Hawaii, of course, is a state. And there's 600,000 Pacific Islanders on the mainland, along with 3.4 million Puerto Ricans, 1.2 million Cubans, 0.8 million Dominicans, and 1.7 million from the West Indies. So there's actually a large number of Pacific Islanders and Caribbean Americans who, if citizens, can vote in the United States federal elections and do have representation.
But Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands are all United States Territories, and they do not have voting representatives in Washington DC, nor can they participate in the electoral college. (Additional US Territories have populations ranging from none to a handful.)
Well, no they actually weren't. However, there is more basis to claim that this election hinged on overseas wars and national security than there is for the numerous claims that it hinged on government spending and the national deficit. This is because a higher percentage of the country cites wars and national security as the top problem facing the country than cites government spending and the national deficit.
With only 13.2% of the country identifying the federal deficit and government spending as their top issue, compared to 15.0% for wars and national security, claiming that the 2009 elections are a mandate against expanding the government is preposterous.
Then again, many of the same people making that claim also don't believe in evolution, or that Obama was born in America. So, it isn't as though numbers like these will dissuade them from their delusions.
Here's a picture of Republicans shooting themselves in the foot:
Click to enlarge.
This shows the dramatic change in support from the Arabic-speaking community in Dearborn, Michigan. In 2000, Bush won with around 70%; in 2008, the community voted nearly 100% for Obama. I found no other community with change this stunning. This is what happens when you demonize a group of people: they stop voting for you. Quickly.
Of course, for those of you who read the previous diaries in this series, you know what I'm going to say next: we are not all of us alike. The Arab-American vote is not as monolithic nationwide as it is in Dearborn. We'll also explore communities with ties to other parts of Western and Central Asia below the fold.
Today, I am excited to announce a new feature on Open Left that will be updated every weekday between now and the 2010 midterm elections: the National House Ballot monitor. It is simply a small button that will appear over Quick Hits, providing my latest forecast of the national House vote. The button will link to a table, like the one below, that includes all of the polls I used to produce the forecast.
The current forecast shows Democrats with a 5.3% advantage in the National House Ballot. For the sake of comparison, Democrats won the 2008 House national vote by 8.9% and the 2006 House national vote by 7.9%. Republicans won by 2.6% in 2004, and by 4.6% in 2002.
In terms of predicting seat totals, the National House ballot is, at best, a crude and inexact measure. As the 2010 elections approach, a far more detailed, seat by seat forecast will take prominence over the national House Ballot monitor. However, it is still a useful stat to see where the current national political environment stands.
The forecast is based on a new and improved electoral forecasting methodology that I will be using in 2010. My preliminary research--which I hope to complete this weekend and release next week--indicates that this new method is about 7-8% more accurate in terms of mean error, and 15-16% more accurate in terms of median error, in predicting the final margins of 2008 statewide elections than Pollster.com and fivethirtyeight.com. Further, the method actually performed slightly better in 2006 than in 2008, showing that its strong performance in 2008 was not a fluke. I have yet to examine how this method would have fared in 2004, which is why I still consider the research preliminary.
The methodology is pretty straightforward, and I explain it in the extended entry. For now, here are the polls used in creating the current forecast:
National House Ballot, 2010 (Polls can be found here and here)
Well, we have some good news and some bad news to report in Maine today. First, let's start off with some good news. Maine Public Broadcasting just got the hot new Pan-Atlantic poll numbers.
Pan Atlantic's Patrick Murphy says the survey of 400 likely voters found 53 percent opposing Question 1, which would repeal Maine's gay marriage law, while 42 percent favor the measure and six percent remain undecided. [Empahasis mine.] The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percent.
Murphy says Question 1 is getting a different reaction in Maine's two congressional districts, with voters in the 1st District favoring the measure by a 20 point spread, while voters in the 2nd District remain nearly equally divided. He says among the state's Catholic voters, the measure has a narrow margin of support, 49 to 46 percent.
