DNC Woes

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.  

Shane Goldmacher and Reid J. Epstein at NYT:

The Democratic Party is so short on cash that leaders at its headquarters have undertaken a new gambit to mask the severity of the problems: asking vendors not to send bills until after the midterm elections.

The bookkeeping maneuver, which was described by three people briefed on it, is the latest sign of financial duress for the Democratic National Committee and its embattled leader as money troubles threaten to undercut Democratic momentum with 100 days until the midterms.

So much is going politically right for Democrats these days. President Trump’s approval is down, gas prices are up and an unpopular war with Iran drags on. But dysfunction and debt inside one of the party’s key institutions — which is getting crushed in fund-raising by its Republican counterpart — are creating rising anxiety for top Democrats.

At the center is Ken Martin, the 53-year-old party chairman, who has found himself increasingly isolated, gripped by the fear that he will lose his job and relying on a vanishingly small circle of people he trusts, according to interviews with more than two dozen Democrats, including current and former D.N.C. officials and members. Most of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the party’s troubled state of affairs.

The RNC in 2010 was dysfunctional, underfunded, stepped on rakes in every news cycle, and was hated by other outside groups and Capitol Hill honchos

The environment was far more powerful

— Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) July 26, 2026

State Legislative Races: the 2010 Legacy

 Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections. 

At Politico, Paul Demko and Liz Crampton report on the long-term effects of the state legislative elections of 2010:

Republicans won a staggering 680 seats across the country and took control of 22 state legislative chambers in a single night.

When President Obama acknowledged that Democrats took “a shellacking” in the midterms, he may have been primarily speaking about congressional races, but it was an even more apt description of the electoral carnage they suffered in state capitals across the country.

The ramifications of that GOP wave are still being felt today in state capitals across the map. In states like Wisconsin, North Carolina and Ohio, Republicans seized on their newfound power — and fresh Census data — to craft new legislative maps tilted decisively in their favor and dominate state House and Senate races for a decade. That’s enabled them to push through major conservative policy priorities like toughening voter restrictions, scrapping environmental protections and stoking culture wars over issues like LGBTQ rights and school curriculums.

Democrats have made steady inroads in recent cycles, pushing the balance of power in statehouses back in their favor. A huge shift occurred in 2022 when they secured ruling trifectas in Michigan and Minnesota, while flipping the Pennsylvania House. They are counting on taking another important step forward on Tuesday.

But Republicans begin with an edge. They currently hold 55 percent of state legislative seats,according to Ballotpedia , and maintain majorities in 56 legislative chambers, compared to 41 for Democrats. While Democratic gains in 2022 were centered mostly on the Midwest, Republicans strengthened their power in the South, widening margins in states like West Virginia, Kentucky, Florida and the Carolinas.

State Legislative Elections

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.  

Douglas Kronaizl at Ballotpedia:

The 2022 election cycle is the first midterm election of Joe Biden’s (D) presidency. Historically, the incumbent president’s party loses seats in state legislative elections. Here are a few historical facts.

• Since 1922, Democratic presidents have seen their party lose an average of 388 state legislative seats in their first midterm elections. Republican presidents have seen an average loss of 345.
• Two presidents in that time—Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) and George W. Bush (R)—saw their parties gain state legislative seats in the first midterm elections of their presidencies. In Roosevelt’s first midterm election in 1934 during the Great Depression, Democrats gained 94 state legislative seats. During Bush’s presidency, Republicans gained 129 seats in the 2002 midterms, the first after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
• Since 2010, Democrats have had a net gain of state legislative seats in two election cycles—2012 and 2018—while Republicans have had a net gain in three—2014, 2016, and 2020.
• Barack Obama (D) saw a net loss of 702 Democratic state legislative seats during his first midterm in 2010, the largest loss for any Democratic president since at least 1921.
• Donald Trump (R) saw a net loss of 349 Republican state legislative seats in 2018.

Currently, there are 3,271 Democratic state legislators (44%) and 4,016 Republicans (54%).

The Return of the Cognitive Madisonians

In Defying the Odds, we discuss congressional elections as well as the presidential race.

