While most of the political world’s attention has been focused on the presidential primaries, Democrats who took a beating in the midterm elections say they have slowly but steadily gotten back in the game when it comes to the battle for control of Congress.
A year of fiscal fights that left the country careening from threatened government shutdown to federal default back to shutdown has hurt every member of Congress, but polls show it has hurt Republicans a bit more. Just before Christmas, House Republicans were forced to make humiliating concessions to Democrats over the extension of a payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits, dinging the party’s tax-cutting brand.
And improving economic signs captured in jobs gains reported on Friday also have Democrats feeling more optimistic.
“This morning’s announcement that our economy added 200,000 jobs in December, bringing our unemployment rate down to 8.5 percent, is a sign of progress and provides further evidence that our economy is recovering,” Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, said Friday.
At the same time, President Obama, while still embattled, has seen his poll numbers improve slightly in the wake of the chaos on the Hill. Further, the Republican narrative that so dominated 2010 — deficit spending as the nation’s greatest ill — has been matched in recent months by the Democratic pounding of the table on income inequality.
Occupy Wall Street protests eclipsed Tea Parties around the nation this fall in defining at least some of the national mood. In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted in October, 66 percent of respondents who were asked if they felt that “the money and wealth in this country should be more evenly distributed among more people” said it should be more evenly distributed, while 26 percent said the system was fair.
All of this has left Democrats feeling more hopeful that they can recapture many of the 25 House seats needed for a majority, fend off a formidable challenge by Republicans over control of the Senate and perhaps keep Mr. Obama in Washington.
“A year ago today we were depressed, we were doubtful and we were in debt,” said Representative Steve Israel of New York, who oversees the committee that works to get Democrats elected to the House.”
“Since then, because of Republican mishaps and our own aggressiveness,” he said, the party has regrouped in its fund-raising and persuaded more Democrats to run. “I am not predicting we are going to take the House back,” Mr. Israel said. “But I am willing to sign an affidavit that it will be razor close.”
Color Republicans unimpressed.
There are far fewer Republicans in Democratic districts now than there were Democrats in Republican districts in 2010, and many of the current batch of Republicans have been shored up through redistricting. More Democrats are also retiring from both chambers than Republicans; in the Senate, seven Democrats have decided to leave, the most recent being Ben Nelson of Nebraska, whose announcement last week further hurt his party’s chances of holding onto control there.
What is more, Republicans often cite the respected political expert Charlie Cook, who points out that only once since World War II has the party holding the White House gained more than 15 House seats in a presidential election year. And Mr. Obama remains an impediment in many crucial districts.
“House Democrats’ public chest-thumping is recurring entertainment,” said Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, who is Mr. Israel’s counterpart at the National Republican Congressional Committee. “But it falls far from political reality. Even Democrats know that the Republican majority is strengthening as more Democrats throw in the towel in order to avoid facing a referendum election on their job-destroying policies.”
Republicans and others also argue that the president’s new strategy of running against Congress carries risks for Democrats who could be tarred along with Republicans.
But Democrats hope that by narrowing their majority in the House, even if Republicans win control of the Senate, they can push back against the policy agenda that Republicans have pressed, often with great success, over the last year.
In any event, the political complexion of the 113th Congress will almost certainly complicate the agenda of whoever is in the White House come January 2013.
“What will most likely happen is you will either have a narrow majority in either chamber or a still-divided Congress,” said Julian E. Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. “You are looking at a president who is going to face the same governing environment that President Obama faces and Bush before him faced, and in some ways the problems might be worse.”
There are two ways to look at current polling, and Democrats choose the glass-is-half-full approach.
In a December poll conducted by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal , 45 percent wanted the Democrats to win control of Congress in November while 43 percent supported the Republicans.
That is a slight uptick for Democrats since the summer, when the news organizations found 47 percent of voters surveyed said they preferred a Republican-controlled Congress, and 41 percent said they would rather see the Democrats win a majority this year.
However, while 72 percent of the public disapproves of how Republicans in Congress are doing their jobs according to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, nearly as many, 66 percent, disapprove of the job performance of Congressional Democrats.
“Democrats did a good job in the recent tax fight of drawing Republicans into the spotlight,” said Nathan L. Gonzales, an editor at The Rothenberg Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter. “But they don’t want to go into 2012 having it simply be referendum on whether people feel good about the country, because Democrats are viewed as more responsible for state of the economy. I am not convinced that Democrats have won the message battle for the 2012 election.”
But Democrats believe that they have momentum on their side, just as Republicans did at this time in 2010. Democrats cite money, polls and candidate recruitment as the central beacons of light.
Last January, “I couldn’t even get people I wanted to run to return my calls,” Mr. Israel said. These days, he is persuading some of them — including nearly a dozen who lost their seats in 2010 — to take another shot.
Dan Maffei, a Democrat who lost his New York seat by roughly 600 votes to Ann Marie Buerkle in 2010, said that after licking his wounds for several months, he decided over the summer to try and regain his seat.
“It was very challenging to lose,” he said. “After my wife and I saw how challenging it was, we just sort of wanted to walk away. But as my successor’s record emerged, we kind of came to the conclusion, if I don’t get back in, who will?”
While the party left him to his own devices last time, not anticipating a loss, Mr. Maffei said he has been assured help in this campaign. “It is a lot easier to run if you have full support of D.C.C.C.,” he said.
Congressional Democrats have raised more money lately than Republicans. But many campaign finance experts say that is less important than in past years because of the increasing influence of outside groups.
“If the D.C.C.C. outraises the N.R.C.C.,” Mr. Gonzales said, “big deal.” Conservative groups like American Crossroads and other outsider organizations “are going to have money and spend it in key races,” he said. “So analyzing fund-raising is more complicated than it has ever been.”
But Democrats are clinging to a series of new polls that they say show a momentum that can be harnessed to their advantage, particularly around fiscal policy issues. For instance, a recent poll by Gallup found that voters felt more confidence toward Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Congress (41 percent to 34 percent) concerning the extension of payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits.
Democrats in competitive districts wasted no time conducting automated calls on the issue to voters, even before the final outcome of the payroll tax fight.
Both parties note the length of time until November, when anything can happen to shift the political ground. Republicans have a history of disciplined messaging, and Democrats have been known to allow infighting between its most liberal members and those who seek the center to unravel their unity. But the party continues to hope.
“The economy, jobs and income equality are the biggest issues,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the chamber’s no. 3 Democrat. “Taken together, Republicans are having trouble getting their arms around the issue. The ballgame is changing.”
No comments:
Post a Comment