5/22: From the Primary to the General Election Campaign

Which states will prove to be key battleground states this presidential election season?  What impact could President Barack Obama’s stand on gay marriage have on the contest, and what can we expect during the campaign’s summer months?  The Marist Poll’s John Sparks visits with Marist Poll Analyst and syndicated political columnist Carl Leubsdorf who writes a weekly column for The Dallas Morning News about  this and more.

Listen to the interview below.

Listen to part 1:

John Sparks
Many states, as you know, are solidly Republican or Democrat, but there are others that are considered toss-ups that will probably decide the election. Let’s talk about these so-called battleground states. Which states are we talking about when we refer to battleground states?

Carl Leubsdorf
Okay, let me go from West to East on that and talk a little bit about the battleground states because they sort of come in groups to some extent. For example, there are three states in the Rocky Mountain area — New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado. President Obama carried all three of them last time. They all have heavy Hispanic votes and the Obama campaign is counting on them again. If in fact they do carry those states, and Governor Romney has got problems with his position on immigration and strong anti-immigration law change stand, it would put Obama very close to the 270 he needs, assuming he holds all of the states that he won last time that have been — not only that he won last time, but that John Kerry won and that Al Gore won and that Bill Clinton won. So, those are the first three.

Some would say that Arizona should be added to that group. Of course it was a heavily Republican state last time as the home state of John McCain. The Obama campaign has made some noise as they think it’s competitive. At least one poll showed it’s competitive, and I heard yesterday of a well known Republican said privately to someone I know that named that as a battleground state and threw in Montana in addition. Bill Clinton did carry Montana in one of his elections, but I don’t think anyone thinks that’s… If Montana’s a battleground state, Mitt Romney is in deep doo-doo as they say.

Listen to part 2:

Carl Leubsdorf

The next state as we move from West to East is Iowa. Iowa’s a state that’s bounced back and forth lately. It was carried by Obama last time. There was… the Republicans have quite a bit of hope for Iowa. The campaign they had there for many months beat up on President Obama. A curious thing about Iowa though is that Iowa’s economy is unusually good. Its unemployment rate is much lower than the national average, and of course the question is does that rebound to Obama’s advantage, or can the Republican successfully claim that’s because of their Republican governor? The most recent poll showed Obama up by about nine or ten points in Iowa.

One of the key battleground areas is the, and always is, is the industrial belt that runs from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin. There are three states there that have been solidly Democratic in recent years – Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The Democrats are considered ahead in all three. There’s some question whether the Republicans really can make a dent, but they are talking optimistically about Michigan and possibly Wisconsin.

On the other side, there’s Indiana which has been a pretty safely Republican state. It went from a last time and the first time the Democrats have carried it,  I think, since Lyndon Johnson, but I don’t think anyone thinks that the Democrats are going to carry Indiana this time unless there’s an Obama landside.

And then we have Ohio. Ohio has been an essential part of almost every victorious coalition in recent years. No Republican has ever been elected president without carrying Ohio, and most successful Democrats have carried it also. President Obama did carry it last time. And like Wisconsin and like Michigan elected a Republican governor in 2010; however, that governor, John Kasich, former congressman, isn’t very popular.  Like Scott Walker in Wisconsin, he initiated legislation to curb government employee unions, and there was a referendum on it, and he got beaten. But, Ohio is going to be a battleground. The latest polls show Obama a point or two ahead, but clearly that’s definitely up for grabs.

Listen to part 3:

Carl Leubsdorf

The next area where we have battleground states is in the — sort of the upper South. We’ve got Virginia and North Carolina. Again, President Obama carried both of those, and what was unusual there was that Virginia has been so Republican in recent years that he was the first Democrat to carry it since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Virginia was the only deep South state that Jimmy Carter did not carry in its first election in 1976. Many people think Virginia and maybe Ohio are the battleground states of all battleground states, that if Obama carries either one of them, he’ll probably be re-elected. A couple of recent polls showed Obama up 8 or 9 points in Virginia, which surprised some people because another poll at the same time showed their hotly-contested Senate race between former Senator George Allen the Republican and former Governor Tim Kaine the Democrat to be about even, and most people sort of think that the Senate race and the Presidential race will be within a point or two of each other.

North Carolina is a state that President Obama carried narrowly last time by about 13,000 votes.  It’s where the Democratic convention is being held in Charlotte, but the Democrats have got a lot of problems in that state. Their governor is not popular and is not running for re-election. The Republicans are favorite to win the governorship. There have been some problems in the state Democratic party. The fundraising for the convention hasn’t been going well, and I’m sure we’ll talk about this a little bit later, but the recent referendum to pass a constitutional amendment declaring marriage to be between only one man and one woman indicated that conservative sentiment still runs strong in the state.

The other Southern state that is definitely up for play is Florida. Again, that’s a state that has been a crucial state in every one of the last several elections. It was, of course, the decisive state in 2000 with the famous court battle. The Supreme Court ruled in honor of George W. Bush. President Clinton carried it, I think, one of the two times, and of course Obama carried it last time.  The polling there shows it as a very close race and up for grabs.

And, if I might add one other, it’s another state that Obama carried that has been — gone back and forth some in recent years, and that’s New Hampshire. It’s only four electoral votes, but if Al Gore had carried those four electoral votes in 2000, he would’ve been the president.  The recent poll… It’s another state where the Republicans did extremely well in 2010 electing top-heavy majorities in the legislature and kicking out two Democratic house members, although the Democratic governor was re-elected.

But again, the recent polls, they show Obama with a nine or ten point lead.  So, it looks like, at the moment, if you look at those states, that Obama’s got leads in the three Western states and in Iowa and New Hampshire, and actually if you add those to the states that have been gone Democratic in the last five elections, that would be, I think, narrowly enough for him to be re-elected without any of the big tossup states that he carried last time. So, the electoral map looks like it has its tilt to Obama at this point, but we’re going to see a lot of things happen between now and fall, and then generally some of these big states and the outcome, the national trend is going to affect them. If you look at… If you chart this, and I, in fact have done this, you’ll see that if the national Democratic tickets get 53%, which Obama got last time, a whole bunch of these states will be between 51% and 54%. If Obama gets nationally 49%, a lot of these states are going to be between 47% and 50%. They’ll go with the national trend.