In 1994, 2006, and 2010, there was widespread voter concern that one-party control of government was having bad effects, and voters opted for divided government.  Some voters are what Everett Carll Ladd called "cognitive Madisonians."  Even if they never read The Federalist, the idea of checks and balances affects their vote choice.

The NBC political unit recapped Meet the Press for July 18, 2010:

Perhaps the strongest argument the GOP made on “Meet” was this: Republicans in control of Congress will be a check and balance on the Obama White House. “I think what people are looking for … are checks and balances,” Cornyn said. “They've had single party government, and it's scaring the living daylights out of them.” As it turns out, our NBC/WSJ poll from May showed a whopping 62% preferring different parties controlling the White House and Congress. And as National Journal’s Ron Brownstein noted in his Friday column, that preference has played out over the last 40 years. “Since 1968, neither party has simultaneously controlled the White House and Congress for more than four consecutive years.” The "check" argument is most powerful with indie voters, who personally may have a favorable opinion of the president but have been disappointed in his policies. The "check" allows Republicans to make the pitch to a voter who isn't ready to give up on Obama's presidency but wants to send him a message.

Kevin Robillard at HuffPost:

Republicans have made clear they plan to run close to President Donald Trump in the campaign for November’s midterm elections, believing his ability to energize the Republican base is the only way to offset a blue wave of enthusiastic Democratic voters.

A new poll from a coalition of Democratic groups casts doubt on that strategy, showing the GOP will suffer as campaigns center around the president’s personality and record, and Democrats portray Republicans as Trump’s servants.

The survey of likely voters from Navigator Research, conducted by the Global Strategy Group, found Democrats had a 8-point lead on a generic ballot for Congress, 45 percent to 37 percent.

The Democratic lead grows, however, when the battle for Congress is framed as a referendum on the president. Asked if they would prefer a Democrat who mostly opposes Trump or a Republican who mostly supports him, 52 percent picked the Democrat, and 39 percent choose the Republican.

When presented with a Democrat who will be a “check and balance” on Trump against a Republican who will help Trump pass his agenda, Democrats led 50 percent to 38 percent.

The polling memo recommended the “check and balance” language, saying it is less likely to repel white voters without a college degree and voters who live in small towns and rural areas.

Gubernatorial Stakes

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional races as well as the presidential election.

Governors who take office after the 2018 elections will be on hand to sign or veto redistricting plans following the 2010 census.  At Politico, Doug Sosnik says:

This is the lost decade for Democrats. It was a lost decade because of our losses at the governors' races in 2010, and in order for us to have a much better shot at drawing fairer lines for the House of Representatives, we have to win these governors' races.

So, for me as a Democrat, there are 13 states in particular that I'm focused on in the 2018 governors’ races. But especially, these five: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida. If Democrats can win the governorships in these states and hold the one in Virginia, then we have a seat at the table at the redistricting coming up—we can't be politically gerrymandered in these big industrial Midwest states and Florida.

So those five states are critical for Democrats to not be shut out in the process in the next decade like we were in this current. There are eight other states that have the potential for Democrats to actually take control of all aspects of reapportionment so that we can draw lines that are more favorable to Democrats. This is the last huge, big opportunity for Democrats to be able to undo for the next decade the damage that was done in this decade.

 

Impact of Redistricting

David A. Lieb reports at AP

The AP scrutinized the outcomes of all 435 U.S. House races and about 4,700 state House and Assembly seats up for election last year using a new statistical method of calculating partisan advantage. It’s designed to detect cases in which one party may have won, widened or retained its grip on power through political gerrymandering.

The analysis found four times as many states with Republican-skewed state House or Assembly districts than Democratic ones. Among the two dozen most populated states that determine the vast majority of Congress, there were nearly three times as many with Republican-tilted U.S. House districts.

Traditional battlegrounds such as Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and Virginia were among those with significant Republican advantages in their U.S. or state House races. All had districts drawn by Republicans after the last Census in 2010.

The AP analysis also found that Republicans won as many as 22 additional U.S. House seats over what would have been expected based on the average vote share in congressional districts across the country. That helped provide the GOP with a comfortable majority over Democrats instead of a narrow one.

