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Party Opinion Usurps Public Opinion

By Bill Schneider

We are witnessing the slow death of public opinion in this country.  It’s being displaced by party opinion.

These days, more and more Americans are inclined to judge issues from a partisan viewpoint.  In March, according to a Pew Research Center survey, twice as many Republicans (53 percent) as Democrats (27 percent) said the economy was poor.  Yet, from everything we know, Republicans are not suffering more economic deprivation than Democrats.

Elections today are less and less about persuasion and more and more about mobilization: You rally your supporters in order to beat back your opponents.  Republicans did that in 2004, when President George W. Bush got re-elected with 51 percent of the vote. Democrats did that in 2012, when President Barack Obama got re-elected with 51 percent of the vote.

Republicans today are all fired up over the controversies involving the Internal Revenue Service, the State Department and the Justice Department.  They see Watergate.

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Will Minn. lawmakers face retribution for gay marriage vote?

As Minnesota lawmakers voted to support gay marriage, some knew it was a vote that could cost them their jobs.

One lawmaker feeling heat is Rep. Joe Radinovich, a Democrat from Crosby, who called his support of gay marriage, “the right thing to do.”

Radinovich represents a district that supported a constitutional ban on gay marriage last November and a recall effort is now underway.

In his speech on the Senate floor Tuesday before voting to support gay marriage, Sen. Branden Petersen, a Republican from Andover, openly wondered what impact the vote would have on his political future.

“You’re going to see a few races where it might make a difference,” says Hamline University professor David Schultz.

While Schultz believes a handful of lawmakers could be at risk for their votes on gay marriage, he cautions that the next elections are far off.

The Minnesota Senate isn’t up for re-election until November 2016. House members are up for re-election in November 2014.

“As they always say, in politics a week is an eternity. Eighteen months is more than an eternity,” says Schultz.

Lawmakers in other states that have approved gay marriage have not seen a backlash.

Third Way, a national think tank, studied Washington state and New York where a whopping 97 percent of lawmakers who voted for gay marriage and ran for re-election, won.

“It gets back to the fact that once something is law, once people get used to it, then they are less likely to take it against people in terms of how they are going to vote,” says Schultz.

Schultz believes the lawmakers most at-risk for their marriage vote, are lawmakers who would have been at-risk anyway for a variety of other issues.

“I think it’s going to be the bread and butter issues about taxes, the budget and the economy,” says Schultz.

“Voters go on a journey but it’s a one way journey… Once you support same-sex marriage you’re not going to go back. If you’re evolving on that issue you’re evolving in one direction.”

Third Way’s Jim Kessler discussing marriage equality in “Gays, God, But Not Guns - How Culture War Politics Has Changed And How It Hasn’t.”

The price of defying your base

By Bill Schneider

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Defying your base is always risky. It can either bring you down — or it can make you look stronger.

Right now, politicians in both parties are trying to pull it off.  Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) – a likely contender for the 2016 Republican nomination – is preparing to challenge conservatives on immigration reform. President Barack Obama is defying liberals on entitlement reform. What are they thinking?

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Recognition Rising This graphic provides a snapshot of the dramatic transformation of public opinion in favor of legal relationship recognition for gay and lesbian couples. In 1996, DOMA was thought to have ended the debate on marriage. But it seems to have been only the beginning of a more profound shift in favor of gay and lesbian couples. You can download a pdf here, or share this image via Flickr.

Recognition Rising

This graphic provides a snapshot of the dramatic transformation of public opinion in favor of legal relationship recognition for gay and lesbian couples. In 1996, DOMA was thought to have ended the debate on marriage. But it seems to have been only the beginning of a more profound shift in favor of gay and lesbian couples.

You can download a pdf here, or share this image via Flickr.

