Jay Weber Show transcript 7-25-22
The Rasmussen poll has republicans leading by a full ten points in the so-called ‘generic ballot’ question.
This is a ‘baseline’ question that virtually all pollsters ask: if the election was held today, would you vote for republicans for congress? Or democrats?
And in the history of this polling question, the democrats virtually always lead it. And they do, because more Americans call themselves democrats than republicans...and it has been this way since FDR, or before. It’s just a ‘given’ in the modern era that democrats are nearly always going to lead in this question.
And so, in the rare instances in which the results are inverted-and republicans lead-even by one or two points- democrat strategists and insiders start getting nervous.
And they do-because-history shows that there have been ‘wipe out’ elections for democrats when the republicans lead by just a few points on this question. Just....two or three points. Has been a harbinger of past ‘catastrophes’ for the party.
And i don’t want to oversell the importance of this question. Don’t hear this as a ‘guarantee’ of a red tsunami coming in fall...
But...this is the history of this question. And currently, most polling units only have the republicans leading by a few points. I think the real clear politics rolling average of the last two weeks of polls puts the republicans at something like...plus two...on the generic ballot question- and so- a slight GOP advantage.
But Rasmussen’s number has been higher, and on Friday, was plus-ten.
Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
So, we get more validation that the Dobbs decision-is not- moving voters the way the democrats expected it to...which isn’t surprising to anyone in this audience. We knew better.
And as for what could move these numbers back the other way before fall? I genuinely-do not know. There are always last-minute surprises, sure, but the overall trajectory of this fall election seems ‘baked in’. It’s not a question of whether democrats will lose seats-
It's a matter of ‘how many’, and what might help the dems mitigate their losses.
Charles Lipton of RealClearPolitics- is a smart man-and he sees only one thing that could potentially change the tide now: Donald Trump announcing he’s running in 2024, before this election is over, giving the democrats and their disillusioned voters a rallying point.
I agree with him-it’s smarter for trump to wait- and we’ll get to that in a minute-but this Rasmussen poll shows republicans with a seventeen-point lead among independents, which is huge, as well as a ten-point advantage among the members of each party.
and this is where we can see Biden’s -dreadful-presidency turning off members of his own party.
So, the republican advantages in fall- four months out- are crystal clear.
There has never been any real doubt that the republicans will retake the house-given that they only need five seats to do so-and as many as 40 democrats are vulnerable now...
But the fate of the senate has been less clear: traditional wisdom is that there are as many as six or seven democrat senate seats ‘in play’ here, and only two real GOP seats ‘in play’, including our own Ron Johnson...which i see as keeping his seat-
And so, conventional wisdom is that control of the senate could still go either way.
Newt Gingrich has a different take, though. His take is: look, if it’s a ‘wave’ election, it’s a ‘wave’ election. Which is a basic take that i also agree with.
Newt says-most pundits are looking at these senate races individually-as in ‘can Ron Johnson beat Mandela Barnes’...and ‘can Hershel Walker beat Raphael Warnock’.... etc.
But-if we are going to see large ‘anti-Dem’ turnout...and virtually everyone votes ‘straight ticket’...then...the most likely outcome is that several Dem senators get washed out to sea, too.
In fact, newt says, republican candidates can help themselves by nationalizing their races, instead of making them personality contests.
Then he walks thru the 1980 and 1994 campaigns that he participated in, as an active politician, and they had a similar pattern. The ‘bigger state of affairs’ was what voters reacted to, as they pushed a group of incompetent democrats out to sea.
We-should-see the same sort of thing, come fall, given that all of Joe Biden’s blunders are also-the party’s-blunders.
They want to blame Biden for everything-but those dc democrats and party leaders had a significant hand in everything: from urging Biden to kill off the keystone and block drilling-driving up gas prices-
To championing a reversal of trump’s closed border policies and reopening the border.
To voting for that disastrous and unnecessary final covid relief bill that-they knew-would touch off inflation-
To adopting Bernie and AOC’s six-trillion-dollar attempt to force socialism on us.
All of it-democrats had a hand in. Pelosi, Schumer, Baldwin, Pocan...all of them pushed it, and voted for it, too.
Their party-and their candidates- own it.
Even the candidates who aren’t incumbents.
Here in Wisconsin Ron Johnson will be taking on either Mandela Barnes or Alex Lasry-and while they don’t have the official voting record of an incumbent- they do have a clear record of supporting -everything-that Biden, Schumer, Pelosi, and the party have been pushing over the last eighteen months.
Barnes has made it clear in speeches and in social media- he is in lock step with the most radical wing of the dem congressional caucus. He was
Mr. Abolish ice, defund the police, six trillion for socialism, force covid mandates on everyone- all of it. Mandela was ‘up’ for all that unpopular extremism. As was Alex Lasry.
Gingrich’s point is-they need to own it and answer for it, in their race against Johnson.
And if republican candidates and the republican party can make them- it’ll be another red tsunami year.
And I agree.
And as to what could still change the trajectory of this fall race? What could keep them from suffering major losses? My answer is- almost nothing.
There is-nothing-that i see on the horizon as being big enough of an issue to turn things around for them, or even greatly mitigate their losses.
The only -possible-significant event that hangs out there as an ‘unforced error’ is if Donald Trump really just can’t control himself-and wait until November 10th to announce he’s officially running in 2024.
And to be clear: even an early trump announcement wouldn’t be guaranteed to backfire on the GOP or be guaranteed to dramatically save several sitting democrats-
But why even take the chance?
Charles Lipson of RealClearPolitics-is- a smart man and goes on to make the point that- just 18 months ago- the American people -in choosing Biden- said ‘anybody but trump’....and Trump’s popularity has only slid since then—
As in-you’d think trump would be looking better again, in contrast to Biden, but so far, he’s not. To the point that the left’s smearing of Donald Trump may be more effective, now, than it’s ever been. Why give them a convenient new target for fall-when they have -zero-other issues to run on.
Everything is terrible for them. Why toss them a potential lifeline?
Which has been my position on trump announcing early. This fall will be bad for democrats, if we just sit back, keep forcing them into owning the Biden era, and have them further embarrassing themselves.
One left wing pundit today says that democrats -have to run-on social issues, because they’ve screwed up everything else so badly.
But they also suck on the social issues!!
We’ll get to that, later.
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