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Fridays with Erick Erickson
Daily Events...
He’s the favorite to
win, but...
He is still the favorite to win. He is the incumbent President of the
United States. He flies on a big blue airplane that gives him free
media exposure whenever he lands. He gets to bring along politicians
with whom he can curry favor. It is hard to pick off an incumbent
President.
But there are warning signs on the horizon for Mr. Obama. It is not
just a sagging economy that may actually be on the way down, not up.
Battleground state voters are leaving the Democratic Party. According
to National Journal, “Over 825,000 registered Democrats in Colorado,
Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina and
Pennsylvania have departed the party rolls since President Obama’s
election in 2008.”
USA Today reports that Republicans have become resurgent in key swing
states too. “Since the heady days of 2008, a new USA TODAY/Gallup Swing
States Poll finds the number of voters who identify themselves as
Democratic or Democratic-leaning in these key states has eroded, down
by 4 percentage points, while the ranks of Republicans have climbed by
5 points.” Republican voters are also paying more attention and are
more engaged. In key swing states, Obama trails both Romney and
Gingrich.
“But wait,” the television pitch man might say, “there’s more!” A
Harvard University survey “of more than 2,000 young voters, age 18 to
29, finds their support for Obama, so crucial to his 2008 victory, has
dwindled.” The kids still like their Obamessiah more than they generic
Republican, but they think he is going to lose. An Associated Press-GfK
poll “finds a majority of American adults (52%) say the Democrat should
be defeated come Nov. 6, while only 43% say he deserves a second term.”
And Obama’s divide and conquer strategy of pitting haves and have-nots
against each other might not work. In addition to it running against
the grain of the individualist DNA Americans have in them, a new Gallup
poll suggests Obama’s class warfare strategy might actually backfire.
It is always hard to beat an incumbent. But Barack Obama is making it
easier than it has been since Carter was President.
—Erick Erickson
Read this and other columns at Daily Events
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