POS, with the help of data from the Gallup Organization and information from our friends at National Journal and The Cook Political Report, took a look at how presidential approval effected mid-term House losses for the President’s party in every mid-term election since 1962. The results were staggering. If the President’s approval rating was 60% or higher, the President’s party picked up an average of 1 seat. If the approval rating was between 50 and 59%, the average loss was 12 seats. Finally, if the President’s approval rating was below 50%, the average loss was 41 seats (one seat more than the 40 seats GOPers need to win back control of the House).
Related:
Gallup finds that self proclaimed Conservatives outnumber both moderates and liberals.
The increased conservatism that Gallup first identified among Americans last June persisted throughout the year, so that the final year-end political ideology figures confirm Gallup's initial reporting: conservatives (40%) outnumbered both moderates (36%) and liberals (21%) across the nation in 2009.
The Moderate Voice sums it up nicely:
Two new Gallup polls spell mega-trouble for the Democratic party: one finds that the Democratic party has now effectively lost the support it gained during the presidency of George W. Bush — and the second shows that independents now leaving the “independent” category are becoming conservatives.
Commentary Magazine:
In other words, the more the voters saw of the Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress, the less they liked them and the more conservative they became. The politicians who can capture that backlash will do well in 2010. Those who defend the Obama agenda and its handiwork, I suspect, will have a tough time of it.
Obama has given back all the political goodwill that brought over the top in the 2008 elections and the lower his approval goes, the more seats Republicans will take in the November 2010 elections.
Obama is not completely to blame though here, the Democratically controlled Senate and House, led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, have passed bills so objectionable to moderates and Independents that they have to take their fair share of the blame for their plunging credibility and polling numbers being seen in the individual races.
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