As a follow up to yesterday’s CBS News Exit Polling
(The Progressive Change Campaign Committee) set to release new polling from the respected Dem firm Public Policy Polling that is meant to buttress this case (“that indys who backed Obama in 2008 stayed home, because they were unsatisfied with Obama’s half-baked reform agenda, while McCain-supporting indys turned out in big numbers”). The Progressive Change Campaign Committee commissioned the poll and sent some results my way.
The key finding: PPP asked independents who did vote in 2010 who they had supported in 2008. The results: Fifty one percent of independents who voted this time supported McCain last time, versus only 42 percent who backed Obama last time. In 2008, Obama won indies by eight percent.
That means the complexion of indies who turned out this time is far different from last time around, argues Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. His case: Dem-leaning indys stayed home this time while GOP-leaning ones came out — proof, he insists, that the Dems’ primary problem is they failed to inspire indys who are inclined to support them.
“The dumbest thing Democrats could do right now is listen to those like Third Way who urge Democrats to repeat their mistake by caving to Republicans and corporations instead of fighting boldly for popular progressive reforms and reminding Americans why they were inspired in 2008,” Green says.
Note: Sargent doesn’t endorse this view, merely reports it.
Taylor Marsh quotes The Wall Street Journal–
Union households, a key Democratic voting bloc, turned out in force last night and accounted for a quarter of the vote in the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Ohio, exit poll showed.
The problem: They didn’t always vote for Democrats, despite six-figure ad campaigns and get-out-the-vote efforts by their unions encouraging them to do so.
In the Pennsylvania Senate contest, for example, exit polls showed that 44% of union household members who voted Tuesday picked Republican Pat Toomey, rather than Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak. Mr. Toomey narrowly won, 51% to 49%, according the latest numbers from the Associated Press.
What’s going on? Nearly half, 45%, of Pennsylvania’s union household voters said someone in their house had been laid off in the past two years. President Barack Obama carried this state by 10 points in 2008, and campaigned there repeatedly this fall. But on Tuesday, 36% of the state’s electorate said they voted to register their discontent with Mr. Obama.
Marsh’s conclusion? “You think this is bad? Just wait until Pres. Obama cuts a deal on education.”
Finally John Aravosis cites this Yahoo News analysis–
Exit polling commissioned by the major cable news networks has found that 31 percent of people who identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual voted for Republicans on Election Day. That represents a big uptick from the 24 percent of gays who voted for the GOP in 2006 and from only 19 percent who did so in 2008. The trend appears to bear out pre-Election Day predictions from gay rights organizers that gay voters were angry and disenchanted with Democrats for not delivering on promises to the community.
…
After reviewing the full data, Sherrill says there was a disproportionate drop in Democratic support among LGB voters compared to Hispanic, black, and young voters. Though the sample size is still very small and thus there’s a large margin of error, Sherrill now says the drop may be attributed to “dissatisfaction with the pace of change on LGB rights over the past two years.”
Which John correctly identifies as validation for his initial data set–
The best comparison is from one mid-term election to the next mid-term election, since turn out is usually lower in the off years. Gay voters went from 75% Democratic in the 2006 House races to 68% Democratic in 2010 – i.e., a 7 point drop in gay support for Democrats (and a 7 point increase in support for Republicans), which translates to a 9.3% change. It was an even greater drop if you look at the percentage of the gay vote that went Democratic in the 2008 House races, 80%, as compared to 68% this year. That’s a 12 point drop, which translates to a 15% decrease.
My conclusion? Pissing off your base loses elections. Duh.
Anyone who claims to care about “electoral victory” is a LIAR!
Update: Amanda Terkel
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Participation from demoralized workers who once believed their food and health care were above taxation found in Barack Obama the ability to tax our health care over the rich he claimed would pay when he was campaigning.
I should probably write a diary and articulate further but after the previous two years a Democratic government no longer feels like a rest period from Republican hostility. While union officials were pounding the drum many workers had trouble with offering support. I’m a Union for almost forty years and the Democratic support was lower that I’ve ever seen.
The Employee Free Choice Act that obama promised in 2008 was so dead that this year when he made that Labor Day pilgrimage to Detroit that is made every two years, well the kick off the Democratic campaign season had to be moved to Milwaukee since there are very few Union workers left in Detroit, this year EFCA was not even in his speech. So you had union leaders saying support the party that has devoted so much time to knocking the brains out of union teachers and the workers were saying “With friends like that, who needs enemies?”
So basically Joe Sestak went down because obama sucks and it was all about the excise tax. We union members already know that obama was lying about pay go because employees are already being told that there will be no excise tax and the number will be our insurance cap so we will just get more out of pocket expense from Obama. You see a union leader can say “Obama didn’t fuck you until 2018” but the workers said “Fucked today or fucked in 2018, either way the Democrats fucked me and my family.”
And ten years from now when my younger Union Brothers and Sisters are reaching into their pockets for basic medical care because their employers refuse to pay the 40% excise tax, they will be calling it what it always was “The bullshit Democrat insurance cap.”
Obama screwed the Democrats in the union workers eyes because he served Karen Ignagni instead of the people. I don’t know how many thirty second spots that will buy him in 2012 but unions voted to stop receiving any more help from Obama in the special election with 50% of union households in Massachusetts voting for Scott Brown, then told him where to go this week and it will continue for years to come.