According the the Institute of Medicine, 98,000 people die every year from preventable medical errors--and this number doesn't include those seriously injured. This is the sixth leading cause of death in America, equivalent to two 737s crashing every day.
Trial attorneys see first-hand the effects medical errors have on patients and their families. The best way to have fewer medical maslpractice cases is to reduce the number of medical errrors. If less people need to seek legal recourse, that means patients are getting safer. Patients that are safer also means lower costs to the health care system.. Everyone can support this.
They ask you to contact Congress opposing "tort reform" being included in health care reform. Takes about a minute.
On the other hand, here's a verrrrry interesting poll from Clarus Research Group on "Health Care Reform and the Legal System"--interesting because it shows how successful a 30-year-or-so campaign for "tort reform" can be, and still leave a wide-open gapping hole. There's 18 questons overall, and I provide a quick look and comment to half of them.
To start things off, here are two broad-spectrum questions, which show the general success of the conservative war on courts:
Too Quick To Sue?
It's a core article of faith of the conservative war on courts that folks are just too litigious--even though it's corporations that file far more and bigger lawsuits.
Better or Worse?
And, of course, lawsuits are ruining the country! ("Leave the corporations and the police state alone!")
President Obama has repeatedly emphasized a bi-partisan approach to politics. Early on in Obama's presidency, the highly respected Pew poll declared that "Independents Take Center Stage in Obama Era," indicating that perhaps the country was following the President's lead in de-emphasizing partisanship. More recent polling trends on partisan self-identification suggests that this trend has continued. Over the last five months, Pollster.com shows self-identified Independents gaining significant ground at the expense of both Democrats and Republicans in their partisan self-identification chart:
However, before we declare a new non-partisan, Independent dominated era of politics, it would behoove us to look at the numbers more closely. This is because the polling data suggesting a sharp rise in Americans identifying as non-partisan is among all adults, not among the smaller percentage of Americans who actually vote. Among registered and likely voters, it turns out that the percentage of non-partisan self-identifiers is actually declining:
Over the past year, registered and likely voters in America have demonstrated little, if any, change in partisan self-identification. Democrats are still at 39%, just as they were on Election Day in 2008. Republicans have gained about 2%, moving from 31% to 33% of the electorate. Independents have actually dropped from 27% to 26%. It is also worth noting that third party voting in congressional elections hit a 20-year low in 2008.
The rise in Independents among less likely voters, and the corresponding lack of change among more likely voters, can perhaps be explained as an increasing alienation gap in America. Those people who were only loosely attached to civic institutions like major political parties have become even less attached, while with a greater degree of participation are doubling down. It is perhaps a symptom of increasing socioeconomic stratification in America, and with the seeming inability--or lack of desire--of elected officials to do anything about it.,br>
While their disgust might be understandable, the increasing non-partisan trend among non-voters is not going to change the political dynamic of this country at all. The more people who drop out, the more that powerful institutions will solidify their grasp on the system as a whole.
According to the latest CBS poll on Afghanistan (PDF, page 3), whether or not you a voter approves of President Obama's handling of Afghanistan has as much to do with partisan self-identification as with President Obama's actual policies in the country.
By a 2-1 margin, self-identified approve of President Obama's handling of Afghanistan, even though twice as many Democrats favor decreasing troop levels there as favor increasing troop levels.
President Obama has a net approval rating of negative 38% among self-identified Republicans in Afghanistan, However, three and a half times as many Republicans think troop levels in Afghanistan should be increased rather than decreased.
This partisan discrepancy can probably be explained by Afghanistan being low on the list of national priorities right now. In the same CBS poll, only 3% of Americans cited Afghanistan as the top national priority. As such, many Americans are relying on their partisan preference to determine their approval or disapproval of President Obama on Afghanistan, rather than their personal views on how many troops we should have in that country. When an issue is not high on your list of national priorities, it is a safe bet that a given voter less likely even be aware of a difference with his or her party leadership, and more likely to let a difference s/he does notice slide.
