Washington — Tilted toward the GOP from the start of the year, the political environment has grown even more favorable for Republicans and rockier for President Barack Obama and his Democrats over the long primary season that just ended with a bang.
With November’s matchups set and the general election campaign beginning in earnest Wednesday, an Associated Press-GfK poll found that more Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction than did before the nomination contests got under way in February. Also, more now disapprove of the job Obama is doing. And more now want to see Republicans in control of Congress rather than the Democrats who now run the House and Senate.
The country’s pessimism benefits the out-of-power GOP, which clearly has enthusiasm on its side. Far more people voted this year in Republicans primaries than in Democratic contests, and the antiestablishment tea party coalition has energized the GOP even as it has sprung a series of primary surprises.
“We’re definitely in a stronger position than we’ve been in really at any point this year,” Sen. John Cornyn, who leads the effort to elect Senate Republicans, said in an interview.
Said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: “Turnout and enthusiasm are off the charts.”
Indeed, Republicans expected turnout of 30,000 to 40,000 in Delaware on Tuesday. Some 57,582 people showed up to vote as tea party-backed Christine O’Donnell upset moderate Rep. Mike Castle for the Senate GOP nomination. By most accounts, the outcome diminished Republican chances of winning former Vice President Joe Biden’s seat. But Republicans got their preferred candidate in New Hampshire as former state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte fended off tea party-supported Ovide Lamontagne by a razor-thin margin.
Fueling voter anger is an unemployment rate that’s hovered near 10 percent all year despite efforts by Obama and fellow Democrats to accelerate the economic recovery.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that they’re out of office,” said independent voter Robbin Payton of Newport News, Va., reflecting just how toxic the environment is for the party in power.
Overall, it’s an extraordinarily dreary backdrop for Obama’s beleaguered party. And with just seven weeks until Election Day, Democrats are running out of options to mitigate widespread expected losses of House, Senate and governor’s seats from coast to coast on Nov. 2.
Comments
Richard Heckler 4 years, 4 months ago
Since 1980 beginning with Reagan/Bush republicans have brought on recessions galore and established a significant pattern of destroying:
As a result: 1. thousands perhaps millions of retired were tossed back into the job market to supplement their Social Security Insurance 2. Approximately 23 million jobs have left the USA 3. Medicare has become a wonderful and thankful insurance program 4. Credit card debt went beyond the sky 5. our housing market now has 7-8 million homes on the market 6. new home construction is essentially no longer a source for long term employment 7. a wide variety of retirement plans are either dead or still taking serious hits
AND fraud aka white collar crime is looked upon as gainful white collar employment instead of as a source for prison terms.
Flap Doodle 4 years, 4 months ago
Same post on two thread only less than 20 minutes apart, give it a rest, dude. We all know you hate Reagan, but he left the White House a loooong time ago & he's dead now & can't offend your delicate sensibilities any more.
just_another_bozo_on_this_bus 4 years, 4 months ago
So if the Republicans take control of either or both Houses, and unemployment continues to rise, and the economy continues to tank, and both will happen, who will the teabaggers blame?
Flap Doodle 4 years, 4 months ago
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