Egberto Willies has been warning us of complacency. He is not sold on the “blue wave” coming in November, 2018. In his diary, “Trump’s increasing poll numbers tell an important story. Democrats are you listening?”, he writes this:
The most recent CNN generic ballot poll provides another shocker. In one month, the Democratic advantage went from 16 points to 6 points. The electorate is understandably rudderless. Those consuming mostly or solely mainstream media would get the impression that America is pulling the rug out from under the Republicans, but that is far from the case.
Right now, Ipsos delivered two polls over the last week or so, both which are a bit unnerving.
A poll conducted May 12-16, the results were 38% Republican, 37% Democrat for a difference of Democrats ahead by 1 (fivethirtyeight.com’s weighting calculates this as a +2).
A poll conducted May 17-21, the results were 38% Republican, 38% Democrat for a tie (fivethirtyeight.com’s weighting calculates this as a +1).
The FiveThirtyEight aggregate is here. It has the Democrats ahead by 4.7 points. That’s not enough.
Egberto has been stating (and getting a fair amount of grief from the DKos community) that the next election may not be the “blue tsunami” that we were hoping for last fall. It was last fall after all.
Charlie Cook, the venerable high priest of political forecasting states in his article, “Democrats’ Midterm Margin for Error Is Shrinking”…
Recent generic congressional ballot numbers are still bad for Republicans, but like the president’s approval ratings, not as bad as before. This means that, at least if the election were held today, Democrats would have a strong wind at their backs but hardly the gale-force levels of last fall. As a practical matter, it means that Democrats have less margin for error. Things were going so well for them last fall that it was unlikely that primaries nominating exotic candidates would prevent them from winning a bare 218-seat majority. Now Democrats can ill-afford nominating too many candidates who are badly flawed or too liberal to win a district that has voted Republican in recent years.
Charlie Cook, Cook Political Report
Now, Egberto would vehemently disagree with the part of this article of having candidates that are too liberal, but it’s his opinion and he’s kind of earned the right to be listened to.
Look, I know that kvetching about this might be a bit too early, but I think it is better to be early than late. First, if you look at the Ipsos Polls over the last couple of months, you will find that the Republican number has not reached 40% for quite a while. The Democrats have consistently been over 40% for the past several months. The last two polls are the first in a long time that it fell below that threshold. If you do the math, you also see that another big number is from the undecideds. Now, I haven’t looked at the cross tabs, so there might be less than meets the eye, but I look at this as the canary in the coal mine. As Egberto states in the above article…
Democrats are expecting a blue wave, and there is every reason to believe that there should be one. But it won't happen automatically or solely because of disgust for Trump, or a Republican Party with demonstrably failed policies.
Right now, Trump and the Republicans are attacking the investigation and it seems to be working. It is sowing doubt among the non-Trump electorate about who to choose this November. In one poll by CBS, more American now think that the investigation is politically motivated than not. In response, the Democrats at a news conference and showed a united front...about fighting corruption (i.e. We’re going to make this about Trump).
I think they are misreading the house, pardon the pun.
Look, people don’t like Trump. His numbers are still 10 points underwater, but that is the best that it has been for a long time. These poll numbers indicate something else: The corruption may not matter as much as we think. It probably comes from a combination of Trump hogging the narrative with his non-stop, expulsion of tweets and Mueller’s firm stance on making his investigation as covert as possible. America is now the country most stricken country with the disease of short attention span. Many of us are like Veruca Salt in Charlie’s Chocolate Factory, we want everything now and Trump is the only one scratching that itch.
Do Democrats need to get louder about what Trump is doing to American democracy? Sure. But we, yes we, can all chew gum and walk at the same time. Egberto has a pretty good list of what we all need to concentrate on:
A federally funded healthcare system that provides everyone with insurance Unions should have the same or more influence than they have now. Limits on campaign spending Support for renewable energy and climate change Reproductive rights for women LGBTQ rights Higher minimum wage Legalized marijuana Free childcare A path to citizenship for undocumented immigrantsThis is from his diary, “A Warning to the Democrats. You Cannot Win Like This”.
I would add that we should concentrate on the first one and gun control, especially. One easy way to do it is revisit Obamacare. It was nearly destroyed last year, saved by a single vote from a senator from Arizona who is suffering from brain cancer. We need to show people who are on some form of Obamacare that they will lose all they have gained from the previous administration if they don’t vote Democrats into office in November.
We are seeing this at the local level. Conor Lamb won his very red district in Pennsylvania by concentrating on some of the issues in the list above. Stacey Abrams is going straight for the youth vote with gun control, legalizing marijuana and a host of other populist issues. She not only won, she routed her opponent.
We just need to tell Chuck and Nancy that the Washington game will not work this time around.