CHARLES BLOW, N.Y. TIMES
Republicans may have bet too heavily on the wrong issue going into the midterm elections.
When the health care law’s website wasn’t working, the law itself was at its most unpopular and its most newsworthy, and the president’s poll numbers were cratering, many Republicans made the calculation that they could ride the wave of woe to an overwhelming electoral victory in November.
But betting on stasis is stupid. Things change.
The White House called in the geek squad, and they fixed the site. Last week, the White House also announced that four million people have now enrolled in the health care program. The president’s poll numbers have stabilized, albeit in negative territory. The news winds shifted. And Democrats have found an issue that they can campaign on and that America likes — helping the working class through things like raising the minimum wage.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll released Wednesday found that 50 percent of respondents would be more likely to vote for a congressional candidate who supports increasing the minimum wage, as opposed to 19 percent who said that they were less likely. Twenty-eight percent said that it wouldn’t make a difference.
A closer look at the numbers reveals that 72 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of the all-important independents would be more likely to vote for candidates who support the increase.
The same poll found that 34 percent of respondents are more likely to vote for candidates who support the federal health care law, while 36 percent are less likely to vote for them and 27 percent said it wouldn’t make a difference.
The strength in these numbers is obviously on the side of what the Democrats are for, rather than what the Republicans are against.
This is by no means the determining factor for the midterms, but the sense of impending doom among Democrats is beginning to ease.
To be sure, there are still issues. The health care law remains unpopular, and Obama keeps adjusting the rules that govern it. It remains unclear whether the program will sign up enough young, healthy people to make it work as desired. As CNN put it:
“For months, administration officials embraced CBO estimates anticipating that 18- to 34-year-olds would comprise roughly 40 percent of the total. The current number is about 27 percent.”
And as The New York Times pointed out last week, polls show that Republicans maintain a small electoral edge. The independents in the poll — a majority of whom were white or male or under age 45 — continued to sour on President Obama’s job performance. Republicans hold their edge despite the fissures in their party over whether it is too conservative or not conservative enough, and many are discouraged about the party’s future.
But small is the operative word here. As the paper pointed out, “42 percent say they will back Republicans in November, and 39 percent indicate that they will back Democrats, a difference within the poll’s margin of sampling error.”