Date: November 9, 2010 To: From: Friends of Democracy Corps and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Stan Greenberg and James Carville 1994=2010 Report on the Democracy Corps and Resurgent Republic bipartisan post election poll November 2 nd was a very bad day for Democrats indeed, the worst since November 8, 1994 when Democrats lost their four-decade hold on the House of Representatives, control of the US Senate and 472 state legislative seats across the country. Newt Gingrich and his new majorities were triumphant. I was polling then for President Bill Clinton and the poll findings today in this joint poll with Resurgent Republic look eerily similar. On election night, an identical twothirds said the country is seriously off on the wrong track; an identical 45 percent said Clinton and Obama were moving the country in the right direction; and Clinton and Obama had almost identical favorability ratings split evenly between favorable and unfavorable responses. And we all know how that story ended presidentially two years later, Bob Dole got only 41 percent of the vote and Bill Clinton won an Electoral College landslide. While this survey fully documents the scale of the Republican s historic election victory, it underscores even more the risks for the new Republican majority and opportunities for President Obama and the Democrats in seeing history repeat itself. What Message Voters Were Sending 1 Make no mistake about the seriousness of what the voters said on Election Day. Voters expressed their deep discontent voting against the Democrats and the Obama agenda and very conscious that they were seeking to end Democratic control of the Congress. Voters wanted to punish Democrats. Voters were angry over an economy stuck at 10 percent unemployment and economic policies that apparently failed to move the jobs numbers. They were angrier still at the lack of focus on jobs, as evident in the year-long struggle over health care. 1 Full results of the poll including graphs, memo and frequency questionnaire are available at http://www.democracycorps.com/.
The president and Democrats offered no economic framework, economic vision, or campaign message appropriate to the scale of the crisis and that would provide voters with context for the spending, bailouts, and debt. The Democrats lost white non-college voters in general, and working class male voters in particular, who were put off by the Democrats assertions about economic progress they were not certain that Democrats stood with them, rather than Wall Street. Many of these were voters cut out of a Reagan-Democratic mold and who rejected Bush s economy in the last two elections they have to be won back. The road back to the industrial Midwest runs through their communities. And voters were angry with the continuing partisan warfare, the lack of change in Washington and lack of economic progress at a time of acute crisis. So, voters had plenty to say. As Whit Ayers notes in his memo, independent voters were the carriers of that message, cutting their vote for Democrats by 13 points, giving the Republicans an 18-point margin. Misreading the Election Results But the voters angry message for Democrats in this election is not the same as a mandate for action as became evident in 1994 and now and reflected in this important bi-partisan poll. 2 To begin, we should note how discerning these voters are about the Republicans. Much like the new Senator from West Virginia, they aimed their weapons at the Democrats, not the Republicans for whom they have little regard for. The standing of the Republicans is no higher in this survey than it was in our post-election polls in 2008 and 2006. They are unreconstructed. Amazingly, this electorate gave the Republicans an 8-point lead in the vote, but not in party identification. This election was about Democratic governance, not a new regard for the Republican agenda and philosophy. While some patterns in this electorate are worrisome like the further shift of the white South to the Republicans, making it very difficult to reclaim these states could well be unique encouraging Republican and conservative leaders to overreach. 2 Post election survey jointly conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Research and Ayres, McHenry & Associates for Democracy Corps and Resurgent Republic on November 2-3, 2010 among 1,000 2008 voters, 866 of whom voted in the 2010 election. 2
10 percent unemployment, with uneven job growth and no decline in the unemployment rate. Most would bet on that changing, even if rapid growth seems unlikely. Seniors played an immense role in this result raising their participation as a share of the electorate to 23 percent and their vote for Republicans by 10 points since 2008. They were clearly spooked by health care reform and the so-called cuts in Medicare. But the debate on Medicare will soon shift as Republicans seek to get Medicare savings. This is one of the few areas where voters give the Democrats an advantage. And more important, young voters will soon return to the electorate in larger numbers. The presidential electorate that matters most now will be more diverse, younger, more union and with more unmarried women. Their participation and support dropped in 2010 but both will surely rise as the presidential race develops. The first two years of Obama s presidency, much like the first two of Clinton s, produced a conservative surge and energy. This was an ideological election for the anti- Democratic voters. Conservatives formed 41 percent of this off-year electorate up 7 points from 2008 and 84 percent voted Republican up 9 points. That created a very special electorate and shaped the independents, but new battles can change the dynamics. Newt Gingrich soon found out how difficult this was to maintain and how difficult to control. The Tea Party movement was a big factor in this election: nearly 40 percent of Republican Party identifiers are strong supporters. But this is a double-edged sword. These voters went to the