Listen to part 4:

John Sparks
A lot of these early May polls that you refer to were completed before the president came out about gay marriage. I must ask you what effect you think his position will have, and then, also, was this all calculated on his part to get the issue out of the way months earlier?

Carl Leubsdorf
Well, let me answer the second question first. It’s quite clear that the White House planted — have — to get this issue out of the way well before the Democratic Convention, that it is a controversial issue. They know it. I think they felt that Obama had no choice but to take the position he took, and that was always his inclination. I think there was some danger that the people who favor legalizing gay marriage nationally were going to make a big fuss about it at the Democratic Convention, and that was about the last thing that Obama needed to happen there. So, having said that, I don’t think that it came out on the White House’s schedule at all. Usually a White House or a campaign tries to orchestrate these things. Sometimes if it’s controversial, they like to put it out on a Friday night. More likely they like to put out with some background and with some events around it to show how sensible and how middle of the road their positions are. Obama’s announcement was precipitated by Joe Biden’s statement on Meet The Press. He was asked about it, and in typical Biden fashion, said what was on his mind and that, yes, he decided that gay marriage was appropriate, and that created a fire storm of questions the next day at the White House. Was he reflecting Obama? Was he trying to precipitate Obama? As I say, I think it was just Joe Biden probably knowing what Obama’s position was and was going to be, and he was asked a question, and he forgot for a moment that he’s the vice president and he’s not supposed to take the lead on these things, and he just said what was on his mind. The White House was quite angry at him. He apologized to President Obama. I think all of that showed that this wasn’t planned. Now polling shows that the country thinks by like a two-to-one majority this was calculated. I’m not sure about the wording of that question. But it certainly was a political component in the timing. I think as far as the position is concerned, Obama was heading that in direction all along.

Now what’s the effect? The national polling shows that support for gay marriage is probably a little over 50% or in the 50% range. It’s almost about the same as the answer you get when you ask about whether you approve of Obama’s performance in office or not. The problem for the Democrats is that there are areas in the Obama coalition where there will not be support for gay marriage. A lot of African Americans have conservative social values. It’s clear from the reaction of several ministers that not all of them are in support of this. Many of them in fact spoke in the pulpit against it. That said, I think the African American pride and having their first president in Barack Obama is going to override everything when that part of the electorate is concerned.

Another area that may be of greater concern are blue collar workers, white blue collar workers, especially in some of these industrial states we were talking about like Ohio and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Michigan. Again, these are people who have shown to be quite conservative on social issues. Many of them oppose abortion rights, and this may be another handicap in Obama’s effort to get strong support in this important part of the electorate since there were already — it was already back to the primaries in 2008 made quite clear that this was not a part of the electorate that was as enthusiastic about Obama as some of the other parts of his coalition. Again here, the Democratic inclinations, the fact that these governors have sort of gone against — taken anti-union actions and the fact that Obama will make a big thing about having his actions that saved the auto industry and saved many union jobs in these areas might offset the fact that they don’t — they’re not that enthusiastic about Obama, and this didn’t help that.

So, what you see already is you see some Democratic senators in close races. I saw that Claire McCaskill in Missouri and Jon Tester in Montana in conservative generally Republican states are sort of separating themselves from the decision saying that they don’t agree with that. So, how much of a decisive issue it’s really hard to tell. The strongest feelings on the issue are from members of both sides, pro-Republican pro Democratic, who are going to vote for their candidate no matter what. The people who are most in favor of gay marriage are very enthusiastic Democrats. The lesbian/gay community is very enthusiastic for Obama and has raised a lot of money for him, and the religious conservatives who are very opposed to gay marriage, they dominate the Republican party are already going to be Romney voters. While there’s been some lack of enthusiasm early on among religious conservatives about Romney, the fact that they want Obama out of office was always going to override some of these concerns when it came to the general election.

Listen to part 5:

John Sparks
Well, we’ve heard that it’s the economy, stupid, and more specifically jobs. Doesn’t it get down to that again? And if that’s the case, there’s some that would tell you that Obama has not exactly improved the economy over the Bush administration’s watch. What do you think about that? What do you think about the economy right now, the job situation, and how Obama is going to fare?

Carl Leubsdorf
Well, that’s of course the big question, and I do think that as many others who the economy in the end is going to be the decisive issue. Do people think it’s getting better, and do they have a positive outlook for the future, or do they think Obama has failed to deal with it?  And of course, the answer is mixed. Unemployment which got up as high as 10%, is now back down 8.1%, and it certainly would be great for Obama’s chances if one month before the election it got down to 7.9 and 7.8. It’s interesting because the trajectory has followed pretty much what happened under President Reagan where he had a very severe recession in the first two years of his administration. Unemployment went up, and then he had a recovery, and it was down to I think 7.4% by the time of the election. It won’t be down that low. If it were down that low, Obama would be in great shape, but it has been trending there. There was a USA Today Gallup Poll this week in which it showed increased optimism among the public about the economic future. All of that is good for Obama.

Now, what are the facts of the job situation? The facts are that in the first year of the Obama administration, the economy lost, I think, about 4 million jobs. Now, but that was certainly the recession had hit under Bush. The public attitude for the most part has continued to be that the Bush administration’s policies were more responsible for the economy than Obama who came in in the middle of it, and it took awhile for Obama’s policies, the stimulus bill and others, to have an impact on the economy. The Republicans have said for three years that it was a failure, but the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said it saved about 3 million jobs and that without it unemployment might’ve been up to the 11.5% level. But you know, the key thing on the economy is the trend. If it’s getting better, that’s good for Obama. If it’s getting worse, it’s bad for Obama. The likelihood is for a very continuation of this very slow recovery, and jobs are always the last thing to come back, so it could make all the difference in the world if unemployment is 8.3 or if it’s 7.9. And one thing that’s especially tricky here is that the October unemployment figures will come out on the Friday three days before the election. In a close race, that could really be decisive because a lot of voters wait until the final weekend to make up their decision. I mean, the Republicans are going to be 90-95% for Romney, and the Democrats are going to be 90-95% for Obama. We got the independents in the middle. We got among them a lot of moderates and suburbs, especially women, and some of these people will be undecided and may be tipped by the way the unemployment figures are.

