The conventional wisdom this summer was that the GOP was ascendant because of the passion of the teabaggers and that they stand to gain seats in the 2010 elections. However, polling data over this period has shown a decrease in support for Democrats but has not shown any subsequent rise in favorability of the Republican party. Brendan Nyhan at Pollster.com asks how the 2009 Republican party favorability compares to party favorability at other aligining elections.
The overall finding is simple — the GOP’s standing relative to the Democrats on both measures is worse than any opposition party in the sample. For instance, the Pew data show that the Republicans are currently viewed more negatively than any minority party in the previous four midterms in terms of both net favorables and the difference in net favorables between parties:**
The CBS results (not shown) are even more dramatic. In June, when the question was most recently asked, Republican net favorables were -30% and Democratic net favorables were 25%, which swamps the comparable results from the previous cycles.
In short, there’s no question that the GOP party brand is in worse shape than any opposition party in recent memory. The question, however, is whether this difference in party valence will (a) persist through next November and (b) translate into fewer GOP House seats at the polls, especially once we account for the generic Congressional ballot, which should (in principle) take much of this difference into account (see Alan Abramowitz’s model, for instance). Those questions remain to be addressed.
Becoming the party of no is not really an electoral strategy, and this poll shows this. I think that the 2010 election results depend on two things: the economy (whether it will be improved enough for voters to feel it) and the fate of the health care bill. Anything can be sold as reform will probably be good for Democrats, since they’re being hurt right now by being seen as not able to govern despite huge majorities. I believe the passage of the public option will really help the Democrats – the public option polls very well and progressives have successfully depicted the fight for the public option as a fight against lobbyists and big business. Democrats really hold their own fate (mostly) in their own hands and I hope they don’t manage to screw it up.