Which way will voters go in November—and who’ll be in charge of Congress afterwards?
About the only positive sign for the Democrats at the moment is President Barack Obama's personal approval rating, which is holding steady at around 45 per cent. (In comparison, George W Bush's approval rating as he left office was 22 per cent.) But that figure relies heavily on Obama's sky-high approval rating of 91 per cent among African-Americans; among white Americans, his rating is around 38 per cent. And whites are traditionally far more likely to vote in midterm elections, which are next coming up in November. Around a third of the 100 Senate seats and all the House seats will be up for re-election then. The Democrats could lose control of both houses of Congress. And recent history does not bode well for them. Out of those who voted in the 2006 midterms, 79 per cent were white. In the 2008 elections, which included a vote for president and thus resulted in a bigger turnout, only 74 per cent were white. But if, as you would expect, the white percentage of the vote this year reverts to the 2006 level, there will be 3m more white voters than in 2008. The Dems can usually rely on the female vote. But a June NBC poll put Obama's approval rating among white women was at 35 per cent—lower, shockingly, than among white males (37 per cent). A Pew Research poll in July found that Republicans were more determined to vote than at any time since the 1994 midterms, when they took control of the House during Bill Clinton's first term. So the Democrats are putting a lot of effort into bringing out the black and the youth vote. Under 30s tend to be Democrats, but it will be a stretch to get half of them to turn out—the young unemployed aren't easy to find or get to the polls. By contrast, as many as 75 per cent of the over-50s vote in midterms, and they lean Republican. Of independent voters, 44 per cent intend to vote Republican and 36 per cent Democrat. A lot of close races are in constituencies with a high proportion of blue-collar Democrats, hardest hit by unemployment. And the Republicans are trumpeting a new misery index—default and foreclosure rates on mortgages. In those happy days of spring 2006 it stood at 5 per cent, but it is now hitting 15 per cent. Obama's star strategist, David Plouffe, may have been clutching at straws when he told the Washington Post "I think the prospect of a Republican takeover... will help us with turnout and some of this enthusiasm gap." At the moment, it looks as though the Democrats will cling to a narrow lead in the Senate. But control of the House of Representatives will hinge on the campaign, and Harold Macmillan's old warning about "Events, dear boy, events." Romney to the rescue The Republicans have their own problems, starting with the Tea party activists, who seem to be leaching away a lot of the money that would have gone to the Republican National Committee. Its fundraising target has been lowered by $12.2m, which means a third less money for election staffing and get-out-the-vote operations. To the rescue comes Mitt Romney, the millionaire and former governor of Massachusetts who ran unsuccessfully for the last Republican presidential nomination. Romney has just donated $35,000 to the New Hampshire Republican party. He's given $42,000 to the campaign of Nikki Haley (born Nimrata Randhawa) who is bidding to become America's first Indian-American female governor in South Carolina. And he's donated $10,000 to Terry Branstad, a former governor of Iowa who is running for the job again. Not coincidentally, these three states hold the first, critical primaries and caucuses in the race to be each party's presidential candidate. Romney's most dramatic move, though, came on the eve of 4th July, when he called the new nuclear arms treaty with Russia Obama's "worst foreign policy mistake." The Start treaty, which cuts nuclear warheads from 2,200 to 1,550, is supported by a bipartisan cavalcade of former secretaries of state and defence, including George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, and even John McCain. Romney said (wrongly) that the treaty would give Russia a veto over US missile-defence plans and a "massive nuclear weapon advantage." So can the treaty get the two-thirds majority in the Senate that it needs to pass? Republican whip Jon Kyl of Arizona is sure he can find the 34 votes needed to block it. After the failures of Kyoto and the test-ban treaty, it looks like any serious treaty will have problems getting past this hurdle. With plans to cut defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP, Republicans are set to make their traditional rallying cry that the Dems are soft on national security. (Even with the cut, America would spend $450bn on defence, more than China, Russia, Japan and the rest of Nato combined.) Romney condemned the planned reduction in the number of combat ships, a plan drawn up by the Obama administration's token Republican, defence secretary Robert Gates. Romney is going after Gates, whom he has previously hailed as an outstanding Pentagon chief, because he cannot afford to be less gung-ho on defence than his likely rival for the 2012 Republican nomination, Sarah Palin. Time-wasting app for iPad Charles Djou, the newly elected Republican congressman from Hawaii, has made history by becoming the first member of congress to use an iPad during a speech. The gadget sent clerks scurrying to the rule books—notebook computers are prohibited, but BlackBerrys are allowed and the jury is still out on iPhones. The iPad is too new to be in the rules, so Djou got to go ahead. This will be a gift to filibusters, allowing time-wasting lawmakers to read out the entire contents of the Library of Congress if they choose. On the upside, they might actually read some of the legislation that they usually pass on the nod.
