Tracking The Mid Term Elections Of 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010 at 10:13AM 
The Presidents poll numbers drop dramatically every time his focus leaves the problems in the domestic economy.
Its pretty clear that the vast majority of American voters do not want the Democrats health care plan. Yet for the second straight year, despite 60 per cent of the public in opposition, he is again pushing that legislation.
The President does not seem to have learned that those that do no learn the lessons of history are bound to repeat its political mistakes. It seems like America has gone back to the years 2002 and 2003 all over again.
The "It's the economy, stupid" phrase was first used in American politics during Bill Clinton's successful 2002 Presidential election campaign against George H.W. Bush. At the time, Bush was considered unbeatable because of foreign policy developments such as the end of the Cold War and the Persian Gulf War.
That campaign phrase which captured Bush's lack of focus on the economy after a recession, coined by Clinton campaign strategist James Carville was widely credited for defeating Bush in November 2002.
As the mid term elections appear on the 2010 calendar, Obama's focus on promoting an unpopular health care plan instead of the health of the economy may mean that it is destined to be an excellent Republican year at the polls.
Generally, midterm elections can present a considerable risk for a President. Often viewed as a referendum on a President’s policies, the mid term elections during the last 45 years featured extensive losses for the Democrat Party.
There was the huge loss of 54 House seats under Clinton during his ill fated health care push. Forty eight seats were lost under Ford, and 47 seats turned Republican under Johnson. These electoral defeats present foreboding scenarios for Democrats in 2010.
The last two U.S. House of Representatives elections have been Democratic landslides that have left them with the current 79-seat majority in the House. This year all 435 House seats, 36 in the Senate and the governorships of 37 states will be on the ballot in November.
Could the GOP win 40 seats and take back the House this November? To put that into historical perspective, in the past sixty years there have been thirty House elections, but only four have resulted in either party gaining 40 seats or more.
The average pick-up in a midterm year (since 1946) is 22 seats and while Republicans should exceed that, the magic number of 40 still seems like a difficult task. Rasmussen polling currently projects that Republicans would gain 27 seats if the November election was held today.
The Democrats now hold 49 seats in districts carried by John McCain in 2008. Many of these seats are located in rural, small town, southern, and border districts where Republicans are still strong. There are comparably fewer, 35, Republican seats representing districts won by Barack Obama
In the Senate, if the Republican Party wins every seat in which it now holds a lead, (according to Rasmussen’s polls) it will capture eight Democratic seats while holding all of its own. Two more seats will be needed to capture the majority.
There are still eight months to go before the mid term elections. Eight months is a lifetime in politics and many things will change over the next few months. It looks like a Republican year but will the minority party become the majority party in November 2010?
"Its the economy stupid" is the phrase which could well flip control of this Congress. Historically, for Democrats, health care legislation has never been a prescription to stop Republican mid term electoral gains.
Reader Comments