Listen to part 6:

John Sparks
Let’s go back to something you referred to a moment ago, and that was about the president being put out with Biden on the Meet The Press statement about gay marriage.  Any chance that Obama would dump Biden?

Carl Leubsdorf
No.  No.  You know, we hear this every four years the president’s going to dump whoever it is, going replace him and do it. It hardly ever happens. It would be a total mess if it happens, and it is not going happen. The bumper stickers and the posters and all the campaign material has Biden’s name on it, as he likes to point out. So no, Obama will be and Biden will be together in this election.

John Sparks
What about Romney’s pick for a Veep, any thoughts on that – Chris Christie, and could that pick be enough to turn his fortunes around?

Carl Leubsdorf
That’s a little bit tricky. It’s always a little bit tricky for the out-of-party candidate to pick a vice president. Interesting, in recent years, the winning tickets have had in most recent elections, the presidential candidate has picked someone who could help him govern the country. So Clinton, the outsider, picked Al Gore, and George W. Bush picked Dick Cheney, and Obama picked veteran Senator Biden. Other choices have been reflected that have not worked as well, and most notably the McCain choice four years ago of Sarah Palin. I think the Sarah Palin choice has a real influence on what Romney’s going to do. The last thing he wants is a relatively unknown, relatively untested, relatively unvetted publicly candidate. So, while there’s talk of people like Susana Martinez, the Governor of New Mexico, a Hispanic woman, and there’s talk about, and Marco Rubio, the Cuban-American senator from Florida, the general feeling is that in the end Romney’s going to make a very safe choice who might, at best, help him in one of the key states. Vice president’s don’t have much effect on the outcome. I mean polling and studies have shown that for a long time, but they sometimes help a point or two in their home state. For example, if Al Gore in 2000 had picked Bob Graham, the senator from Florida, instead of Joe Lieberman, he probably would’ve carried Florida since he only lost it by 527 votes and would’ve won, and there’s several candidates who sort of fit that pattern. One is Rob Portman of Ohio. Rob Portman was in Congress. He was the budget director and the trade rep under President Bush and is now senator from Ohio, very well regarded, considered a moderate conservative, knowledgeable about budget issues, someone who could really help a president Romney deal with some of the issues he’s going to deal with.

Someone with a similar background who fits that is Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana. He was the budget direct also under Bush. He was the first budget director under Bush, then went back home and got elected governor of Indiana. A lot of Republicans wanted him to run for president. He’s highly regarded as an able — been an able governor. He has strong positions on social issues, which Republicans like, but he didn’t run for president because his family was against it, and there’s been no indication that his family thinks that running for vice president is okay. The good thing about it, of course, is that it’s a much shorter campaign period, but the bad thing is they’ll get all the scrutiny and all the press intrusion that political people hate.

A third one is Congressman Ryan from Wisconsin, an up and coming member of the House, the architect of the House Republican budgets, another person who could help possibly in Washington as well as in Wisconsin.

And although I mentioned that Marco Rubio is something more of a gamble, he certainly would help if they wanted to get a candidate from Florida.

Now, there are other people mentioned. You mentioned Chris Christie. There is some polling that shows that he wouldn’t help Romney carry New Jersey which has been a safe Republican, safe Democratic state in recent years. I have doubts that that is going to happen. Christie is a very boisterous, outspoken, energetic guy who likes to be in charge of things, and he does not strike me as the vice presidential type, and he strikes me as someone that would drive a president crazy. That’s something… personal capability is really important in this. When the elder George Bush was picking his vice president in 1988, there was a lot of talk about Jack Kemp who had run for president and would’ve balanced to Bush very well with the conservative wing of the Republican Party, and Bush basically said that he couldn’t stand being around Kemp, and he didn’t want him around for four years and picked Dan Quayle with whom he had a much more simpatico relationship. So, that does come into play. Most people in Washington, I think, think Portman is the front-runner at this point, but people who have tried to pick vice presidential candidates, that’s sort of tough to do.

Listen to part 7:

John Sparks
Now a few weeks ago in The New York Times, I believe it was David Brooks was floating Michael Bloomberg as a third party candidate. There’s really no possibility at this late hour for a third party candidate is there?

Carl Leubsdorf
No.  Michael Bloomberg has had ample opportunity to talk about this. There have been reports that he in fact has studied the matter and decided against it. There’s been an interesting sort of side thing to the whole presidential race. A group called Americans Elect, which was financed by a wealthy financier and attracted some interesting people from both parties, for example, Christie Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey; the former press secretary to Deval Patrick, who’s an African American Democrat in Massachusetts; Mark McKinnon who has worked for Texans on both parties and worked for George W. Bush and for John McCain and a bunch of other people, and they came up with this elaborate plan to get a place on all 50 ballots and then have an online primary to pick a presidential candidate. The theory was that there were all sorts of well-known people out there who might be willing to run on the third party. Well guess what, there aren’t that many. To do a third party campaign, you need someone of the stature of a Michael Bloomberg or a Ross Perot or someone like that, and this group who are just called Americans Elect has now had to sort of cancel its primary because they didn’t — none of the candidates got enough support by their ground rules, so they’re going to have to change the ground rules.

The leading candidate among those who said they were willing to do it was Buddy Roemer, the former governor of Louisiana who was an early casualty of the Republican race. There are also a bunch of people who got support who said they were not willing to run. The one who got the most support was Ron Paul who, of course, ran in the Republican race and is widely believed to be laying the groundwork for his son Rand Paul, the senator from Kentucky, to run in a future race, so he’s not interested in a third party. And the thing about third parties is they always get a lot of attention because they have potential for upsetting the apple cart, but in the end they hardly ever have an effect. The most famous third party effort in American history was probably when Theodore Roosevelt split with the man he had selected to succeed him, President William Howard Taft, and ran as the Progressive candidate in 1912. He took away so much support from the Republicans, in fact finished second in that race, that the Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected. That is one of the few times there has been an effect. Now I mentioned before that New Hampshire was a state that if Al Gore had carried it in 2000, he would’ve been elected. Well, Ralph Nader running on the Green ticket got far more votes than the gap between Gore and Bush in New Hampshire, and also the same thing happened in Florida, so in a way you could say that Ralph Nader prevented Gore’s election and elected George W. Bush, but the others haven’t had an effect.

