New Polls Point to Trouble for Dems in Midterms

As the healthcare debate rages and we move forward to the midterm elections, new polls suggest that the tactics of the Congress and the White House are negatively impacting Democratic chances in the upcoming election cycle. A Rasmussen poll that tracks support for Congressional candidates in a simulated ballot has shown a surprising trend since the beginning of the year, when Democrats held a six to seven point lead over Republicans. Since February, when the Recovery Act was passed, those numbers have been falling. Now Republicans are favored by forty-two percent to the Democrats thirty-eight percent in midterm congressional races. More alarming for Democrats is the fact that in the same poll independent voters now favor Republican candidates by twenty percent. With fiscal policy a growing concern among voters, it seems that the Republican strategy to align against additional government spending is paying off handsomely.

This dip in Congressional Democratic numbers is also accompanied with a sagging presidential approval rate that is now hovering around the fifty percent mark for the first time according to the Rasmussen poll of likely voters. Given these recent numbers and the continued divisions erupting in the healthcare debate, it seems that his influence in midterm elections may be limited to blue states only. Stumping for candidates may not prove particularly helpful in battleground states and districts where presidential influence has been historically helpful. It should be noted however, that this polarization is just as much a product of the political environment of the past twenty years as much as it is a product of the Obama White House and there is no indication that it would have been much better under a McCain Administration. These are the political times in which we live.