In New Poll, ‘Sobering’ News for Both Parties on Midterm Elections - Pot Could Sway the Vote

[DonViejo]

Eleanor Clift

Battleground pollsters report Democrats and Republicans are ‘universally despised’—but marijuana referendums might boost voter turnout in November.

Countering a wave of speculation that Republicans will make big gains in November, GOP pollster Ed Goeas cautions that the midterm elections still have the potential to be “highly competitive,” an assessment echoed by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who says both political parties are “universally despised” by the voters. “If we do our job right, it could be more of an anti-incumbent year,” rather than an anti-Democratic year, she told reporters as she and Goeas released their latest Battleground poll (PDF) on the state of the two parties as they jockey for position heading into the midterm elections.

President Obama’s weak job-approval rating of 43 percent is a drag on his party, but Democrats hold the advantage over Republicans in key areas related to the middle class and have double-digit leads when it comes to protecting Social Security and Medicare. On the downside, the Democrats’ overriding weakness in turning out their vote in an off-year election is “reminiscent of 2010,” when a smaller, whiter, and older electorate elected a Republican House. The intensity that voters feel is what drives them to the polls, and Democrats typically lag behind Republicans by 10 or 15 points in the midterms. The Battleground poll measures the current intensity gap at 17 points. “Pretty sobering,” Lake said.

To boost turnout for Democrats, Lake advocates a “more muscular approach to the economy” even if Obama can’t get anything through Congress. “You can’t pass it but you can lay it out,” she said. “Republicans would like Obama to be up for reelection, but he’s not; Congress is up for reelection.” A bolder agenda from Obama that puts Congress on the defensive would highlight that distinction. Goeas countered that “Obama’s name is not on the ballot, but his policies are,” and Republicans are framing the fall election as a referendum on Obamacare.

The two pollsters sparred over their analysis of the data they commissioned together, sharing the numbers with reporters over a breakfast Tuesday sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. Goeas said he “almost fell off the chair” when he heard Obama say in a speech last week in Miami that the American electorate agrees with the Democrats on every issue. Republicans are favored in the Battleground poll on the economy, the federal budget and taxes, and voters trust them more on foreign policy, an attribute that bodes well for 2016.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/25/in-new-poll-sobering-news-for-both-parties-on-midterm-elections.html

[seveneyes]

1. The party that brings the pot will win favour

I somewhat understand why the GOP would shy away from pot. Democrats have no excuse to not legalize it.

[Scuba]

2. No excuse.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

3. Progressives see liberty. Conservatives see money. Libertarians see both.

[Eleanors38]

4. Heretofore, the GOP has owned Democrats on pot issue...

Vast quantities of loud-mouthed right-wing GOPers were elected over Democrats with the "soft on drugs" issue; hatred of the "counter culture of the Sixties" was ALL in the Gingrich Revolution of the 1990s. This wave of GOPers riveted the RW into place, marking the effective end to the old "conservative" wing of the Republican.

Times have changed on the pot issue, but the GOPers have proven themselves masters in how to frame issues and bully Democrats, and few Democrats have shown a willingness to get out front on legalization, thinking this is merely a "hot button" culture-war issue. Well, it is. And like an unrecovered football where both sides are standing around when the referees have not blown the whistle, someone will move to capitalize on the issue, and recover the ball. But that could be the libertarian right of the Teapartyers more than the punch-drunk Democrats.

[WillyT]

5. K & R !!!