California's the deepest of blue states, but then again, they say he's a "light worker."
From George Skelton, at LAT, "California Democrats are facing risk of voter turnoff":
President Obama's popularity is falling even in California, a deep-blue state he has won twice by landslides. It means Democratic politicians should worry about suffering fatal falls in the polling booths next November.This is all very interesting, but Obama won California last year with nearly 60 percent of the vote. We're deep blue, and marinated in disgusting left-wing collectivism and moral depravity.
That's not necessarily because voters turned off by the president will take it out on Democratic congressional and legislative candidates, although some of that could happen. More important, Democratic voters may be so disenchanted with Washington and politics generally that they don't turn out to cast ballots at all.
And there's little on the horizon in California to excite them about voting. A gubernatorial race between Gov. Jerry Brown and some obscure Republican won't be a draw.
A USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll last month found widespread ambivalence about the Democratic governor. More than half of those surveyed approved of his job performance, but less than a third said they were inclined to reelect him.
Of course, Republicans are staring at their own turnout dilemma. There's no sign of a strong gubernatorial candidate at the top of the ticket to attract GOP voters to the polls.
But small-turnout elections tend to benefit Republicans, whose voters habitually cast ballots more consistently. Just look at some recent special elections to fill legislative vacancies, where turnouts have been dismal and Republicans have fared better than expected. They picked up one state Senate seat in the southern San Joaquin Valley.
"How enthusiastic will the voters who supported the president in 2012 be about voting in 2014?" asks Mark Baldassare, president and pollster of the Public Policy Institute of California. "From a Democratic perspective, it raises some concerns....
In a poll released Wednesday, the policy institute found that Obama's approval rating had dropped 10 points since July and now is at 51% among California adults, with disapproval at 45%. That matches a record low from 2011. Among likely voters, slightly more disapprove of his performance than approve.
But Congress? A scant 10% of likely voters approve of how it's working.
The Field Poll released a similar survey Tuesday, showing 51% approval and 43% disapproval of Obama's job performance among a third group, registered voters — an eight-point increase in negativity since July. It's his worst showing in two years.
Blame the embarrassing rollout and broken promises of the president's signature program, Obamacare. But the pollsters also cite two other things that have upset Obama's Democratic base: His failure to achieve immigration reform. And his National Security Agency's spying on American citizens and foreign leaders.
Obama's rollout of the Affordable Care Act website was "seen as inept," says Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo.
And although California developed its own website that has been relatively successful, the national media spotlight has been focused on the federal fiasco. "It creates a lot of anxiety" among Californians, Baldassare says. "People think 'somehow it's going to affect me. What else isn't going to go well?' It's a lack of confidence more than anything."
But hey, things aren't getting better, and Californians are pragmatic people. Perhaps folks will rip the wool off their eyes and say, "WTF!"
I'll be following up on this, in any case. Obama could possible force a realignment in the strongest of Democrat strongholds.
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