And one — just one more thing that if a third party ever caught on to the extent that it had an effect on the campaign, it had enough support to get into the national televised debates, and the requirement there is an average of 15% in a series of in the major polling organizations, I don’t think they’d ever win an election, but they might win several states. And, of course, if in a close election, which this one could be, if a third party candidate won two or three states, they could prevent either candidate from getting the 270 electoral votes you need and throw the election into the House. In the House, each state has one vote. and if the current House were to pick a president, the Republican would win. I think the Republicans control 30 state delegations and the Democrats 17. But there’s — at the moment, there’s no sign of any significant third party candidate. If the Americans Elect actually has a candidate, it’s going to be either someone like Buddy Roemer or David Walker. David Walker was the comptroller general. He’s been a big deficit hawk. He’s sort of… There are people interested in putting him on that ticket. But almost certainly it’s not going to have any effect.

Listen to part 8:

John Sparks

Carl, anything we should look for as we begin the summer phase of the campaign?

Carl Leubsdorf

I mentioned a bunch of — a group of the state polls and what’s happening there, and, of course, the election really takes place in the states. There will be a lot of attention on the national polls, and those seem to be running that Obama has a slight advantage over Romney, but that’s good for Obama, but his total in these polls is mostly in the 46-48% range which matches his job approval, and that’s no accident. That usually happens. Now the fact is with 46-48% now for Obama, the chances are that most of the undecided voters are not going to be for Obama. I mean, they know him well, and most people have made up their minds about him. So that’s a dangerous sign for any incumbent running in the 40’s and not up to 50 because of the fact that we will have only minor third party candidates; and I should mention the Libertarians nominated a ticket headed by Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico who also ran briefly for the Republican nomination. Now that he could get appointed to in New Mexico and that might affect the outcome there. But anyway, in the third party candidates, there’ll be a bunch of them. They’ll get 1-1.5% of the vote in the end, and so the winning candidates, you can probably, if you get to 49%, you probably can win the election assuming it’s in the right places. But at the moment, Obama does not have that support, but, of course, neither does Romney, and… But in the end, the national polls are a less significant indicator than all these state polls.

10/28: The Ramifications of the Midterm Elections

Will the GOP retake the House? Will the Senate be gridlocked? And, what are the lasting effects of Tuesday’s midterm elections? The Marist Poll’s John Sparks speaks with Marist Poll Analyst and syndicated political columnist Carl Leubsdorf who writes a weekly column for The Dallas Morning News.

Listen to the interview or read the transcript below.

John Sparks
Carl, we’re right on top of the midterm elections. I read an estimate that said in the House, about 168 seats are solidly Republican, 155 solidly Democrat, about 112 seats in play.  Do you think that the Republicans have a chance to retake the House?

Listen to Part 1 of the Interview:

Carl Leubsdorf
Oh, I think most people think that the Republicans are going to retake the House, and the only real question is by how much they take it.  All signs are, and I’ve been just looking at a lot of polls of House Democratic incumbents, and there’s so many districts in which the Democratic incumbents are polling in the low 40’s, some that are ahead by a couple of points, some that are behind by a couple of points.  An an incumbent who’s in his low 40’s at this time, two weeks out from the election, is in very deep trouble, and undecided vote is unlikely to go with the incumbent. So if the national polling on intent and Congressional elections is anywhere close to correct and you’re seeing those have anywhere from a five to a 10-point Republican lead, the Republicans are going to gain between 50 and 60 seats, and they need to get 39 to take the House.

John Sparks
You know, we’ve both seen polls that indicate that voters are angry. They say, “Throw the bums out regardless of the party.”  They want change which is kind of ironic since President Obama campaigned on change just two short years ago. But, do you really think that incumbents are in trouble?

Carl Leubsdorf
Oh yeah, I think they are, but they’re mostly Democratic incumbents who are in trouble.  One reason for that is there are many more Democrats who represent swing districts. As a result of the 2006 and the 2008 elections, the Republican representation in the House was reduced substantially, and most of those districts are pretty safe Republican districts, but, for example, you have 48 or 49 Democrats who represent House districts that John McCain carried in the presidential election. That kind of a district can go either way and has in different years, so the Democrats have to defend an awful lot plus, they’ve been running the government for the last two years, so they’re the — any anti-incumbent wave is going to strike them and inordinately high.

John Sparks
Do you think that we could wake up on November 3rd to see a repeat of say, what we saw in 1994 with the Contract with America when the Republicans won in droves?

Carl Leubsdorf
Well, the Republican… The difference between this and 1994 is that in 1994 most of us thought that the Republicans would win the Senate, which they did, and we had that pretty much pegged because there were so many open Democratic seats in the Senate. But in the House, most of us were quite surprised by the Republican landslide in the House.  It broke very late.  A lot of Democrats were quite unprepared for what happened. There’s no surprise this time.  For the last year or more than a year, some analysts have been saying that the Democratic hold on the House is in trouble, that many Democratic freshmen and sophomores in districts that are not particularly Democratic would have a tough time. So, we won’t be surprised at all. I mean, we’ll be surprised by two things.  We’ll be surprised if the Democrats keep the House, and we’ll surprised — be surprised if the Republicans win a majority, win 70 or 80 Democratic seats as opposed to more like 50.

John Sparks
Let’s take a look over at the Senate side of things. What do you think is going to happen?