...
The AP’s findings are similar to recent ones from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, which used three statistical tests to analyze the 2012-2016 congressional elections. Its report found a persistent Republican advantage and “clear evidence that aggressive gerrymandering is distorting the nation’s congressional maps,” posing a “threat to democracy.” The Brennan Center did not analyze state legislative elections.

The AP’s analysis was based on a formula developed by University of Chicago law professor Nick Stephanopoulos and Eric McGhee, a researcher at the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. Their mathematical model was cited last fall as “corroborative evidence” by a federal appeals court panel that struck down Wisconsin’s state Assembly districts as an intentional partisan gerrymander in violation of Democratic voters’ rights to representation.

Democrats and Environmentalists v. WWC

Josh Kraushaar writes at National Journal:

If the GOP gains in the Mid­w­est were an an­om­aly, per­haps Demo­crats could af­ford to cater to their en­vir­on­ment­al base. But this wasn’t the first time that Demo­crats lost sig­ni­fic­ant ground in the re­gion. In 2010, they lost a whop­ping 63 seats in the House in part be­cause of failed cap-and-trade le­gis­la­tion; over one-third of the seats they lost were in the Mid­w­est. Re­pub­lic­ans am­ped up their at­tacks on Obama’s en­vir­on­ment­al policies dur­ing the 2014 midterms—air­ing more than 26,000 spots cit­ing the En­vir­on­ment­al Pro­tec­tion Agency—and swept nearly every com­pet­it­ive Sen­ate race on their way to the ma­jor­ity.

Take the Key­stone XL pipeline as a stand-in for voter sen­ti­ment on the bal­ance between pro­tect­ing the en­vir­on­ment and pro­du­cing jobs. A March 2014 Pew Re­search Cen­ter poll, con­duc­ted dur­ing the Key­stone de­bate, found that a 49 per­cent plur­al­ity of Demo­crats sup­por­ted build­ing the pipeline—even though the pres­id­ent and top party lead­ers op­posed it. Among work­ing-class Demo­crats (those who made less than $50,000 a year), sup­port for the Key­stone pro­ject out­dis­tanced op­pos­i­tion by a whop­ping 22 points (54 to 32). When your party’s own voters are at odds with its elite, it’s a re­cipe for dis­aster. Don­ald Trump’s Mid­west­ern sweep was the cul­min­a­tion of these long-stand­ing trends.

Nondisclosure, Nondisparagement

The Trump campaign will probably yield fewer insider accounts than normal campaigns. Patrick Howell O'Neill reports at The Daily Dot:

Donald Trump's campaign requires volunteers to sign a contract that forbids them from criticizing the Republican presidential front-runner, his family members, any Trump businesses or products, or his campaign. The six-page contract, reviewed in full by the Daily Dot, theoretically lasts for the entirety of a volunteer's life.

Legal experts say, however, that the contract's non-disparagement clause would likely never hold up in court.

The tight control of volunteers stands in stark contrast to not only American political-campaign norms but also Trump's reputation for speaking his mind.

The contract first came to light late last week after Trump campaign emails indicated that some prospective volunteers were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement in order to make calls for the campaign from Trump Tower in Manhattan.

“I don't see how a court enforces this.”

It wasn't until Monday that the contracts were unveiled to prospective volunteers at Trump Tower. A Daily Dot review of the contract found that the document extends beyond the non-disclosure agreement that was originally reported.

It would not be the first time that a candidate relied on non-disclosure agreements.  The 2010 California gubernatorial campaign of Meg Whitman reportedly used NDAs, which is probably why officials from her campaign skipped the customary post-election conference at Berkeley.  As CalBuzz explained; "The Team Whitman principals deny they have non-disclosure agreements that are keeping them from discussing the internal workings of the campaign (although their agreements could require them to deny they exist)."

Democratic Weakness, GOP Strength

Why can Hillary Clinton coast? At The Weekly Standard, Jay Cost writes:

[The] Democratic bench is now so thin that the party cannot even give its voters a real choice. At this point, the only three other candidates seriously considering the race are: Martin O’Malley, former Maryland governor who is decidedly lackluster; Jim Webb, the quirky one-term senator who -- oh by the way! -- used to work in the Reagan Administration (Democratic voters will love that); and Bernie Sanders, who does not even call himself a Democrat (he’s a socialist).