There are possible readings of these numbers which are a lot less generous to the electorate, but I won't go there in this article. As tempting as a "stupid electorate" conclusion is from numbers like these, in my experience it is best to withhold such conclusions until there are no other possibilities.
Earlier in the week, in my first House forecast for 2010, I looked at generic congressional ballot polling from August 20th through September 17th. At that time, the most recent survey from the nine polling organizations to publish generic congressional ballots conducted entirely since August 20th showed Democrats ahead by 3.5%.
However, several generic congressional ballots have been released since that time, which cumulatively show the Democratic position improving. Here are the most recent surveys from the eight polling organizations that have published generic congressional ballots which were conducted entirely since President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress. Most of the surveys can be found at Pollster.com.
Not only has the Democratic advantage expanded to 5.4%, up 1.9% from a few days ago, but the only two polls showing Democrats in any real trouble are both Republican outfits. The four non-partisan polls in this group show Democrats ahead by 8.8%, identical to their margin in 2008.
The tea-party is over. Since President Obama's speech on September 9th, Democrats have clearly regained their electoral footing. For all the conservative organizing around tea parties since March, Republicans have made up no ground at all in the generic congressional ballot. While Obama's approval rating has dipped, his net job approval of +7.5% is identical to his victory margin in the 2008 election. The only people Republicans have won over are people who already voted for them in 2008.
The problem Republicans face is that their members of Congress and leading spokespeople are engaging in pretty much the same behavior as their more bombastic astroturf / grassroots supporters. The image of "average citizens" yelling at powerful members of Congress plays well. The image of members of Congress engaging in the same behavior--not so much. In a sense, the lack of what Matt Stoller called a "rootsgap" in his farewell article at Open Left is keeping Republicans in a poor electoral position, while it keeps Democrats from passing good legislation. However, the Progressive Block is helping to solve that gap, and today I feel more optimistic about the short-term political future than I have in months.
According to PPP, 35% of the country thinks either that President Obama was not born in America (23%), and / or that George W. Bush had something to do with the 9/11 attacks (14%). My favorite line in their press release is "a very troubled 2% of the population buys into both of those conspiracy theories." Ha!
On the bipartisan front, 25% of Democrats think that Bush was involved in the 9/11 attacks, while 42% of Republicans think that Obama was not born in the United States. While the relatively high number of Democrats who think Bush was involved in 9/11 does not really surprise me, it is something of a relief that a smaller percentage of Democrats hold that position than Republicans who believe Obama wasn't born in America.
I'm glad PPP did this poll, but I think they missed a chance to poll the actual Democratic equivalent of the "birther" conspiracy theories: that Bush stole the 2004 election. Those two conspiracies are equivalent because they deny the legitimacy of the President. Thinking that Bush was involved in 9/11 is more like thinking that Obama has a secret plan to indoctrinate American children with Islamo-socialism.
My guess is that belief in the stolen 2004 elections is more widespread among Democrats than Bush having foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. It certainly seems extremely widespread within the comment sections of the progressive blogosphere. I have never been kosher with that theory, and actually find it pretty irritating. This is both because I tend to find all conspiracy theories irritating, and because of the whining complaints about "a-list" bloggers like me being involved in a supplemental conspiracy to suppress evidence of 2004 theft (mainly because we are cowards who want to be taken seriously, or something). And I'm pretty sure that even writing this will result in a bunch of posts about how naïve and uninformed I am about the 2004 elections.
One thing I will say in defense of people who subscribe to all of these conspiracy theories is that such "radical" beliefs are to be expected when our political and economic system continues to fail such an enormous percentage of the country. Over the last 33 years, the bottom 90% of America has received less than a 10% of the growth in real income, and less than 25% of the total increase in our national wealth, even as the cost of education, health care, transportation, food and housing have all soared. When the system is failing people, they will inevitably turn to alternative ideas and conceptualizations for the cause our problems, no matter unsubstantiated those ideas may be. After all, why should you believe the official explanation for anything, when the people offering those official explanations have just been ripping you off for decades on end?
