Don't Believe the Hype About 2010 Republican Resurgence

About once a week I see an editorial about how screwed the Democrats are going into the 2010 election. I understand why these pundits are saying this--it's because they just can't help getting shit wrong. I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans don't make some modest gains, simply because so many distracts have gone Democratic, but the landslide they hoped they would get by denying President Obama even the slightest cooperation, will not happen.

Nate Silver looks at all the moving pieces here. Nate isolates the most important factor in determining the outcome of the 2010 election--enthusiasm. And while the teabagging phenomenon has been depicted in the media as a real movement, we will see that by election time the metrics that measure enthusiasm will be a lot closer than people think.

Greg Sargent writes:

If you look at the generic Congressional matchup in the internals of the new Washington Post poll, you’ll see that the Dem advantage over the GOP is virtually identical to what it was heading into the two previous Congressional elections.

Right now, the poll finds that when respondents are asked whether they will vote for a Dem or a GOPer in the 2010 elections, 51% pick the Dem and 39% pick the Republican.

In June of 2008 (the most recent historical data in the WaPo poll), Dems led the generic matchup 52%-37%. And in early November of 2006 the Dem lead was 51%-45%. Today the spread is largely unchanged.

As DemFromCT points out that in this poll, only 20 percent of adults identify themselves as Republicans, the lowest in this poll since 1983. They can be as enthusiastic as they want, they're only 20%. I would also like to point out that with the delayed effects of the stimulus kicking in more heavily in 2010 and with the looming passage of some semblence of health care reform, enthusiasm could be high on both sides.

Chris Kofinis spoke to Keith Olbermann about the ongoing poor performance of the GOP in poll after poll.