Why are the only three challengers such fourth-raters? Peruse the sitting governors who are Democrats. Don’t worry, it won’t take you very long. You’ll see that none of them could be serious contenders. They either hail from small states, were just recently elected, were barely reelected, or arequirky/problematic.

Now take a gander at the party’s Senate caucus. If you squint really hard you might imagine some of them could be presidential material, but not really. The overwhelming majority are too old, too dull, too new, or barely won reelection. Elizabeth Warren is the only exception out of these 45 senators, and she looks like she is not going to run.

The media, in their relentless focus on the micro-political cycle (not to mention their eager cheerleading for the Democrats), are representing the party as being in a strong position. “Obama is up in the polls (a little bit)! Hillary is going to raise lots of money! They’re back!”

But look past those two, and you see precious little in terms of quality would-be candidates. On an aggregate level -- combining House, Senate, state governments -- the Democrats have not been so weak since 1928.

Chris Cillizza writes at The Washington Post

Everyone knows by now that 2010 and 2014 were very good to the Republican Party. What they don't understand (or understand well enough) is just how good. Yes, Republicans now control the Senate and have their largest majority in the House since World War II. But it's downballot (way downballot) where the depth of the Republican victories over the past three elections truly reveal themselves -- and where the impact will be felt over the long term.

In the past three elections, Republicans have gained 913 state legislative seats, according to calculations made by Larry Sabato at the University of Virginia. Here are Sabato's figures in chart form -- and with historical comparisons -- via GOP lobbyist Bruce Mehlman.

Now, there are more 7,000 state legislative seats in the country, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which makes that 913 number slightly less eye-popping. Still, the Democratic losses between 2010 and 2014 amount to 12 percent of all state legislative seats nationwide.

Fiorina Says She Paid Off Old Campaign Debt

Debra J. Saunders reports at The San Francisco Chronicle:

This just in: Carly Fiorina paid off the debt from her losing 2010 Senate campaign against Sen. Barbara Boxer. As I wrote last month, the former HP head is mulling over a 2016 presidential run — which made her failure to pay off her handlers and vendors rather puzzling. Losing candidates often owe money, but she’s a rich candidate, who was partially self-funded. Nonetheless, she left behind debt just under $500,000.
...
Tuesday I heard from Sarah Isgur Flores, who works for Fiorina’s Unlocking Potential Project. She sent me this transcript from a Fiorina interview on the Hugh Hewitt show. (You can listen to the whole interview at http://www.hughhewitt.com/wp-content/uploads/01-09hhs-fiorina.mp3)

HH: Now what is your timetable, by the way, Carly Fiorina, for deciding whether or not to formally join the race for president?
CF: Well, probably I will make a final decision in the March-April timeframe. I mean, something could change, but that’s currently what I’m thinking about.
HH: And you’re staffing up and all that. What about your Senate campaign debt from 2010?
CF: Well, that campaign debt has been paid off. So…
HH: Okay.
CF: That, yeah, it’s all been paid off, and you know, campaign debt is nothing particularly new. Hillary Clinton had $25 million dollars’ worth of it when she finished her last presidential run, and I don’t know, took four years or something to pay it off. But we have no debt.

"Who Wants a Deadbeat for President?"

At The San Francisco Chronicle, conservative columnist Debra J. Saunders takes down Carly Fiorina's reported plans to run for president:

So maybe it isn’t totally crazy that Fiorina is running for president even if she’s never won an election. But it is totally crazy that Fiorina is running for the White House when, according to federal election reports, her 2010 campaign still owes $486,418 to creditors. Who wants a deadbeat for president? 

Like the evil George Wickham in “Pride and Prejudice,” Fiorina skipped California owing buckets of cash to her one-time pals. She owes $60,000 to former campaign manager Marty Wilson, who now works for the California Chamber of Commerce, and another $20,000 to his former communications firm. She shorted her lawyer Ben Ginsberg, formerly of Patton Boggs, to the tune of $44,000. She owes $3,750 to a former press secretary, $5,000 to another communications aide and $7,500 to her erstwhile political director. She stiffed political consultant Joe Shumate, who died in 2010, to the tune of $30,000. (Yes, she stiffed a stiff — even though she lauded Shumate as a “trusted adviser and friend” upon his death.)