About the only positive sign for the Democrats at the moment is President Barack Obama's personal approval rating, which is holding steady at around 45 per cent. (In comparison, George W Bush's approval rating as he left office was 22 per cent.) But that figure relies heavily on Obama's sky-high approval rating of 91 per cent among African-Americans; among white Americans, his rating is around 38 per cent. And whites are traditionally far more likely to vote in midterm elections, which are next coming up in November. Around a third of the 100 Senate seats and all the House seats will be up for re-election then. The Democrats could lose control of both houses of Congress. And recent history does not bode well for them. Out of those who voted in the 2006 midterms, 79 per cent were white. In the 2008 elections, which included a vote for president and thus resulted in a bigger turnout, only 74 per cent were white. But if, as you would expect, the white percentage of the vote this year reverts to the 2006 level, there will be 3m more white voters than in 2008. The Dems can usually rely on the female vote. But a June NBC poll put Obama's approval rating among white women was at 35 per cent—lower, shockingly, than among white males (37 per cent). A Pew Research poll in July found that Republicans were more determined to vote than at any time since the 1994 midterms, when they took control of the House during Bill Clinton's first term. So the Democrats are putting a lot of effort into bringing out the black and the youth vote. Under 30s tend to be Democrats, but it will be a stretch to get half of them to turn out—the young unemployed aren't easy to find or get to the polls. By contrast, as many as 75 per cent of the over-50s vote in midterms, and they lean Republican. Of independent voters, 44 per cent intend to vote Republican and 36 per cent Democrat. A lot of close races are in constituencies with a high proportion of blue-collar Democrats, hardest hit by unemployment. And the Republicans are trumpeting a new misery index—default and foreclosure rates on mortgages. In those happy days of spring 2006 it stood at 5 per cent, but it is now hitting 15 per cent. Obama's star strategist, David Plouffe, may have been clutching at straws when he told the Washington Post "I think the prospect of a Republican takeover... will help us with turnout and some of this enthusiasm gap." At the moment, it looks as though the Democrats will cling to a narrow lead in the Senate. But control of the House of Representatives will hinge on the campaign, and Harold Macmillan's old warning about "Events, dear boy, events." Romney to the rescue The Republicans have their own problems, starting with the Tea party activists, who seem to be leaching away a lot of the money that would have gone to the Republican National Committee. Its fundraising target has been lowered by $12.2m, which means a third less money for election staffing and get-out-the-vote operations. To the rescue comes Mitt Romney, the millionaire and former governor of Massachusetts who ran unsuccessfully for the last Republican presidential nomination. Romney has just donated $35,000 to the New Hampshire Republican party. He's given $42,000 to the campaign of Nikki Haley (born Nimrata Randhawa) who is bidding to become America's first Indian-American female governor in South Carolina. And he's donated $10,000 to Terry Branstad, a former governor of Iowa who is running for the job again. Not coincidentally, these three states hold the first, critical primaries and caucuses in the race to be each party's presidential candidate. Romney's most dramatic move, though, came on the eve of 4th July, when he called the new nuclear arms treaty with Russia Obama's "worst foreign policy mistake." The Start treaty, which cuts nuclear warheads from 2,200 to 1,550, is supported by a bipartisan cavalcade of former secretaries of state and defence, including George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, and even John McCain. Romney said (wrongly) that the treaty would give Russia a veto over US missile-defence plans and a "massive nuclear weapon advantage." So can the treaty get the two-thirds majority in the Senate that it needs to pass? Republican whip Jon Kyl of Arizona is sure he can find the 34 votes needed to block it. After the failures of Kyoto and the test-ban treaty, it looks like any serious treaty will have problems getting past this hurdle. With plans to cut defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP, Republicans are set to make their traditional rallying cry that the Dems are soft on national security. (Even with the cut, America would spend $450bn on defence, more than China, Russia, Japan and the rest of Nato combined.) Romney condemned the planned reduction in the number of combat ships, a plan drawn up by the Obama administration's token Republican, defence secretary Robert Gates. Romney is going after Gates, whom he has previously hailed as an outstanding Pentagon chief, because he cannot afford to be less gung-ho on defence than his likely rival for the 2012 Republican nomination, Sarah Palin. Time-wasting app for iPad Charles Djou, the newly elected Republican congressman from Hawaii, has made history by becoming the first member of congress to use an iPad during a speech. The gadget sent clerks scurrying to the rule books—notebook computers are prohibited, but BlackBerrys are allowed and the jury is still out on iPhones. The iPad is too new to be in the rules, so Djou got to go ahead. This will be a gift to filibusters, allowing time-wasting lawmakers to read out the entire contents of the Library of Congress if they choose. On the upside, they might actually read some of the legislation that they usually pass on the nod.