Listen to Part 2:

Carl Leubsdorf
Well, that’s interesting because it looks at this point like the Democrats have a pretty good shot of holding the Senate.  Now some analysts have pointed out that there has been no election in modern time where the House has switched parties where the Senate has not switched parties, and yet it looks at this point like the Republicans are likely to fall a seat or two short in the Senate.  Not only that, but a couple of races where the Republicans have had fairly comfortable leads, the polling shows they’ve tightened up a lot.  For example, in Pennsylvania where Arlen Specter, the incumbent, was beaten in the Democratic primary by Joe Sestak, a congressman.  Ever since then, the polls have showed that Pat Toomey, the conservative Republican challenger, has been ahead of Sestak by anywhere from 7 to 10 points.  In the last two or three days, we’ve had a couple of polls showing Sestak pulling ahead by 3 points.  In the primary, he came on very late, and it’s always possible that that will happen here again, and what makes the polls somewhat credible is they continue to show a comfortable Republican lead in the governor’s race there. So we’ve seen that there.  We even saw a poll in Wisconsin where, I think, most many Democrats gave Senator Russ Feingold up for as a loser this year, that someone came out with a poll this week that showed him a couple of points ahead. So, we’ve got half a dozen at least very close Senate races, and there is some history that in a wave election where there’s a big swing to one party, all of those close races go one direction, and that’s certainly possible that at the end all these close Senate races will go Republican along with the House, and the Republicans will win the Senate. One other thing about the Senate, whichever party wins the numerical majority in the Senate, whether it’s 50/51/52 seats, it’s going to be a very small majority, and given the fact that the Senate has decided you need 60 votes to do almost anything, the Senate is certainly headed for gridlock city.

John Sparks
Carl, you know we’ve been talking about the immediate election, but there are some down ballot races, state results that are going to have an impact on the makeup of the Congress, and I talk about redistricting.

Listen to Part 3:

Carl Leubsdorf
I think there is a real danger for the Democrats of what I call a double whammy in this election that not only will they lose the House and possibly the Senate, but certainly a lot of their Senate seats, but that what’s happened in some of those down ballot races, especially legislative and gubernatorial races, will set the Democrats up for another defeat in two years, and let me explain what I mean.

As you know, every 10 years, legislative and congressional seats are –  the boundaries are redrawn according to population changes. Some states gain Congressional seats, some lose Congressional seats, and in other cases, the population is shifted within the state, so the boundaries get redrawn.  And, it looks like that because this is going to be such a Republican election, and that’s going to carry through into state legislative races, that the Republicans will have a real advantage in redrawing the district lines. For example, in Texas, which will probably gain four seats, and Florida, which will be probably gain two seats, the Republicans will probably control the legislature in both.  Probably win the governorship in Texas. Florida is closer. They might not win there. But a couple of Northern states like Michigan and Ohio, which are losing seats in Congress, the Republicans are doing well there, too.  So, if they redraw the lines in these states to favor the Republicans, it could make it that much harder for the Democrats to rebound in two years, even if the economy improves and President Obama gets re-elected. There’s another factor in this.  The Senate seats, of course, come up every six years, and the Senate seats that are going to be up for election in 2012 are the ones that were elected in 2006.  Well, 2006 was a big Democratic year so as a result of the 33 Senate seats up next time, only 10 are Republican seats, and most of them are pretty safe.  So this is why Republican leaders are talking about, even if they don’t win the Senate this time, they think they can win it next time.  And, if it’ll rebound, then the House would be very difficult for the Democrats.  So, they may be in the minority for more than two years here.

John Sparks
You know, the president and first lady are traveling now stumping on behalf of Democratic candidates.  Former President Clinton has been out on the campaign trail too I understand.  What will it be like for the president and the — his administration with Republican control of the Congress?  What can we look for in the way of running the government for the next two years?

Listen to Part 4:

Carl Leubsdorf
Of course, the president will continue to run the government in terms of the executive branch, and it’s going to be very difficult for the Republicans, even if they win the House and even if they get a small majority in the Senate to be able to follow through on some of their promises to basically stop what Obama has done and, for example, repeal and replace major parts of the health reform bill.  The president will still have the veto.  He certainly will be using it, and that requires a two-thirds vote in either — in both houses to override him, and that will be very difficult. For example, if the Republicans try to deny funding to carry out the health bill when the appropriation bill is up for the Department of Health and Human Services, the result of that will be that it’ll be very hard to pass an appropriations bill for those departments. Even if they get it through both houses, again, the President will be in a position to block it, so I think there’s going to be a lot of — they’re going to be at each other’s throats a lot, and unless they can find some areas to do some cooperating, you’re not going to see much of that. Now, the other thing that will happen with a Republican Congress and especially Republican House is, we’ve seen this before, that when the other branch has the control of the Congress, they have control of the committees, and they can conduct investigations. And Darrell Issa of California, Republican congressman who’s due to the head the committee that the government — used to call it Government Operations Committee, has already said that he’s going to hire a lot of FBI agents, and he’s going to conduct a whole series of investigations of the way the Obama administration has done its business. So, the administration, if that happens, can expect to have its top officials spending a lot of time testifying on Capitol Hill as the Republicans try to poke holes in its record in advance of the presidential election.  So, the administration will have to do the best it can with this. It’s not a unique situation obviously. President Clinton faced it after the 1994 election. He really stood tough on budget issues, but — and in the end forced a confrontation which rebounded in his favor.  So, I think we’re in for a lot of acrimony and not much cooperation.

John Sparks
When I think back about a Democratic president losing popularity, I think back to Jimmy Carter and the scenario that we were in prior to the election of 1980 where we had a Democratic president who was slipping, who was hurt.  He was stymied by the Iran hostage crisis, but at that time the Republicans had Ronald Reagan who came in waiting in the wings and took the election of 1980.  When I think about our present times, I see Obama losing the confidence of the American people, but I see the Republican Party this time in much of a disarray. Would you agree?

Listen to Part 5:

Carl Leubsdorf
Well, I think two things to that.  First is for all the talk about how badly Obama’s doing and all of his problems, his job approval isn’t that bad. There was a new poll today, I think he was — his job approval was 47%. It’s never gone below the low 40’s, and it sort of stabilized in the mid to upper 40’s, so it’s not like he’s in the high 20’s, which is where former President Bush ended up, and Carter ended up pretty low too at the end.  So that’s one thing. He’s not as unpopular as people think, and the electorate and presidential elections is very different from Congressional elections.  Young people vote more. Minorities vote more, and things that help the — those help the Democrats.

