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Tuesday, October 17, 2006
November 7: the 7% mark
This NPR poll highlights something Paul Krugman and others have noted, but isn't a major part of our political discussion. According to the poll (PDF), when asked:
And if the election for United States Congress were being held today, for whom would you vote ...
(ROTATE FIRST TWO CHOICES)
INCLUDE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE NAME FOR CORRESPONDING CD
INCLUDE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE NAME FOR CORRESPONDING CD
(IF GOP/DEM CHOICE, ASK:) And, would you DEFINITELY vote (choice) or just PROBABLY (choice)?
(IF UNDECIDED, ASK:) Which way do you lean as of today? Do you lean toward... (REPEAT AND ROTATE CANDIDATE NAMES:) (candidate name) ...or...(candidate name)?
When given the candidates' names, 50% of likely voters in the "most competitive" districts picked the Democratic candidate and 43% picked the Republican candidate. This 7% margin is significant, because due to the high concentration of Democratic voters in Democratic-leaning districts, Democrats need to beat Republicans by at least 7 percentage points to take control of the House. As Bob Somerby notes:
Dems will need to win by at least seven points! For the record, that’s what Mort Kondracke said last week. In April, Krugman estimated that Dems might need to win by 8-10 points to take control of the House.
To state the obvious, that’s a remarkable state of affairs. And here’s an equally remarkable fact—we Democrats never discuss it! We never discuss the fact that we need to win by at least seven points if we just want to break even! Is there a way to redistrict in various states which would reduce this “structural disadvantage?” Who knows? We’re Democrats! We don’t seem to care! To all appearances, our leaders are perfectly happy to keep finishing second, as we have told you before.
(Internal links removed.)
Not only to Democrats have to win in November, they have to beat the spread, which runs from -7 to -10, depending on who does the math. Just one more factor to consider come November 8.