This is the first Open Left House forecast for 2010. I currently estimate a Republican net gain of 17 seats, for a Democratic majority of 240-195--Chris
Over the past month, nine polling firms have published surveys on the national House ballot. Looking only at the most recent poll from each of those nine pollsters, the results show Democrats maintaining a decent advantage.
A Democratic advantage of 41.2%-37.7% is a far cry for the supposed Republican wave we keep hearing about. Democrats are, after all, still winning.
These numbers are placed in more context--context which, I might ad, is something that blogs do a far, far better job of providing than any other medium when it comes to electoral forecasting--below the fold. The bottom line this, my first crude House forecast for 2010, is that Republicans are not currently poised to retake the House. Currently, I project a Republican gain of 17 seats, for a partisan balance of 240-195 in favor of Democrats.
Political speeches are designed for specific purposes. As such, their "success" should be judged by how well they achieve that purpose, not by the rhetorical and cultural implications contained within the text and body language. In the case of President Obama's joint address to Congress last night, the specific goal was to advance his push for health care reform. At least so far, all indications are that the speech was enormously successful in achieving that goal. Consider:
Advanced the legislative timetable. Among the five committees with legislative purview on health care, the Senate Finance Committee is the lone holdout in passing a bill. As recently as August 21st, the negotiators on that committee had rejecting even a September15th deadline for a framework for the bill, vowed to reduce its size to $700 billion, and pledged to keep working on a bipartisan basis. Now, committee chair Max Baucus released a framework of the bill on September 7th, put its size at $900 billion, and appears to have foregone the bipartisan negotiations. The draft of the Finance Committee bill will now be released next week, and the committee mark-up of the bill will begin the week of September 21st.
This acceleration of the legislative process happened because of the speech. The announcement of, and build-up to, the speech put Baucus in a position where he could have been the lone hold-out when the speech took place. Not wanting to be such a negative focus of the news cycle, Baucus finally began to take proactive steps to release a legislative framework, however flawed, and push a bill through his committee. So, the speech successful moved up the legislative timetable on health care reform. That could dissolve later on, but at least for now, it makes the speech a success.
About one in seven people who watched the speech changed their minds on Obama's health care plan. "Going into the speech, a bare majority of his audience - 53 percent - favored his proposals. Immediately after the speech, that figure rose to 67 percent," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland
This poll has been accurately criticized for oversampling Democrats. However, while that may call the overall percentages in favor of the President's health care reform plan, it has no impact on the trendline for support. The speech increased the popularity of the President's health care reform plan--and apparently by a substantial amount. Polling later in the week will be needed for confirmation, but once again, the speech has so far been successful at achieving one of its major goals.
Put Republicans on the defensive. President Obama said in his speech that he would call out Republican members of Congress who are lying about health care reform. On that front, the speech has already resulted in a major news story about a Republican member of Congress, Joe Wilson, apologizing to the President for his outburst during the speech. This is probably the first Republican in Congress to apologize during the health care debate at all.
While this may appear less "objective" a success than the other two bullet points here, it is safe to say that whoever is apologizing during a news cycle is losing that news cycle. For Republicans, an apologizing Congressman is their part in the news cycle right now, instead of their rebuttal to the President's address. That is a clear win.
The goal of the speech was to advance the President's health care reform agenda. Given that is pushed the legislative timetable forward, improved the popularity of the plan, and put Republicans on the defensive, it was successful in achieving that goal. So, leaving rhetorical and ideological analysis aside for the moment, the speech was a success for its own purposes.
Finally, last night's speech was also a big success for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, too. It marked the emergence of the CPC as a major player in the health care reform debate. President Obama specifically mentioned the bloc of House Progressives threatening to oppose health care reform without a public option as the major group that needs to be negotiated with:
To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades, the driving idea behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage affordable for those without it. The public option is only a means to that end - and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal.
