Looming anti-Obama midterm vote may not carry through to 2012

A majority of voters see the midterm election as a referendum on Barack
Obama, but most have not decided whether they’ll vote against the
president in 2012, according to a poll by The Hill.

Seventy percent of respondents in The Hill’s latest survey of 10 battleground districts said their feelings about President Obama will play an important role in how they vote on Nov. 2.

That tracks closely with polling conducted by The Hill in other districts across the country during the past three weeks, where 69 percent of voters said Obama would affect their choices on Election Day.

{mosads}The focus on Obama was high among voters in both parties; 47 percent of Republicans in the latest poll said Obama would be a very important factor in their vote, while 46 percent of Democrats said the same thing.

Yet 54 percent of those polled said Republicans winning back control of Congress this year would have no impact on their vote in 2012. An even higher number of independents, 62 percent, said a Republican Congress would have no impact on their vote for president in 2012.

The results point to a paradox of the 2010 election: While it is clear voters worried about government spending and record deficits want to put a brake on the Obama administration, they do not appear to have given up on the president.

The results indicate voters want to see Obama move to the center and work more with Republicans, particularly on spending, said pollster Mark Penn of Penn Schoen Berland, which conducted the survey.

While Penn said that the 2010 election is “in many ways” a referendum on Obama, he added: “Voters didn’t see any direct correlation between who holds Congress and who they’ll vote for president.”

Obama has embraced the fact that the election is about him; White House spokesman Bill Burton on Monday described the president as being “in a fighting mood” on the way to a campaign event in Rhode Island.

In campaign appearances across the country, Obama has nationalized the election, asking voters to go to the polls to support Democrats in the House and Senate who cast key votes for healthcare reform and the economic stimulus package, two pieces of legislation dragging many Democrats down in the polls this year.

“My name may not be on the ballot, but our agenda for moving forward is on the ballot, and I need everybody to turn out,” Obama said Tuesday afternoon during an appearance on the Rev. Al Sharpton’s radio show.

Obama visited California, Oregon, Washington state and Nevada last week, flew to Rhode Island on Monday and heads to Connecticut, Chicago, Philadelphia and Cleveland before Election Day. At each stop on the trail, he warns voters that Republicans want to regain control of Congress to roll back his agenda and reinstate policies from the George W. Bush years.

The White House is all too aware that the deficit is weighing on the minds of voters. The president has tailored his stump speech to include calls for more fiscal responsibility.

In recent weeks, the president has repeatedly criticized Republicans for wanting to spend $700 billion on tax cuts for the wealthy, and on Monday night, Obama said spending needs to be cut with a “scalpel” and not in a “knee-jerk” manner.

Obama has no choice but to make the case for Democratic candidates, since midterms are almost always referendums on the party in power. Typically the president’s side loses seats in Congress, though former President George W. Bush bucked the trend in 2002, in part because of worries over terrorism and a surge of support after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2011.

Republicans are also nationalizing the election. Advertisements across the country in House and Senate races attack Democrats in office as being pawns of Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

There are historical parallels for both Republicans and Democrats in The Hill’s poll numbers, and Penn said both parties will learn lessons from the election.

If Obama does move to the center and attempt to work with Republicans, he could find voters returning to the fold in 2012, Penn said. The president has offered signals in recent weeks that he plans to do so.

Another key factor in 2012 will be the economy, which has been a drag on Obama from the day he took office. An economic rebound could fuel a comeback for Obama reminiscent of President Clinton’s victory in 1996. 

Republicans, on the other hand, must be wary of overreaching as they did in 1994, when they last won a House majority. After that historic election, Republicans hoped to unseat Clinton, but failed after voters blamed them for shutting down the government.

In an interview with National Journal this week, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said the top priority for his party after 2010 would be to ensure that Obama is a one-term president.

“Republicans have to learn not to get overconfident, or voters could deliver an equally strong message to them in two years,” warned Penn, an adviser to Clinton who remembers the comeback after 1994.

Another problem for Republicans is that while voters have soured on Obama and Democrats, they are not happy with the GOP, either. Only about 30 percent of those surveyed by Gallup approved of the way Republicans in Congress are handling their jobs, a slightly lower mark than what Democrats were given.

—Sam Youngman contributed to this story.