As for the disarray in the Republican Party, the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, and I mean that’s really what it is, it’s the right side of the Republican Party, is really feeling its oats after having won a bunch of primary fights with establishment Republicans.  Now, ironically some of those primary fights may be the reason that the Republicans don’t win the Senate, that there are a couple of Senate seats that they probably would’ve won with the establishment candidates and might not win with the Tea Party candidates.  But in any case, it’s clear that the Tea Party group has a lot of support in the Republican rank and file, and you can see a really bitter fight developing for the Republican presidential nomination in which one or another or several candidates backed by various Tea Party groups and bowing to really shake up the Republican Party take on the more established wing.  For example, if former Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska runs against — as a Tea Party candidate against Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts, who’s more of the establishment type, you can see a really divisive primary fight and possibly the nomination of someone who’s not electable. I mean, we’ve seen that before. The Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater in 1964.  He was not electable and lost to President Johnson. The Democrats nominated George McGovern in 1972. He was not electable.  In both cases, they would more acted the swing of the party forced the nomination on the establishment wing, and they took a licking in the election.  So, so much is going to depend on the economy and how things go in the next couple of years.  If unemployment is still near 10% in the spring of 2012, President Obama is going to be in trouble no matter who the opponent is, but if unemployment drops to say the 8% level, which these days would look pretty good, and put people in much more optimistic about the trend, it’s going to be much harder for the Republicans.  Elected presidents tend to get re-elected in this country.  Jimmy Carter did not, and he was — that was an unusual situation.  He had regained the White House for his party in  the 1976 election and lost four years later. The other incumbents who’ve been beaten were President Bush who was beaten in 1992, but that was the third Republican term after the two Reagan terms, and same thing is true many years ago President Hoover in 1932.  So someone who brought his party back in to then lose in four years, that would be unusual, but of course, nothing’s impossible in politics.

John Sparks
Carl, the mention of acrimony a moment ago certainly resonated with me. I am very concerned about that. It seems like to me that the bitterness has been responsible for the lack of productivity on the Hilltop, and now we see polls where voters are angry…throw the bums out… what in the world would it take to get folks on both sides of the aisle to work together, to have logrolling, to do deals, to live to fight another day?

Listen to Part 6:

Carl Leubsdorf
Well, you know logrolling has been made a dirty word, too. It’s one of the problems.  We used to say, and that it would be good if the parties, if the all liberals were on one side and all the conservatives were on the other side.  I’ve just been reading a book about the 1938 Congressional election where President Roosevelt tried to defeat several conservative senators in the Democratic Party so that the Democratic Party would more reflect his liberal progressive point of view.  And what’s happened is that with one party — instead of two parties that are coalitions where there’s sort of a natural effort in the middle to work together, we have one on one side and one on the other, and it’s not only personal acrimony, they — there’re two things. They act… They really disagree with each other on the approaches. You see that in this debate about taxes where the Democrats want to increase the taxes on those over a certain income level, and the Republicans don’t. You see it on the role of the government in the stimulus bill that has become such a controversial issue. That was one of the first things that passed after President Obama came in. By all independent analyses, the stimulus bill really saved the economy from going off the cliff even worse than it was. It saved about 3 million jobs, and it got some things going that really were helpful to the economy. But, all you hear from the opponents of Obama and most of the Republicans saying that they wasted $800 billion. Well, no… independent analysts don’t think it was wasted.  The bank bailout, the bank bailouts have had a terrible press, but the fact is that they stabilized the banking system.  So, it seems like as soon as one side gets in, the other side is determined to prove what a bunch of failures there are.  You would’ve thought with a big economic crisis two years ago and Obama having won by a fairly considerable majority, that there was a basis for the parties cooperating more, but that didn’t happen, and I’m not sure now what it would take to have that happen.

John Sparks
Anything you’d like to add before we call it a day?

Listen to Part 7:

Carl Leubsdorf
No, I mean I think one thing that’ll happen of course is there always are some surprises on Election Day.  Some people we thought we were going to lose are going to win. Some people who were going to win going to lose.  But, I think everyone in the political world would be shocked if, for example, the Democrats retained control of the House of Representatives, or something like that happened or if some of the candidates on the Republican side, like you know, some of the more conservative candidates if they won, but some of them probably are going to win, and it’s going to be interesting to see how the Republicans deal with that. But, there will be some surprises. Something will happen that we didn’t expect.  But, with — modern polling has gotten very sophisticated. There’s an awful lot of it being done. There is a lot of comparing of apples and oranges in different polls, but the polls this time are so consistent and so uniform both on the district and state level and on national level, that it’s hard to see the major result of the election being a surprise.

9/22: Inside the Midterm Elections

On November 2nd, American voters will go to the polls and decide who will win the 2010 midterm elections.  Republicans believe they have a chance to regain a majority in the Senate and recapture a number of seats in the House.  But, will Tea Party candidates hurt Republican chances to re-take the Senate?  What are the chances Tea Party candidates will prevail on Election Day? What does all of this say about how voters feel about the job President Obama and the Democrats are doing?  The Marist Poll’s John Sparks talks with syndicated political columnist Carl Leubsdorf who writes a weekly column for the Dallas Morning News.

Listen to the interview or read the transcript from the interview below.

Listen to Part 1:

John Sparks
Carl, we’re on the eve of the midterm elections.  Now, Republicans had hoped to win back the Senate.  But since the primaries began last spring in some states, the Tea Party has defeated an establishment backed GOP contender I think eight times.  What are we seeing here?

Carl Leubsdorf
Well, I think we’re seeing sort of a division in the Republican Party whereas a faction of the Republican Party, reacting in part to the current economic situation and the Obama presidency, but also reacting to some degree to the Bush administration and what they felt was overspending and lack of fiscal discipline during that administration is basically calling forward sort of a return to basic Republican principles, and they’re taking on some of the establishment figures in the Republican Party who they blame for some of the problems.  Actually, the people who are being taken down in some of these fights, some of them had nothing to do with it, but that’s really about it, and they’re trying to create a more aggressively conservative Republican Party, especially on economic issues.

John Sparks
We’re going to talk a little bit more about that in a minute, but I want to ask you next what sort of chance do you think these Tea Party nominees have against the Democrats in the general election?