For a group that was last in line to meet with President Obama about anything this year, that is quite a step up in visibility and power for the Progressive Caucus. Negotiating power over the President's agenda has no longer been ceded entirely to Blue Dogs and Senate Gangs of Conservadems and Maine Republicans. Not only is that a clear victory for our efforts to increase Progressive power in Congress, but it is also a big victory for President Obama's agenda. By validating the power of the CPC in sucha major forum, President Obama has now given himself some space to work on the left.
Currently, the National House Generic Ballot at Pollster.com shows Republicans with a narrow 41.5%-40.7% advantage. Some may object to this, pointing out that without Rasmussen, Democrats actually hold a sizable 43.2%--38.8% advantage, showing that a single polling firm is heavily influencing the overall figure. Since a House generic ballot is a reasonably accurate measure of which party leads in the national House popular vote (though, admittedly, is not a very accurate predictor of seat totals), it is worth asking which figure is more accurate. Which major party is actually ahead right now.
Here are some thoughts on how to solve this problem:
First, removing Rasmussen from the figures altogether does not appear justifiable. Despite their huge error in 2000, their 2004, 2006 and 2008 polling appeared perfectly sound. Whatever problems it may have had a decade ago, automated IVR polling has emerged as a methodologically viable alternative to live-interview polls.
Second, in the fall of 2010, significantly more polling firms will be measuring the national generic ballot than currently are doing so. In 2006, seven polling firms conducted generic ballot tests in the final week of the campaign. In 2008, eight polling firms published generic ballot tests (seven here, plus Rasmussen). By way of comparison, in August of 2009, only five polling firms, including Rasmussen, conducted national generic ballot tests.
What I conclude from this is that Rasmussen should be included in the overall figures, but that it is still skewing the results too heavily. Assuming for a moment that additional polling firms would produce national generic ballot results equal to the simple mean of the four non-Rasmussen polling firms (Dem 42.25%--40.00 Rep%), here is what the national generic ballot would currently look like with more polling firms included in the measurement:
Six polls: Dem 41.1%--40.5% Rep
Seven polls (2006 level): Dem 41.4%--40.4% Rep
Eight polls (2008 level): Dem 41.5%--40.4% Rep
Nine polls: Dem: 41.7%--40.3% Rep
These hypothetical projections all fall into the same range, showing a narrow Democratic advantage. They also match-up well with the current median of the five firms that have published national generic ballots, the Pew poll showing Democrats ahead 45%-44%.
Given that the mean error on generic ballot simple means since 1998 has been 1.8%, projecting a 1.0% Democratic advantage instead of a Republican advantage of 0.8% doesn't change much. This shift is rendered even less significant by the inaccuracy of predicting specific seat totals in the House from the national popular vote. Within that range, either party could still end up with 230 seats (I hope to have an article explaining why this is the case next week).
Still, I hope that this analysis adds some depth to discussions of the national popular vote. I doubt it is as simple as either discarding Rasmussen entirely, or thinking that Rasmussen's numbers should be given such significant weight simply because they poll more often.
As the debate over public health care and insurance reform has raged this August, I have seen much via the cable news outlets about how President Obama has not been able to get his message across the great partisan divide. The media has been far more interested in giving a platform to those which it describes as the "fringe." They inevitably follow up with: "Where is the clear message from President Obama?" At no time does one ever see the media turn the light upon itself and ask itself if it is doing the responsible thing. It is the very agency that should be bringing clarity to the discussion. It is the very agency who has been entrusted with the public airwaves for this very purpose.
Out of all the polls we see paraded across MSNBC, CNN etc., we have yet to see a poll rating how Americans feel the media is living up to its obligations to actually inform us. We see polls that show that Americans don't really understand the discussion, but very little regarding those who present this discussion to us. I find this to be very curious.
