Honeymoon’s over for Democratic Congress

Thursday, May 14th, 2009 | Misc |

Moe Lane points to some interesting trends in Rasmussen issue polling over the past few months, suggestingthe “Democrats Ascendant” storyline is not all it seems to be. Just before last year’s election, the Democrats had a 13 point edge on economic issues, which is now down to 1 point. They even had a 3 point edge on handling national security, but today the GOP has a 7 point lead on those issues (and a 2 point lead on Iraq). Similarly, on taxes a 5 point Democratic lead has become a 6 point Republican lead.

I expect the 2010 elections to be a partial repeat of the 1994 elections, in which a president watched his party lose control of Congress.

Going into the 1994 election the Democrats controlled 258 seats in the House of Represenatatives, while the Republicans controlled just 176. When the election results were tallied the Republicans took 54 of those seats, giving them a majority. Going into 2010 the numbers are 257 Democrats and 178 Republicans. With an historically bad economy the Republicans have the potential to stage an even bigger upset in the House than they did in 1994.

The story in the Senate will be different. With Specter’s defection the Democrats control 60 seats. I don’t have time to see how many Senate seats will be up for grabs in 2010, but I expect it would be very hard for the Republicans to take control. I have no doubt, however, that the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority will vanish.

I would consider that upset to be a good thing. The country is better off when one party controls the Congress and another party controls the Presidency. Gridlock is good.

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