GOP consultant Jason Roe tells National Journal: "I don't think Carly's running for president. I think Carly's running for vice president. If Hillary Clinton's the nominee, Republicans need a woman front and center—probably on the ticket. And Carly knows that."  If that is Fiorina's real plan, it does not make sense, either.  The 2016 nominee could choose from a number of Republican women who have actually won elections (e.g., Susana Martinez, Kelly Ayotte).  And her tenure at HP carries all the political liabilities of Romney's record at Bain -- but without any of the success.

Better Poll News for Republicans, Worse for Dems

Gallup reports:

Americans' views of the Democratic and Republican parties are now similar, mainly because of their more positive ratings of the GOP. Since bottoming out at 28% last fall during the government shutdown, Americans' opinions of the Republican Party have grown more positive and are nearly back to pre-shutdown levels. Over the same time period, ratings of the Democratic Party have generally held steady.

Americans view both parties negatively overall, with a 40% favorable and 57% unfavorable rating for the Republican Party, and a 42% favorable and 54% unfavorable rating for the Democratic Party. This net-negativity toward both major political parties has generally been the case since 2010, apart from President Barack Obama's re-election year in 2012, when on several occasions Americans had slightly more positive than negative views of the Democrats.

...

The situation is similar to what occurred in 2010. Even as Republicans were making large gains in federal and state offices nationwide, Americans did not view the GOP any more positively than the Democratic Party. As such, the Republicans may have merely benefitted from public frustration with Obama and the Democrats in 2010, rather than having been truly embraced by Americans. Thus, if Republicans do well on Election Day this year it does not necessarily equate to a voter mandate for the party and its policies.

The New York Times reports:

A New York Times/CBS News poll shows that President Obama’s approval ratings are similar to those of President George W. Bush in 2006 when Democrats swept both houses of Congress in the midterm elections.  RELATED ARTICLE

A deeply unpopular Republican Party is nonetheless gaining strength heading into the midterms, as the American public’s frustration with Mr. Obama has manifested itself in low ratings for his handling of foreign policy and terrorism.

The generic ballot question, which measures national sentiment for the House of Representatives vote, shows a notable swing of voters toward the Republican Party and away from Democrats. Voters’ dissatisfaction with their own representatives has hit a high as nearly two-thirds say they are ready to throw their own representatives out of office.

Voter Enthusiasm in Midsummer

Pew reports:

The Republican Party holds a clear advantage in voter engagement in this fall’s midterm elections, according to a new national survey by the Pew Research Center. Yet GOP voters are not as enthused and engaged as they were at this point in the midterm campaign four years ago, prior to the Republican Party winning control of the House of Representatives, or as Democratic voters were in 2006, before Democrats gained control of Congress.

The latest survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted July 8-14 among 1,805 adults, including 1,420 registered voters, finds neither party has an advantage in voter preferences. Currently, 45% say if the election were held today they would support the Republican in their district or lean toward the Republican, while 47% favor the Democrat or lean Democratic.

The two parties also ran even on the so-called “generic ballot” throughout much of the 2010 campaign. The GOP’s victory in the national popular vote in 2010 – and their gain of 63 seats in the House – was ultimately fueled by a sharp rise in turnout by the Republican base, particularly among conservatives and older voters.

Today, the Republicans lead on a number of key engagement indicators, though in some cases by smaller margins than four years ago. Currently, 45% of registered voters who plan to support the Republican in their district say they are more enthusiastic about voting than in prior congressional elections; that compares with 37% of those who plan to vote for the Democratic candidate. The GOP had a 13-point enthusiasm advantage at this point in the midterm campaign four years ago (55% to 42%) and the Democrats held a 17-point advantage eight years ago (47% to 30%).

However, as many voters who support the Republican in their district say they are “absolutely certain” to vote this fall as said this in June 2010. Three-quarters of Republican voters (76%) say they are absolutely certain to vote, compared with 67% of Democratic voters. Four years ago, 77% of Republican voters and 64% of Democratic voters said they were absolutely certain to vote in the fall.