If these "news outlets" put half as much effort into bringing clarity to the public health care debate as it does on presenting every little bit of trivia surrounding the death of Michael Jackson, then I would imagine these other polls that we're seeing would reflect a more informed public. Of course, it doesn't help that some of the interests that oppose health care reform are the MSM's biggest advertisers. It is rare that the MSM will bite the hand that feeds it. Unfortunately it leaves the American public starving for real information to make critical choices.
Here is Pollster.com's trenndline graph on support and opposition to Democratic health care reform plans. It shows that support has stagnated since late May, while opposition has risen. Even if one filters out Rasmussen, stagnating support and rising opposition is still the trendline:
The main problem currently facing the various health care reform plans is a lack of popular support. Sure, Americans agree that health care reform is needed, and they generally seem to support progressive legislation in the abstract, but they do not seem particularly supportive of the current efforts anyway. This is a serious issue because, as I discussed last week, Congress rarely passes unpopular legislation.
What health care reform needs right now is more popular support for the plans in Congress. Given this, every progressive should ask him or herself the following question: exactly how will portraying health care protesters as astroturf extremists increase support for current health care reform efforts? Personally, I can't figure that one out. Growing to dislike protesters is not the same thing as growing to like the target of the protests.
I know I am starting to sound like a broken record here, but progressives are focusing too much of their attention on attacking the protesters. I just don't see how focusing on them gets us closer to our goal of passing health care reform. It is a big distraction.
This is the second article in a three-part series today that compares political conditions in 1993-1994 to our current environment. I argue that the current situation is much more favorable to Democrats than the one 16 years ago-Chris
President Clinton's Trouble on the Left President Clinton had remarkable difficulties with the left-wing of his own party. In mid-1993, 15% of the country, or about 75% of all self-identified liberals, thought that Bill Clinton was "too conservative." The percentage of Americans viewing the Democratic Party as "too conservative" also reached an all-time high during Clinton's first term, rising to between 12-13% according to Gallup.
Neither labor nor self-identified liberals were very happy with Clinton. The result was depressed turnout in 1994, which contributed to the Republican victory.
Obama Doing Better With the Left Right now, only 8% of the country thinks that President Obama, and the Democratic Party, are too conservative. Those numbers are significantly better for the President and the party than at this point 16 years ago.
Possible Trouble Points? Even though President Obama and the Democratic Party have a better ideological image with the American left than President Clinton and the Democratic Party had 16 years ago, there are still some potential trouble spots.
For one thing, Democrats don't appear particularly motivated to vote right now. Recent polling in Virginia for the upcoming Governor's race shows likely voters in 2009 favored John McCain by 9-11% in 2008. Given that President Obama won Virginia by 6.30% in 2008, that represents a 15-17% swing just from enthusiasm and projected turnout. That could easily result in a repeat of 1994.
Also, while it is not currently very high on the national list of priorities, a CNN poll released yesterday showed that three-quarters of all Democrats "oppose the war in Afghanistan." If the economy recovers, and if the situation in Afghanistan remains stagnates or gets worse, Afghanistan will quickly rise on the list of national priorities. At that time, President Obama could start facing Clinton-level problems from the left.
Passing a strong health care bill is probably the best insurance President Obama has against future left-wing depression. Clinton might have been OK if he had been able to do that. However, the Democratic failure to reform the health care system, combined with NAFTA, apparently caused a lot of people to decide there wasn't a reason to bother (not mention lowered his approval ratings overall). It is essential that the failure of 1994 not be repeated in 2009.
This is the first in a three-part series today that compares political conditions in 1993-1994 to our current environment. I argue that the current situation is much more favorable to Democrats than the one 16 years ago--Chris
Background Perot voters were an essential part of the 1994 Republican turnaround--perhaps the essential part. Forming 12% of the congressional electorate in both 1992 and 1994 (40% of Perot voters skipped the House vote in 1992), they swung from evenly split between the two major parties (see 38%-38% in the presidential and Rep 37%--32% Dem in the House) to voting 67% for Republicans in 1994.
