as in 2006 in their top tier congressional races.
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- In a poll conducted for MoveOn across seven Republican-held U.S. Senate seats, the named U.S. Senators had a vote to re-elect of only 37 percent and were garnering only 44 percent of the vote against a generic challenger. The current battles are putting even more Republican Senators in jeopardy.
It isn't just the maps. A second electoral wave could be coming in 2008 that would cement a true realignment. |