Barack Obama is as powerful a motivating factor for Republican voters as he was in 2010: about half (51%) of those who say they will vote Republican this fall consider their vote as a vote “against” Obama, little changed from June 2010 (52%). And Obama has become a less positive factor for Democrats – 36% of those who plan to vote for the Democrat in their district view their vote as being “for” Obama, down from 44% four years ago. (For more on Obama’s job ratings.)

Enthusiasm Gap

Pew reports:

Overall, the percentage of the public that is looking forward to this fall’s midterm election is about the same today (51%) as it was in January 2010 (50%). Currently, 63% of Republicans and 53% of Democrats say they are anticipating the midterm elections; a similar gap was evident four years ago (60% of Republicans vs. 48% of Democrats).

Last month, a Pew Research survey found that more Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters (53%) than Democrats and Democratic leaners (47%) were “very enthusiastic” about voting in this fall’s elections. But the GOP’s advantage was narrower than it was a year before the 2010 midterms.

Governorships in 2014

Republicans picked up governorships in 2010.  Can they hold their gains in 2014? Thomas Beaumont writes at RealClearPolitics:

Democrats are counting on a backlash from voters upset over the policy shift to the political right. But they have struggled to field top-tier contenders in several key states, including some that President Barack Obama carried last year when he won re-election. Democrats attribute their candidate recruitment woes to the continuing popularity of Republican governors, despite disapproval of the congressional GOP after the federal government shutdown in October.

"While the federal party is suffering, it's much harder to pin that on candidates for statewide office," acknowledged Nathan Daschle, former director of the Democratic Governors Association.

Republicans control 29 of the nation's 50 governorships, including 20 of the 36 that will be on the ballot in 2014. GOP-controlled states include Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin, which together accounted for roughly half of Obama's 126-electoral vote margin over GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

But in Nevada and New Mexico, Democrats have all but conceded that Republican Govs. Brian Sandoval and Susana Martinez will win re-election, even though both states have booming Hispanic populations that overwhelmingly went for Obama in 2012. In the Midwest, Democrats so far have fielded only little-known challengers to Govs. John Kasich of Ohio, Rick Snyder of Michigan and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, despite large Democratic-leaning union constituencies upset over the anti-labor policies of all three governors.

A GOP Wave in 2014?

At The Washington Post, Reid Wilson suggests that 2014 may be starting to look like 2010 -- a GOP wave election.  The generic ballot is moving in the GOP's direction and the president's favorability rating has turned sour.

Historically, Democrats have held an advantage of at least a few points on the generic ballot, even when election results are a wash: Democrats held a six-point edge just before Election Day 2000 and picked up a grand total of one seat. Democrats led Republicans by one point on the generic ballot just before the 2010 elections, when Republicans rode to a sweeping victory.

And there’s no sign that Obama will become more popular. Presidents who see their approval ratings dip so dramatically in the second term rarely see their numbers improve. Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon’s approval ratings never recovered after the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal (Nixon, of course, didn’t stick around to see just how far his ratings could fall). George W. Bush’s approval rating sank in the spring of 2005, and continued falling through the end of his term. Obama’s numbers are starting to resemble Bush’s trend lines.
...
Reaction to the bungled rollout of the health care law is overwhelmingly to blame. Already, the fallout has been evident: Public surveys in Virginia showed Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe (D) leading Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) by wide margins in the wake of the government shutdown. But Cuccinelli made the final weeks of the race into a referendum on ObamaCare, and McAuliffe’s support began to erode. On Election Day, McAuliffe won by just 2.5 points, a narrower margin than even his internal polls showed. Another week, and Cuccinelli might be governor-elect.
...
But back in 2010, 40 percent told Post pollsters they viewed Republicans in a favorable light, 10 points lower than those who said they saw Democrats favorably. Republicans feigned a national platform, akin to the Contract With America, but their pitch to voters was more about what they were against — namely, Democrats and ObamaCare — than what they were for. Voters have backed the unpopular party with few ideas over the slightly-more-popular party with unpopular ideas before.