Carl Leubsdorf
Well it depends on — entirely on the state.  For example, in Utah where one of the Tea Party people took on Senator Bennett, a veteran conservative Republican, beat him in the party convention, Utah’s so Republican that they’re going to elect a Republican Senator.  The same thing in Alaska where Joe Miller ousted Senator Lisa Murkowski, a more moderate Republican, in the primary. If it’s a two-way race between Joe Miller, the Republican, and the Democratic candidate, the Republicans will win because Alaska is a pretty conservative state.  However, in Delaware, which had its primary on Tuesday, this is a Democratic leading state these days. It used to be much more evenly divided, and even the Republicans say that their candidate is so conservative and her credentials, so questionable that by beating — they beat the one Republican, Congressman Mike Castle, who was — had an excellent chance to win that race.  He might’ve even had a chance if the Democrats had nominated Vice President Biden’s son, who’s the state attorney general.  So, with him — Castle out of the race and Tea Party candidate Republican in, even the Republicans think they can’t win it.  So, it really depends on state-by-state.

John Sparks
I read a short time ago that the Republican Party said that they would be backing Christine O’Donnell, but do you think they really will?  Will she get the backing of the Republicans?  Will she…

Carl Leubsdorf
She’ll get the official backing, and their policy — this is John Cornyn, the Texas Senator who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee.  Their policy is to back the party nominee, and they’ll do that. However, as someone pointed out today, in order to run a competitive race in Delaware, you have to buy television time in Philadelphia which covers a good deal of the state, and that’s an expensive media market, and I can’t see the Republican Senate Committee spending a lot of money in Philadelphia on that race.  So, yes, they’re backing them, but they’ll have their priorities, and that’s not going to be one of them.

John Sparks
Do you see Republicans burying the hatchet within their own ranks and unifying in order to be viable against Democrats?

Carl Leubsdorf
I think at some places they are and some places they’re not.  For example, in Kentucky where Rand Paul, the son of Congressman Ron Paul, defeated the establishment candidate to win the Senate nomination, Mitch McConnell, the other Senator from Kentucky, who’s the Senate Republican leader, has made peace with Paul even though he backed Trey Grayson, his opponent, because he figures there’s a good chance Paul’s going to be the other Senator from Kentucky, and he wants to bring him inside the tent. But, Mike Castle in Delaware isn’t going to do anything for the woman who beat him, and you could easily… It’s a fascinating situation because you could have a situation in the Senate… the Republicans are all saying, “After the Delaware race, our chances of winning the Senate are diminished,” and that’s always been a threat.  Since Rand Paul won his race, that has been a threat, and since Sharron Angle in Nevada won the nomination against Harry Reid, that the Republicans would fall short in the Senate because of a couple of these people who would be too conservative, too right wing to be elected.  However, if the Republicans do win the Senate, and it’s certainly still possible, you could have a situation where they have a very minimal majority, 51 to 49, and that that majority is going to depend on a couple of these Tea Party people, so that could be a fascinating situation. The fact is that whichever party wins the Senate next year with 51/52 seats, because it takes 60 votes to get so much done in the Senate, neither party’s going to have a working majority in the Senate.  But, I think some of the Tea Party people having succeeded in party primaries this year, they think this is just the beginning.

Listen to Part 2:

John Sparks
Carl, we typically think of the midterms as a time when the party out of power historically makes gains against the party in power.  And, with this emergence of these Tea Party primary victories, and we’re seeing what appears to be in some sense sort of a civil war within the ranks of the Republicans, how do you think all of this is reflecting on the Obama administration?

Carl Leubsdorf
Well, the problem it poses directly for the Obama administration is it’s created quite a bit of enthusiasm in the Republican Party, and so the turnout for the Republicans in their primaries this year has on the whole been greater than that for Democrats.  That is sometimes an indicator of what will happen.  The converse of it is that you have a situation in the Democratic Party where there’s some disappointment in the Democratic Party that Obama hasn’t done more.  Now, he’s passed a lot of his major initiatives, but you’ve got liberals who wanted single payer in the health bill and didn’t get it, and then you got some conservative Democrats who don’t like the health bill at all. Democratic turnout seems likely to be down.  Turnout is a big factor in midterm elections. Not as many people vote in them as vote in presidential elections, and the Democrats were helped in ’06 in the Congressional election, ’08 in the Presidential election by a big increase in turnout, especially minorities and young voters. If those folks don’t turn out this year, the electorate will be older, whiter, more conservative, and that’s going to help the Republicans.  So, the enthusiasm in the Republican Party of the Tea Party people is certainly going to help them some at least in this midterm election.

John Sparks
You know, it’s interesting that President Obama based his campaign on change and now it’s the Tea Party members within the ranks of the Republicans who are calling for change within the ranks of the Republican Party.  Has change become everyone’s mantra these days?

Carl Leubsdorf
Oh, it’s always been. I’m old enough to remember when Dwight Eisenhower ran for president after 20 years of Democratic White House control, and the motto of the campaign was “It’s time for a change.”  ,And, John Kennedy was going to get American moving again.  The out party always talks about change.  Now, of course, some of the change that the Tea Party folks and that some of the Republicans want, the Democrats will tell you this isn’t very much change because they’re talking about a policy on taxes, which — extending all the Bush tax cuts, which is basically what was done during the Bush years.  They’re talking about cutting domestic spending. They tried that in the Reagan years. They talked about that when the Republicans won Congress in 1994.  So, how much of a change this is, it’s a changeover of Bush policy where the second President Bush certainly spent an awful lot and had big deficits, but change is in the eye of the beholder I guess like beauty.

Listen to Part 3:

John Sparks
Let’s talk about New York for a minute.  Rick Lazio lost out in his bid to be the Republican nominee for governor.  What chances does Carl Paladino have in New York?

Carl Leubsdorf
Well, I think he had about as much chance as Rick Lazio would’ve had, which isn’t very much.  You know, what’s happened in New York, and in some degree it happened in Delaware too, is that the old moderate Republican faction in New York represented by Governor Rockefeller, Senator Jacob Javits, a lot of those folks aren’t Republicans any more.  They’re either independents or Democrats.  And, as the Republican… and the same thing is true in Delaware.  As the Republican Party has gotten smaller, the conservatives are the ones who are left, and they can control primaries, but they can’t win statewide elections. Someone predicted today that the main difference of Paladino winning the Republican nomination because Rick Lazio will already be on the ticket as the Conservative Party nominee, is that Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic candidate for governor, instead of winning 70 to 30 over one of them will win 70 to 15 to 15 over the two of them.  This is a real long shot for the Republicans.  The Republican Party in New York is in terrible shape. They have a terrible time electing statewide candidates. They’re down to like two or three House members in the whole delegation. Although, the chances are they’re going to pick up a couple of those this year.