polls to stop the Obama agenda and they are determined to see Obama fail. On issue after issue, they are out-of-sync with the presidential year and swing voters, even many of the independents. Based on the first week, Republican leaders at all levels will compete in a race to the bottom to stop Obama. Misreading the Mandate The poll shows three big areas where the president has opportunities and where Republicans could find themselves at risk. The first is the Republicans focus on austerity, concentrating on spending cuts and deficits with a lack of attention to job growth and other priorities; second, the desire for a post-partisan politics where leaders make compromises and work together; and third, the battle over the touchstone issues for conservative Republicans health care and taxes. The straightjacket of austerity. Punishing the Democrats for spending is not the same thing as wanting to slash spending. Failing to see the difference could be fatal as Republicans head into a spiral of spending cuts, seeking to out-do other conservatives. When we asked this conservative off-year electorate what kind of Member they wanted one who would fight big corporate special deals and work for the middle class and American 3
jobs, or one who would go to Washington to rein in government spending, deficits, and higher taxes they chose the former by a wide margin (52 to 40 percent). That was true for independents and swing voters, and even more among presidential year voters who did not participate this year. When asked whether the highest priority for making the US economy stronger and more competitive should be cutting the deficit or whether it should be BOTH cutting the deficit and making growth-producing investments, voters want both by more than two-to-one. The same was true for independents. Voters are not looking for a cramped mission of simple austerity, but it is hard to see how Republican politicians get out of this straightjacket. Voters want policies that produce growth and reduce the deficit. Perhaps Dick Cheney was right when he dismissed deficits as a Republican mantra. Surprisingly, this electorate was divided fairly evenly on the standard question of whether government should do more or less, but that is not true of those who join the presidential electorate who strongly want more government involvement. The overwhelming desire for parties and leaders to work together. A large portion of the protest voters this year were voting against the dysfunctional polarized politics that they witnessed in Congress and Washington. They saw protracted conflict, divisions, special deals and a failure to fix the economy. One more time, voters are saying they want a different kind of politics. There is no clearer message in this survey. By two-to-one, voters say they want compromise to find common ground, not leaders who take principled stands on what they believe in and pass less legislation. Independents also endorse compromise in the same proportion, but the challenge for Republicans is that half of their voters say, do not compromise. Almost 60 percent of this off-year electorate and a plurality of independents say they want their member of Congress to work with President Obama to get things done. But over 60 percent of Republicans want their member to mostly oppose his policies and provide a check on his power. Over 60 percent say they want congressional Republicans to work with President Obama to find solutions including 56 percent of independents but two-thirds of Republicans say they should work to stop Obama because his agenda would harm America. What about the voters message would Republican leaders misunderstand? It is clear they feel compelled to respond to the very stronger views of their base that gravitates toward conflict. Clearly, President Obama has an opportunity in a number of policy areas to reach out to Republicans who will have difficulty responding with civility. 4
The Contested Issues. While health care was an important part of the critique of this year s off-year voters, do not assume that is a mandate on health care and taxes. A plurality of these off-year voters were opposed to the health care reform law and intensity was on the side of the opponents but that changes when looking forward: The debate on health care in the survey with Resurgent Republic advocating repeal and replace, and Democracy Corps pointing out that insurance companies are lobbying to be able to drop people again and impose lifetime limits again comes out a draw in this conservative electorate, with the intensity advantaged neutralized. This debate is only beginning. The debate on health care this time led by Republicans who are trying to stop it at state level and going to the brink in each budget battle can very quickly become a Republican obsession, while the country is looking for a focus on job creation. The debate on extending the Bush tax cuts breaks marginally for the Republicans (49 to 45 percent), but that is not decisive. The Democratic argument centered on addressing the deficit and protecting Social Security, but a Democratic message centered on middle class tax cuts and the economy might have proved stronger. In any case, neither side is decisively winning the health care or tax debates among these voters who gave us a Republican landslide. There is plenty of room for these debates to evolve. After the 1994 defeat, President Clinton s standing rose with a rising economy, but also a step back from the congressional battlefield. This is reflected in his response to the Oklahoma City bombing, his battle to defend Medicare, education, and the environment from the Gingrich Republicans, and his reaching agreement with Republicans on key issues. Times are different, but the president has an opportunity to embrace growth, defend his approach to job creation, the deficit, taxes, health care, and reach out to Republicans on a range of other issues. The Republicans may have even less freedom than Speaker Gingrich to engage in each of these areas. 5