How the US mid-terms could kickstart a new era of progressive reform

This article appeared in The Prospect Magazine in their May Print Issue and online.

Get yourself into a totally different mindset when you try to understand this year’s US mid-term elections. Congressional elections are, of course, no rare thing. They happen every two years, and when the White House is not up for grabs, the President can normally expect a bit of a bruising. But this time around, we can look out for something more significant.

November’s vote will almost certainly kick off a new progressive era of reform, much like the cluster of elections, starting with the 1910 mid-terms, which launched America’s first progressive era.

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The Democratic Opportunity On the Economy and Tax Cuts

The midterm election is starting to break against Donald Trump and the Republican Party in profound ways and running on the economy and the new tax cut helps further solidify advantages for Democrats.This is according to a new AFT-Democracy Corpsnational phone poll and deep focus group research on the economy, President Trump, the new tax cuts, and strategies for 2018. Conservatives and pundits are hoping two factors mitigate against the realization of a Democratic wave: one is the strength of the macro-economy and the other is the new tax cut, both of which they believe are producing real benefits for ordinary Americans. Based on our qualitative and quantitative research, AFT and Democracy Corps think that assumption is wrong. But only if Democrats embrace the fact that the economy is not producing for working and middle class people whose wage increases are not keeping up with rising costs, particularly the cost of health care; if they make clear this tax cut is ‘rigged for the rich’ at the expense of everyone else and that the huge cost of the tax cuts means less investment in education, healthcare and infrastructure and imminent cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

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2018 at a breaking point?

Over the last three months, Democrats have doubled their margin in the generic congressional ballot to an 11-point advantage among registered voters and an 8-point lead among likely voters nationally. That is near the 9-point margin Democrats won in 2006 when they flipped 30 congressional seats and retook the majority, though reapportionment makes it harder to cross that threshold today.

Democrats sit at the edge of a wave thanks to the impressive vote gains among their minority base, unmarried women, millennials and women with college degrees. That mirrors the exceptional performance of these groups witnessed in so many special elections in 2017. But the size of the wave depends on the turnout of the Rising American Electorate (minorities, millennials and unmarried women) whose enthusiasm for voting is falling. This new research shows that all voters across the RAE base become more supportive of Democrats and more interested in voting when they hear Democrats make the election about a rejection of trickle-down, target Trump for betraying his promise to end politics as usual, and articulate a disruptive message for change. Democrats can take this election to another level, but only if they prioritize the RAE in this way.

For more from this memo and a presentation describing our findings, click here.

The country hates the GOP Congress: Why don't Democrats have a knock-out lead?

Date:         October 23, 2017

From:         Stan Greenberg and James Carville, Democracy Corps

About 9 months into his presidency, Donald Trump has settled into a historically weak job approval of 41 percent, well below his presidential vote, and with the strong disapproval over 45 percent of voters. He remains an unrepentant divider which pervades all political discourse.

Yet the most hated politicians are the Republicans in Congress, and perhaps they ought to be more of the focus as they are on the ballot in 2018. Mitch McConnell is the least popular congressional leader in Democracy Corps’ polling, followed by Speaker Ryan. Voters know that the Republicans are in charge in Congress and these are the poster children. So why do the Democrats not enjoy a stronger lead in the ballot?

The Democrats are ahead by just 8-points among registered voters, and 5-points among likely 2018 voters in Democracy Corps’ most recent national survey. That is marginally down from the 10-point and 7-point advantages (among registered and likely voters, respectively) Democrats held in our June polling on behalf of WVWVAF. (We will release new findings on behalf of WVWVAF next week.) 

The focus should be more on the GOP Congress, but contributing is the Democratic Party brand, which is unimpressive in this poll. They are viewed more favorably by just net 4-points. There has been no growth in identification with the Democratic Party, as there was in going into 2016.

This dynamic is producing a situation where self-identified Democrats, generic Democratic voters and Hillary Clinton-supporters hold their preferences with great certainty, but they are no more likely to turnout for Democrats in the off-year election, according to this poll.

A remarkable 81 percent of Democrats strongly disapprove of Donald Trump, while just 55 percent of Republicans strongly approve of his job performance. Those voting for the Democrat for Congress are more certain of their choice by 62 to 38 percent, while those voting Republican are split in their certainty (52 very certain to 48 percent somewhat certain).

Yet when it comes to the measures used to gauge interest and intention to vote, Democrats and Republicans are showing equal engagement. That will not produce the landslide election Democrats are hoping to achieve.

Maybe Steve Bannon is right that stoking the flames of identity politics creates an environment where Democrats calling for big economic change don’t get heard. We saw in the polling we recently released with Public Citizen that Donald Trump has high approval marks when it comes to ‘keeping jobs in the US’ (+27) and ‘putting American workers before the interests of big corporations’ (+7). 

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But two things catch our eye in this poll to suggest the election could take shape in very different ways by next year. First, watch the seniors and Baby-Boomers. With acute sensitivity to the impact of health care changes, seniors and Boomers are giving particularly high negative marks to Trump and Republicans. The Democrats even hold a 2-point lead in the generic ballot among seniors, breaking the age pattern that has shaped our recent elections.

Second, in our first poll testing a 2020 presidential contest between Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren, the Senator wins by 12-points (54 to 42 percent). In coming polls, we will test other potential nominees, but that result is some measure of the real structure of the partisan balance.

Methodology: National phone survey of 1,000 registered voters conducted by Democracy Corps and Greenberg Research from September 30 – October 6, 2017. The survey was matched to voter file and 67 percent of respondents were reached by cell phones. Of these registered voters, 667 are “likely voters” in 2018. Greenberg Research maintains its own survey and weighting methods, independent of surveys released by GQRR.