Communications

Midterm elections have historically been an opportunity for the electorate to send the president and his administration a message. Just as the current Administration prefers to believe its policies are unpopular due to a public relations problem rather than admit that they have led our country in the wrong direction, the White House would like to believe that this year’s midterms are anything but a referendum on the President – after all last year’s weren’t either (or so they say).

Leading up to last year’s Republican victories in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races, the Obama Administration staunchly denied that the GOP’s looming victories were a referendum on the President and his agenda. In Massachusetts, then-candidate Scott Brown made being the 41^st vote against ObamaCare the crux of his campaign, and won a seat in the United States Senate that had been held by Democrats since 1953. Even then according to the Obama Administration, his unprecedented victory was anything but a referendum. One 2.5 trillion dollar – thousand page takeover of health care later (amongst a host of other legislative offenses and policy shortfalls), President Obama and his party are on the brink of losing Congress.

The victories of 2009 put forth a ripple that has since grown into a wave that threatens to sweep Democrats from power in both the House and the Senate. Now, despite being faced with substantial losses, the Obama White House continues to play coy with the idea that the 2010 midterms will be a referendum on its policies. Certainly, this is less than reassuring for nervous Congressional Democrats who will actually have to face the voters this fall.

But a poll released yesterday by The Hill, which was sponsored by the American Natural Gas Alliance and conducted by Penn Schoen Berland, confirms that this year’s midterms are an undeniable referendum on President Obama. The survey, which polled 12 battleground House districts represented by freshman Democrats, finds that Republicans are winning in 11 and statistically tied in the 12^th. The clincher here is that the poll reveals more than “two-thirds of voters in key battleground districts said that President Obama would be a factor in their decision when they choose their next member of Congress.” The simple fact that Democrats are leading in none of the races where President Obama is a clear factor shows that not only is 2010 a referendum on his administration and its policies, but that the White House and their fellow Democrats have ample reason to worry.