How Democrats Misread Polling on Gun Control

Despite widespread support for gun regulations, intensity is on the NRA’s side.

by Matt Vasilogambros, The National Journal

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., says she is not done advocating for an assault-weapons ban. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Proponents of gun-control legislation, emboldened by the president’s call for stricter laws and overwhelming support in public polling, have been optimistic that proposals for background checks or a crackdown on weapons trafficking could pass Congress. Gun-control advocates have cited plenty of data to make their case, including surveys that show more than 80 percent of Americans support background checks.

Even a ban on assault weapons, which has been a more polarizing issue, still wins majority support in many surveys.

But these polls may gloss over some complexities in public opinion on gun control, and explain why Democrats are having so much trouble winning congressional support for even the most modest gun regulations.

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Report: Lawmakers who support marriage equality overwhelmingly win re-election

A new report released Tuesday by Freedom to Marry and Third Way, found that state legislators who vote in favor of marriage for same-sex couples overwhelmingly win voter support when running for reelection.

Based on election results in two states that passed freedom to marry laws in the 2011-2012 legislative cycle and whose members stood for reelection — New York and Washington state — the analysis, “Pro-Marriage Legislators Win Elections,” finds that pro-marriage legislators who ran for reelection won 97 percent of the time.

This is significantly higher than the national incumbent re-election average of 90 percent in 2012.

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Parties are becoming increasingly ideologically homogeneous, more and more Americans are identifying themselves as independents. An August 2012 Third Way study found that both Republican and Democratic registrations dropped from 2008 to 2012 in five of the eight battleground states that register voters by party, while independent registrations jumped in six of the eight.

In the states wher parties hold closed primaries, the voter pool is more ideologically driven, making it more likely a hard-core liberal or conservative will emerge from the primary, no matter how competitive the district is. That’s true in 24 states for Republicans; 19 for Democrats.

— National Journal on “Why Reforming the Primary Process Would Produce a More Productive Congress”

Voters Become More Realistic Than Political Parties About Fiscal Cliff

By Eleanor Clift, The Daily Beast

Obama and the Democrats have treated entitlement reform like an untouchable third rail, but new polls indicate that the electorate is out in front of both parties when it comes to demanding real improvements.

The voters gave President Obama a second term, and now he’s counting on them to help him resolve the fiscal cliff in a responsible way. You’d think people would be weary of hearing about an economic issue that so far is all talk and no action. But a Pew Research Center survey found that more Americans followed the debate over the fiscal cliff more closely than they watched the sex, lies, and emails that led to the resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus, a testament to the public’s ability to sort through what most affects their own lives and pocketbooks.

(Carolyn Kaster / AP Photo)

Obama spent the better part of this year campaigning for a balanced approach to bring down the deficit. That means reining in the country’s most cherished entitlement programs—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—in addition to raising taxes on the top 2 percent of households. A poll commissioned by Third Way, a moderate Democratic group, found that the coalition that elected Obama overwhelmingly backs a compromise that would include entitlement reform, a third rail that Democrats have long avoided touching.

The numbers reflect a new awareness even among liberals that the programs they feel are essential must be part of any grand compromise reached by Obama and the Republicans. Eighty-three percent of Obama voters say that reducing the deficit must be an important priority, and 79 percent say it would be better for Congress to address Social Security and Medicare than to do nothing.

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The Politics of National Security: Debate Edition

A review of recent public polling confirms the main findings of our 2012 focus groups: this election features a Democratic President with some of his strongest ratings in national security. This is extraordinary after four decades of Republican dominance on security issues.

Set forth below are the most pertinent findings of recent, publicly available, polling data on national security issues. We offer results for Registered Voters (RV) and, where available, for Likely Voters (LV), Independent (IND) and moderate (MOD) voters.

Here’s a flavor:

  • International Affairs: Independents trust Obama over Romney on international affairs by 9 points.
  • Afghanistan: 58% of Independents support the President’s troop withdrawal plan.
  • Libya: 40% of Independents disapprove of the President’s handling of Libya.
  • Fighting Terrorism: 51% of Independents trust Obama over Romney on handling terrorism.

Want to know how Independent voters feel about the use of drones, Iran, and more? Read our memo, The Politics of National Security: Debate Edition.