RE: CHANGE HAS CONSEQUENCES Democrats need to do better
The growing desire for change and anger with Washington and the disengagement from the Republicans and Bush have put the country at the edge of a political upheaval. The change mood has consequences, as Democrats win every argument by significant margins in the races for House and Senate. But the voters are ready for more change than that - enough to change control of the Congress - if the Democrats use every controversy to separate themselves from the Washington mess and define the choice, themselves and their policies. The voters are closing down on the Republicans and desperate for an alternative - as reflected in this survey.
The message of this poll is actually very simple. Voters are deeply discontented on Iraq, the economy, gas prices and health care, with the corruption and the failure to address problems. All this continues to deepen and the change mood is dominating our times. Barely a third want to continue with the country's direction or that of the Bush administration; only a quarter, the direction of the Congress; only a quarter now strongly identify with the president. Bush has lost the country but also his loyalists. The result is that the Democrats right now have twice as many enthusiastic supporters as the Republicans. As we said, change has consequences.
Contributing to the rising discontent on Iraq and the economy is a rising distrust of the administration and Congress on corruption and honesty. Other studies have documented the rising proportion who think the president misled the country on the war. This survey from Democracy Corps shows how the indictment of the Vice President's chief of staff elevates the sense of wrong doing on fundamental things at the heart of the White House.
The Position of Democrats
This survey and the others we have conducted over the last two months together show the Democrats with a very substantial lead in the contested Senate races - using the actual candidate names and looking at 6,000 interviews. In the same exercise, the Democrats have moved into a slight lead in the contested House seats - enough to make gains but not yet enough to take control. But Republican incumbents are only getting 54 percent of the vote on average - suggesting that a lot of their seats could be below 50 percent. If the Democrats take advantage of their op- portunities, the playing field in 2006 can be considerable larger.
The Democrats' overall image is better than the Republicans, as we saw in our last survey, but that does not mean Democrats have improved their standing. Yet there could be no bet- ter moment. Independents are unhinged: 39 percent are voting Democratic but 73 percent want a significant change in the direction of the Congress. There are almost twice as many voters newly winnable for Democrats as winnable for Republicans.
And as this poll shows, every issue is now an opportunity for definition.
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