At National Journal, Josh Kraushaar adds detail:

Race-by-race polling conducted over the last month has painted a grim picture of the difficult environment Senate Democrats are facing next year. In Louisiana, a new state survey showed Landrieu's approval rating is now underwater; she tallied only 41 percent of the vote against her GOP opposition. In Arkansas, where advertising on the health care law began early, Sen. Mark Pryor's approval sank to 33 percent, a drop of 18 points since last year. A new Quinnipiac survey showed Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, who looked like a lock for reelection last month, in a dead heat against little-known GOP opponents. Even a Democratic automated poll from Public Policy Polling showed Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina running neck-and-neck against Republican opposition, with her job disapproval spiking over the last two months. These are the types of numbers that wave elections are made of.

...
"You want to prevent your race from being about Obamacare. If you enable your race to be about Obamacare, you're making a mistake," said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, who's working for Landrieu. "You need to explain what you're trying to fix, and you better be trying to fix something. If there's nothing you want to fix, there's something wrong with you. At this point, it's hard to defend the benefits, but you can say we're not going back to the evils of the old system."

The GOP's Downballot Strength

DC establishment Republicans may be morose about 2016, but things look different elsewhere. In After Hope and Change, we discuss the GOP's ability to hold onto most of its 2010 downballot gains during the 2012 election. Salena Zito writes at The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

The story buried by the national media’s fixation with Hillary Clinton’s next move is the solid bench that Republicans have been efficiently building – not just in Democrat-blue Pennsylvania, but across the country – since her husband left office in 2000.

Even in “blue” New York you can look at a county such as Ulster, which went for Obama by 23 points but where the county legislature is 12-11 Republican. It’s a pattern that pops up all over the state.

“The presidency is one election, and Democrats and Republicans have basically been alternating it for the better part of a decade now,” said Sean Trende, elections analyst at RealClearPolitics. “But it is the GOP that is ascendant down-ballot.”

Trende explains that, in 2010, Republicans won around 54 percent of state house and senate seats nationally; the number fell slightly in 2012, to 53 percent of state senate and 52 percent of state house seats.

“Part of the disparity comes from the fact that not all the state senate seats were up in 2012,” he said. “But overall, Democrats pay the same penalty in state legislative districts that they pay in congressional districts” – their coalition has become too geographically concentrated to function well in legislative races.

Clearly, the GOP connects with voters, given its down-ballot strength, said Trende: “You can’t have total control of government in a near-majority of the states in the country without some ability to connect.”

“While the pundits and the media pronounce on the divisions in the GOP and how these will ultimately wipe out the Republicans, I've been looking at some numbers and they look pretty good,” Iowa State University political science professor Steffen Schmidt said about the GOP bench.

He points to 30 out of 50 governorships controlled by Republicans, 233 U.S. House members out of 435, and 24 state governments controlled by both GOP governors and legislative majorities.

Statehouse Haunting

At Politico, Glenn Thrush reports that the GOP's 2010 statehouse victories still haunt the president.

“The Obama team has done some amazing things, those guys are really something, but the Democrats plain got skunked on the state houses,” says former Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.), chairman of REDMAP, the group founded by Republican über-operative Ed Gillespie in late 2009 to influence state races ahead of the critical once-a-decade map-drawing process.

“They weren’t in the same league as us, and that’s having lasting consequences,” added Reynolds, who represented the Buffalo, N.Y. area for five terms.

It might be the greatest opportunity cost of the Obama Era in terms of sheer damage to Democrats, a gift that keeps giving to the Republicans in the form of GOP-dominated redistricting and a barrage of state actions that challenge Obama’s core agenda on health care, civil rights and abortion.

“Huge pain in the ass, yeah, every day,” is how one senior Obama aide described the GOP’s creation of safe House seats — and the subsequent assaults on Obamacare, abortion rights, gun control, voting rights and municipal unions emanating from suddenly GOP-dominated states like North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio.

”Everyone is focusing on the House as hampering us, but no one has really focused on losing all those governorships and state legislatures,” the person added.

Ten Problems for Democrats

Doug Sosnik, who served as President Clinton's political director, identifies ten long-term problems for Democrats:

 1) Obama’s Personal Favorability Doesn’t Translate to Democrats Broadly: The nature of Obama’s strength is personal and is not easily transferable to other candidates in the future. 

2) Obama’s Failure to Build the Party for the Long-Term: The President’s lack of commitment to build up the DNC’s structure and base will have lasting consequences for the party. 

