Interesting analysis here from Sean Trende, especially at the end:
If the president’s job approval is still around 43 percent in November — lower than it was on Election Day in 2010 — the question would probably not be whether the Democrats will hold the Senate, but whether Republicans can win 54 or 55 seats. Given the numbers right now, that should not be unthinkable.
But there’s a flip side to this. If Obama’s job approval does bounce back — which is exactly what happened in 2012 — there’s a reasonable chance that Republicans could walk away from this cycle with just a handful of pickups.
Agreed, but the key word here is very much ‘if.’ If you look at RCP’s numbers you’ll see that – Rasmussen solely aside – the President’s numbers are… showing no sign of a rebound any time soon. At this point, there’s very little that could fuel higher numbers. Between Obamacare, the NSA, the stubbornly grim economy, and five years’ worth of karmic backlash for Barack Obama’s cavalier treatment of the opposition… I don’t want to say that only a war could rescue Obama’s polling numbers, but only because I’m not entirely certain that it would.
We will now pause for the traditional rant in comments that the GOP will somehow manage to throw all of this away. Sorry: I’m cranky from the combination cold/snow day.
Moe Lane
I think it’s more likely that we’ll something along the lines of what happened in 2012….where polling groups manipulate the data for the purpose of attempting to control the outcome. They’ll make it look like his numbers are improving even if they aren’t.
[rant on]: The GOP will find a way to throw it all away. Leadership is hard work and takes a desire to change things vs. luxing in the status-quo sinecure. [rant-off]
How’s that?
Moe:
What is with the Rasmussen “*” with no qualifier?
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Teasing again, are we?
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🙂
Removed. If I had another observation there, I’ve since forgotten it.
We’ll run Todd Akin somewhere, and the NRCC will fund Charlie Crist somewhere else.
^this. And ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN/NYTimes/WaPo will make sure that these stories dominate the news cycle until after the election.
Yup. One of the biggest mistakes that we make at all points along the conservative spectrum is a failure to account for the reality of the media environment that we live in. They aren’t an independent watchdog, they’re the propaganda arm of the DNC. We must plan accordingly.
There is the matter of the “American Media Church of the State Narrative” constantly praising Buraq Hussein and his acolytes, and the detail that the vote totals reported are at increasing variance with the reality of the votes actually cast.