Could Republicans really lose the House?
OPINION - A slew of new polls setting off alarms around Washington suggest that for Republicans, shutting down the government and threatening a default on the nation's debts could mean losing control of the U.S. House of Representatives...
Schale says of Young and Daniel Webster, who represents Florida’s 10th District and would lose to a generic Democrat 44 percent to 49 percent if the election were held today (according to PPP):
“While the numbers in Young have always suggested a competitive seat, reality is Congressman Young had excellent local politics and constituent work. In the Tip O’Neill sense, he knew all politics were local and took care of his district. He would have been tough. Webster is also a very capable and likable fellow. The district isn’t as good as Young’s, but again, given what’s happening in D.C., it’s just hard to predict what kind of environment members of Congress will face in a year.”
On Wednesday, Republicans weren’t taking the PPP poll or its implications too seriously.
The National Review’s Jim Geraghty cited polling analysts Stu Rothenberg, Charlie Cook, and even a Daily Kos blogger to knock down the PPP poll as partisan hackery.
According to NBC News’ political correspondent Luke Russert, the mood among congressional Republicans darkened considerably on Thursday, with the release of a dire NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, whose results NBC’s chief political analyst Chuck Todd called an “unmitigated disaster” for the GOP. The NBC/WSJ poll finds Republicans taking the overwhelming brunt of public anger over the government shutdown, while President Obama’s favorability remains stable, and his signature healthcare law actually improves in public esteem. According to the poll:
By a 22-point margin (53 percent to 31 percent), the public blames the Republican Party more for the shutdown than President Barack Obama – a wider margin of blame for the GOP than the party received during the poll during the last shutdown in 1995-96.
Just 24 percent of respondents have a favorable opinion about the GOP, and only 21 percent have a favorable view of the Tea Party, which are both at all-time lows in the history of [the] poll.
And one year until next fall’s midterm elections, American voters prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress to a Republican-controlled one by eight percentage points (47 percent to 39 percent), up from the Democrats’ three-point advantage last month (46 percent to 43 percent).
And by Thursday, Republicans were meeting with the White House and talking openly about raising the debt ceiling (but not yet reopening the government).
Will the House change hands?
Do the bad polling and a horrid news cycle for the GOP add up to a House that changes hands in 2014? Democrats clearly hope so, and the Democratic National Committee and Organizing for America have launched multimedia ad campaigns attacking Republicans as too irresponsible to lead — a strategy that’s already being mirrored at the local level, targeting individual Republicans in their districts. (On the flip side, the Republican congressional campaign committee is targeting Democrats in ads and emails, too, and both sides are fundraising over the shutdown.)
Cook, who has long given Democrats very little chance of winning the 17 net seats they would need to take back the House, wrote this in the National Journal on Monday:
At The Cook Political Report, we have always said, given their structural advantages, House Republicans would pretty much need to self-destruct to lose control of the chamber. Today, they seem to be flirting with just that possibility, but the election is still more than a year away, and it is far too early to say that the House majority is at risk. Minimal net party change is still the most likely outcome, but we no longer forecast a GOP gain of two to seven seats; that swing could now just as plausibly go in Democrats’ direction.
Not exactly a prediction of doom, but it is an opening, and one Democrats (and in an ironic way, Republicans themselves) are fully exploiting. And for Democrats, there’s more at stake than simply handing the speaker’s gavel back to Nancy Pelosi.
“With a Democratic majority, the president could get immigration reform done, responsibly, and fix the tax code and invest in education to ensure we grow the economy from the middle class out,” Simmons says.
But first, they have to win.
Follow Joy Reid on Twitter at @TheReidReport.
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