John Sparks
Carl, we’ve certainly seen polarization between Democrats and Republicans, and now it appears that we’re seeing certainly polarization more so within their respective parties.  What effect is this having on our government being able to operate?

Carl Leubsdorf
Well, I remember 20-30 years ago when everyone said it was ridiculous to have two parties that were coalitions and wouldn’t it be better if one party was the conservative party and one party was the liberal party?  Well, as it turns out, that’s not better.  It’s worse. It’s created this polarized situation. When both parties were coalitions, there was much more room for compromise between them, but compromise in Washington has become a dirty word.  A Republican who works with the Democrats gets in trouble.  Take the case of Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, certainly a good card carrying Republican on all issues, except he’s worked with the Democrats on environmental issues a little bit, and he supported the Democratic Supreme Court nominees as qualified, and his — a couple of his own committees in South Carolina passed resolutions saying that he wasn’t a good Republican.  There was an interesting poll taken at Allegheny College some months ago, and one of the questions was:  Do you think it’s better for politicians to try to compromise the other side or to stand up for their principles?  And, most Republicans said they ought to stand up for their principles, and more Democrats said it’s better to compromise with the other side.  That in a nutshell is what we see happening.

Listen to Part 4:

John Sparks
Carl, we’re a couple of journalists. We’ve been talking horse race. There’s a lot of criticism about concentrating on the horse race. Is it an inescapable trap that we’ve fallen into in covering elections since the technology has changed the way that elections are covered?

Carl Leubsdorf
Well, elections are about who’s going to win after all, and one of the questions in this election as in many is: What will happen if the side that’s out — because what will happen in policy depending on how the outcome was?  Now, Barack Obama when he campaigned for president promised he would have a more aggressive government in fighting economic issues.  He said he would try to pass national health reform. He said he would try to work on climate control, and that’s what he’s done as president with some success; although, the true success of it if it proves to be successful will be long-term which is one of his problems.  The Republicans haven’t quite said in this election what they would do if they got in. They’re concentrating on saying “no” to the Democrats at this stage.  But, the policy implications of this election, there are always policy implications in any election.  I think most of us expect a pretty gridlock situation in Washington no matter how this election comes out. You got a Democrat in the White House. He’s not going anywhere.  You have a fairly good chance the Republicans will win the House, and you got a good chance that the Senate won’t be able to act one way or the other whichever party gets control. That’s a prescription for gridlock.  And, a lot of the issues that are out there, like taxes and some of the pending issues, are going to be — not much is going to be done about them until after the next presidential election and perhaps it sorts out.  Now, we thought that would happen after ’08, and it did to some degree. That’s why Obama has been able to pass some of the things he’s been able to pass.  But, because of the unemployment situation, the economy, and the fact that what Obama has done hasn’t been that popular in part because people don’t see how it affects them in the short-term, now people want to change that.  So, we’ll see.  But, at this time of an election campaign, it’s really about who’s going to win and who’s going to lose, and that’s what we’re talking about.

Listen to Part 5:

John Sparks
Carl, it’s always a pleasure talking with you. Anything else you’d like to add?

Carl Leubsdorf
No, I think that one factor that… there’s still a few… Newt Gingrich made a good point today.  He said, “This election isn’t over.  The Democrats have a lot of money.”  And, that’s… for one, we’re so eager to declare the result of an election, even though it’s not going to take place for two months, but there is of course, always the possibility that the Democrats — something will happen in the next couple of months that will get the Democratic turnout up enough so that instead of losing between 40 and 50 seats, they lose 35 seats in the House and manage to keep control of the House and keep a narrow majority in the Senate. But, because of the Senate situation, it’s going to be very hard for them to get much done anyway, but there is — there’s always the outside chance that things won’t go the way they’ve been. But, this election, it looks like for weeks and weeks, it’s been pretty much… the numbers have not changed.  They go up a little bit  They go down a little bit. My friend Peter Hart, the veteran Democratic pollster and one of the best in the business, said that he thinks that there’s not any question about whether the hurricane is going to hit the Democrats. It’s going to hit them.  What we don’t know is whether it’s going to be a Category 5 hurricane or a Category 4 hurricane.  So, I think that’s probably true, and it doesn’t look like a good year for the Democrats.  But, until they count the votes, there’s always the possibility of something different.

John Sparks
Well, what do you see on the hurricane front two years from now when the White House is up?

Carl Leubsdorf
Oh, that’s a long way away. The idea that Barack Obama would be elected was certainly just a distant thought at this point four years ago, but I do think that the Republicans have a basic problem.  At the moment, they don’t have a strong candidate against Obama, and the same split we’ve seen in state after state is likely to manifest itself during the primary campaign. Clearly, the leading figure in the Republican Party in terms of popularity within the party and as a dynamic force is Sarah Palin, and there are a lot of Republicans who think that they would love to have her heading their ticket next time. But, the last poll I saw showed that 71% of Americans thought that she was not qualified to be president, and half of the Republicans polled felt that way.  So, if that happens, she’s going to have a tough time winning an election.  However, if unemployment is still 10%, anything becomes possible.  But, you’re going to see a very bitter Republican fight, and we know who some of the players are, but we don’t know who all of the players are, and we certainly don’t know how it’s going to come out.  So, that’s going to have a big impact.  Every elected president since Jimmy Carter has been re-elected.  Every American president who won — brought his party back into the White House has won a second term in the last 50-60 years except for Jimmy Carter. The presidents who were beaten for re-election like the first President Bush and Herbert Hoover were extending their parties hold on the White House.  So, the norm will be for Obama to be favored and to be re-elected, but I guess rules in politics, like everything else, were made to be broken, so we’ll see.

Related Stories:

Poll: GOP Over Dems on Enthusiasm for Midterm Elections

Poll: Obama Approval Rating at 45% … Economic Views a Factor

Interview: Bonnie Angelo Discusses the Political Climate Leading Up To the Midterm Elections