By itself, this swing formed an overall 3-4% Republican gain in the national House vote. Given that the GOP went up a total of 5.1% from 1992 to 1994 in the national House vote (from 44.8% to 49.9%), their gains from Perot voters represented roughly two-thirds of all their gains that year.
The NAFTA Disaster The role of NAFTA in this swing difficult to overestimate. As I noted yesterday, just before NAFTA was passed in the House in late 1993, a plurality opposed it, 38%--46%. Notably, Perot voters opposed it overwhelmingly, 26%--63%. As Thomas Frank argued in What's the Matter With Kansas, Democratic support for NAFTA might have made both parties seem just as bad on economics to Perot voters. With equivalence on economic matters, Perot supporters may well have turned to Republicans because they tended to be populist, American-exceptionalist, cultural supremacists.
Granted, a much lower percentage of House Democrats voted in favor of NAFTA than House Republicans (40% for Dems, 75% for Reps). However, given that NAFTA was championed by the Clinton administration for months in the media, passed through a Democratic Congress, and climaxed with a famous CNN debate between Vice-President Al Gore and Ross Perot himself, Perot supporters would have had a justifiable sense of equivalence between the two major parties on NAFTA. Heck, given that Democrats were the public face of NAFTA, many probably blamed only Democrats for it.
****
Are we in for a repeat? I consider this possibility in the extended entry.
Over the past nine months, Republicans have close the Democratic margin in the national generic ballot by 6.3%:
House Generic Ballot Polling, Pre-2008 Election vs. Current
Democrats
Republicans
Pre-2008 Election*
48.6%
39.9%
Current**
42.6%
40.2%
*Simple mean of final poll from eight polling firms who conducted generic ballots from October 25th forward. Seven of those can be found here, and the eighth is the final Rasmussen generic ballot from the 2008 election.
**Current Pollster.com generic House ballot regression line.
The first thing that needs to be understood when looking at these numbers is that the generic House ballot really is an accurate snapshot of national voter opinion. For example, Democrats won the 2008 national House vote by 8.88%, extremely close to the 8.7% margin predicted by the final polls. 2008 was not a fluke, either. A quick look at final generic ballot averages and final national results show that the generic ballot is a useful indicator of national popular preference at any given time:
While six elections is a small sample size, the overall mean error rate is a low 1.8%, and the median is an even lower 1.5%. Even in the event of a large error rate of 3.7%, as experienced in 2006, a 6.3% swing toward Republicans is still quite significant.
The second thing to note about these numbers is that while the margin has narrowed significantly, Republicans have not gained any new supporters. Rather, all of the movement has come from Democratic losses. The continuing deterioration of the economy (and yes, a slower rate of decline is still a decline) is pushing voters out of the Democratic camp, but those same voters are not embracing Republicans.
The bottom line is that there are a lot of voters up for grabs right now, many more than we are used to seeing in our polarized era. Thinning pocketbooks can alter political allegiances in significant ways.
Democrats are still quite popular in the Northeast and unpopular in the South, but they've lost significant ground in the West and Midwest since late February, four months ago, even though Republicans, who are far less popular, continue losing popularity as well. If the GOP's intention is to disgust people with politics, in direct opposition with Obama's attempt to bring sweetness and light, the GOP seems to be succeeding--and Democrats in general are paying the price, both in party popularity, and in the popularity of congresional Democrats.
The last DKos weekly poll in July shows more of the same. Here are the latest figures, showing Congressional Democrats barely hanging on to a net favorability of +3 outside the South, with the party itself at -3 favorability naitonwide. Nobody likes the GOP outside the South--12% favorable is the best they can do regionally, but now the Dems have lost almost all their regional net favorability:
And here are the changes from late June, which show both parties losing support almost equally:
