Moving to the right won’t help

March 31, 2006

[tag]Gallup[/tag] released a poll earlier this week that made most of the [tag]Republican[/tag] establishment awfully nervous. When it comes to voters’ partisan ID, the GOP’s edge has vanished.

Republicans had gained the upper hand in recent years, but 33% of Americans, in the latest Gallup poll, now call themselves [tag]Democrats[/tag], with those favoring the GOP one point behind. But Gallup says this widens a bit more “once the leanings of [tag]Independents[/tag] are taken into account.”

Independents now make up 34% of the population. When asked if they lean in a certain direction, their answers pushed the Democrat numbers to 49% with Republicans at 42%. One year ago, the parties were dead even at 46% each. This shift indicates, Gallup says, why its polls show Democrats leading in this year’s congressional races.

In addition, Gallup also reported that in each of the last four quarters, Democratic ID has led Republican ID, a trend the parties haven’t seen in quite a while.

I was curious to see how the GOP would respond to the trend. Apparently, the writing is on the wall, but conservatives are misreading it.

“A new Gallup poll shows a disturbing trend among the American public. The number of Americans who identify themselves as Republican has declined over the past year, while the number of Independents who lean Democrat has gone up. Message to Republican elected officials and Party leaders: the 2006 elections are at hand, and we must get our act together now,” Bobby Eberle writes at www.gopusa.com. […]

“This trend is undoubtedly due to the frustration being felt by grass-roots Republicans at the efforts (or lack thereof) of Republican leaders on key conservative issues.”

Maybe, but I don’t think so. I don’t doubt that there are some far-right activists who are displeased with Republicans in DC for their inability to, well, do much of anything, but if conservatives believe the party has to shift even further to the right to gain back voters in the middle, they don’t quite grasp why so many independents are leaning away from the GOP in the first place.

But who am I to offer the Republicans advice? Go ahead, GOP, champion a right-wing cause in an election year. We’ll see how that works out.

The changes in polling numbers are heartening, but I always worry whether we’re seeing what statisticians refer to as “the fallacy of composition”.

Voters vote in their own congressional districts, not national pools. Unless there’s a sufficient tilt toward the Democrat in districts which, as of now, are Republican, then Democratic gains in the national polls mean nothing. It costs a whole lot more to obtain district-level data, so it never (or at least rarely) shows up till the “main event”, the Fall elections.

  • CB, you may be missing an important aspect of the movement of voters away from the Republicanites.

    Politics is not really a linear continum from left to right. Rather, people’s positions on individual issues are points along multi-dimensional lines that effectively criss-cross. For instance, fiscal responsibility can be achieved either through tax increases or spending cuts. However, if fiscal responsibility is one of your major concerns, and you decide that the Republicanites are incapable of cutting spending to achieve it, you are pulled left and start to view tax increases as a necessity.

    Immigration is another line that cuts a sharp angle across the left-right divide. Union households share the Know-Nothings deserve to limit immigration while Progressives find themselves in an unlikely alliance with Business Interests to liberalize immigration and amnesty illegal immigrants.

    People are being pulled away from the Republicanite party for many reason including incompetence. But another important reason is that after five years the unnatural alliance of ‘conservatives’ is finally discovering that they have no common ground than a long outdated discomfort with Democratic governance. In fact, Gore’s winning the 2000 vote proves that the electorate had come to terms with Democratic governance.

  • There is no evidence that either party is capable of governing in Washington effectively. Also no evidence that either dems or repubs have any kind of vision to tackle the really big intractible problems facing us.
    So, I am only slightly heartened by this poling data. Too many lies out of both camps. There is no getting the wash out of washington.

  • I’m just not excited about the numbers.

    Maybe because I’m a Republican.

    Nah, just kidding, if I leaned anymore to the left, Bob Vila would nail a support beam to my femur. But I’m still not psyched about the number.

    Even taking the leaning of Independents into account, 7% still seems to be in the margin of error, with plenty of time for right-wing propaganda to twist people’s minds around.

  • I think there is some merit in these numbers. I think every voter believes that their mindset is the right one and they align themselves with the party that most closely fits their persective.

    These poll numbers show that the tag “conservative” is becoming meaningless. Because of Bush, no one knows whether being a conservative means favoring small government or big, fiscal prudence or irresponsibility, favoring a government that peaks in your windows or leaves you alone. The Republican political animal now resembles a Dr. Seuss creature: a strange collection of weird parts that don’t fit together in the real world.

    This is a great time to redefine conservative as a pejorative term and cast liberalism in a more favorable light.

  • A country is only politically stable only when the loyal opposition is sufficiently strong to hold the center, as in a tug-of-war with two equally strong opponent. The rope must be taught but not break. If the left capitulates or is not sufficiently strong, the center will move right, and if it moves right pass a certain threashold a leftist revolution will occur. On the other hand if the right is not sufficiently strong, the center will move left and once pass a certain threashold, a rightist revolution will occur. America gives its government surprising wide latitude, nonetheless even americans have its limits.

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