3) Declining Favorability: Democrats can’t afford to ignore the party’s declining support among all voters since Obama took office. This decline is in spite of a Republican Party that has been in political free-fall. 

4) 2010 State Losses Created an Enduring Grassroots Deficit: Moving forward, it will be very difficult for the party to fully recover from the devastating losses at the state and local level from 2010 elections. With their success, Republicans controlled the reapportionment and redistricting process in a majority of the states, enabling them to draw very favorable district lines at the state and federal levels, which will benefit them for the rest of this decade. 

5) Declining Democratic Party Self-Identification among Younger Voters: Millennials (born 1981-1994) and Gen Xers (born 1965-1980) have voted overwhelmingly Democratic for the past decade. However, their votes have largely been more about support for Obama and opposition to Republicans than they have been about identifying as Democrats. According to Pew polling from last year, 45% of Millennials self-identify as Independents, which is a six-point jump since 2008, and 31% self-identify as Democrats, which represents a four-point drop since 2008. The same analysis showed that 42% of Gen Exers identify as Independents, an eight-point increase since 2008, and 29% self-identify as Democrats, a five-point decline in Democratic self-identification during the same time.

6) Democrats Should Not Count on Same Levels of African American Turnout and Support without Obama on the Ballot: According to a Census Bureau report on the 2012 elections issued this week, for the first time in history black eligible voters turned out at a higher percentage than whites (66% v. 64%). In addition, a Gallup analysis of the African American vote found that 18-34 year olds are nine-points less likely to self-identify as Democrats (75% v. 84%) than African American voters 55 years or older. 

7) Declining Democratic ID among Younger Hispanic Americans: Although Hispanics have overwhelmingly voted against Republicans since George W. Bush’s re-election in 2004, younger Hispanics feel less of an allegiance to the Democratic Party than their elders. A Gallup analysis of last year’s tracking polling found that Hispanic voters aged 18-34 are nine points less likely to self-identify as Democrats (50% v. 59%) than Hispanic voters 55 years or older. Young Hispanic voters are a disproportionately large share of the Hispanic electorate. 

8) Asian American Support for Democrats in Recent Elections Exceeds Their Party Identification: Despite voting overwhelmingly for Obama in the past two elections - with their support topping 73% in 2012 – a 2012 Pew poll found that only 50% of Asian voters self-identify as Democrats. 

9) Midterm Turnout Favors Republicans: Historically, the voters who are most likely to vote Democratic are the least likely to vote in a midterm election. 

10) Thin Presidential Bench beyond Hillary Clinton and Uncertainty that Democrats can Replicate Obama Turnout Levels: While Clinton laps the field against any and all contenders, the election is still over three years away. If she doesn’t run, there is not an obvious and ready pool of candidates to step in and fill the void. Furthermore, without Obama on the ballot, it is far from certain that the Democrats will be able to generate the same high levels of voter turnout that proved decisive in the last two Presidential elections.

Obama Aims for Democratic House in 2014

In 2010 and 2012, congressional Democrats were unhappy that President Obama did not do more for them. The Washington Post reports:

Obama, fresh off his November reelection, began almost at once executing plans to win back the House in 2014, which he and his advisers believe will be crucial to the outcome of his second term and to his legacy as president. He is doing so by trying to articulate for the American electorate his own feelings — an exasperation with an opposition party that blocks even the most politically popular elements of his agenda.

Obama has committed to raising money for fellow Democrats, agreed to help recruit viable candidates, and launched a political nonprofit group dedicated to furthering his agenda and that of his congressional allies. The goal is to flip the Republican-held House back to Democratic control, allowing Obama to push forward with a progressive agenda on gun control, immigration, climate change and the economy during his final two years in office, according to congressional Democrats, strategists and others familiar with Obama’s thinking.

...
Of all the presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt, only Bill Clinton picked up House seats for his party in the midterm election of his second term . His approval rating on the eve of the 1998 contest was 65 percent, 14 points above Obama’s current public standing.

The specific steps Obama is taking to win back the House for his party mark an evolution for a president long consumed by the independence of his political brand.

Obama has committed to eight fundraisers for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this year, compared with just two events in 2009. The Democrats lost the House the following year, and Obama’s legislative agenda has largely stalled since then.