2014 ndi 6ws – Fitzmier, Lundberg, Abelkop



Download 0.68 Mb.
Page15/21
Date19.10.2016
Size0.68 Mb.
#3944
1   ...   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   ...   21

Dems Win

AT: Turnout




Turnout won’t save Dems


Washington Post, 6/3 – (“Can turnout save the Democrats in 2014?”, The Washington Post, 6/3/14, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/06/03/can-turnout-save-the-democrats-in-2014/)//EX

Among respondents who voted in 2012, 48 percent supported the Democratic House candidate and 46 percent supported the Republican House candidate. That’s the Democratic advantage that we might expect in a presidential election. What about respondents who voted in 2010? This group does not include voters who turned out only in the presidential but not the midterm election. Among 2010 voters, the generic ballot results were reversed: 46 percent supported the Democratic House candidate and 48 percent supported the Republican candidate. In other words, switching from the 2012 electorate to the 2010 electorate shifted the generic ballot from a 2-point Democratic advantage to a 2-point Republican advantage. What would this have meant in terms of House seats? In 2012, the Democrats had a 1.2-point edge in the national House vote and ended up controlling 201 seats. If the electorate had resembled 2010 and Republicans had had a 2-point advantage in the national House vote, there would have been 3-point swing to the GOP overall. A simple votes-seats curve from 2012 suggests that a 3-point swing in Republicans’ favor would have left the Democrats with 181 seats, or 20 fewer than they controlled after the 2012 election. Twenty seats is not nothing, of course. But it suggests that simply shifting from midterm to presidential electorates, or vice-versa, can’t explain all, or even most, of the differences in outcomes between these two types of elections. Turnout is not going to explain a 63-seat gain for Republicans in 2010. So here is where I come down in this debate. No one disagrees that “turnout matters,” and of course Democrats should work hard at turning out Democratic voters in 2014. This is what made Issenberg’s piece and Bonier’s analysis so interesting. The question is how much turnout matters. My sense is that commentators still put too much emphasis on it. That is, there is not enough grappling with what changes in the electorate do not explain — such as, perhaps, the majority of Republican seat gains in 2010. There is not enough grappling with how Democrats did so well in 2006 despite a midterm electorate, as political scientist Michael McDonald has noted. For more, see Mark Mellman’s four excellent columns on this, and especially political scientist Seth Hill’s research.




Women

Democrats will win- they’re changing tactics and focusing on single women


Calmes 7/2/14 (Jackie Calmes, national correspondent for The New York Times, “As Numbers Grow, Single Women Emerge as Political Powerhouse”, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/03/us/single-women-midterm-elections.html?_r=0 )

RALEIGH, N.C. — The decline of marriage over the last generation has helped create an emerging voting bloc of unmarried women who are profoundly reshaping the American electorate to the advantage, recent elections suggest, of the Democratic Party. What is far from clear is whether Democrats will benefit in the midterm contests this fall. Half of all adult women over the age of 18 are unmarried — 56 million, up from 45 million in 2000 — and now account for one in four people of voting age. (Adult Hispanics eligible to vote, a group that gets more attention, number 25 million this year.) Single women have become Democrats’ most reliable supporters, behind African-Americans: In 2012, two-thirds of single women who voted supported President Obama. Among married women, a slim majority supported Mitt Romney. “You have a group that’s growing in size, and becoming more politically concentrated in terms of the Democrats,” said Tom W. Smith, director of the General Social Survey at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. The challenge for Democrats is that many single women do not vote, especially in nonpresidential election years like this one. While voting declines across all groups in midterm contests for Congress and lower offices, the drop-off is steepest for unmarried females and minorities. The result is a turnout that is older, whiter and more conservative than in presidential years. In an attempt to alter that picture, and to try to prevent Republicans from capturing a Senate majority in November, Democrats and allied groups say they are wooing single women — young and old, highly educated and working class, never married and divorced or widowed — with unmatched ardor. They have seized on this week’s ruling by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, five men, that family-owned corporations do not have to provide birth control in their insurance coverage, to add to their arguments that the Democrats, not the Republicans, represent the interests of women. Single women, Democrats say, will determine whether they keep Senate seats in states including Alaska, Michigan, Colorado and Iowa — and with them, their Senate majority — and seize governorships in Pennsylvania, Florida and Wisconsin, among other states. The party is using advanced data-gathering techniques to identify unmarried women, especially those who have voted in presidential elections but skipped midterms. By mail, online, phone and personal contact, Democrats and their allies are spreading the word about Republicans’ opposition in Washington — and state capitals like Raleigh — to pay equity, minimum wage and college-affordability legislation, abortion and contraception rights, Planned Parenthood and education spending. But nowhere is the courtship of unmarried women as intense as in North Carolina, where Senator Kay Hagan, a Democrat struggling for a second term, recently has shown gains, even in a Republican poll. Midway through a recent Saturday of campaigning, she described her mobilization strategy: “Heels on the ground.”

Democrats will win- they are going on the offensive


Peoples and Thomas 7/1/14 ( Steve Peoples and Ken Thomas, reporters for the Associated Press, “Democrats trying to use court decision to energize female supporters ahead of fall election”, http://www.newser.com/article/d391f0a9de0c4abc80e2c74fe8e02559/democrats-trying-to-use-court-decision-to-energize-female-supporters-ahead-of-fall-election.html )

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that some companies can hold religious objections allowing them to opt out of health law's birth control coverage requirement. While the ruling does not address the heart of the Affordable Care Act, it's a setback for Democrats and amplifies a longstanding argument from conservatives that the law they call "Obamacare" intrudes on religious liberties as part of a larger government overreach. But Democrats in competitive congressional races are going on the offensive. They're using the ruling to shine a spotlight on their Republican opponents' record on reproductive rights — a push that dovetails with a strategy already aimed at mobilizing female voters on issues such as raising the minimum wage and supporting pay equity for women. In North Carolina, incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan declared on Twitter that health care should be decided between a woman and her doctor — "not her boss." She and her allies are working to draw attention to her opponent, Republican state House Speaker Thom Tillis, and his efforts to restrict access to abortions. It's a similar story in New Hampshire, where Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen released an online petition Tuesday highlighting her Republican opponent, former Sen. Scott Brown, and his previous support for legislation that would have allowed any employer with moral objections to opt out of the birth control coverage requirement. In Colorado, Democratic Sen. Mark Udall's first TV ad noted Republican Rep. Cory Gardner's past sponsorship of a bill to outlaw abortions in cases of rape and incest and support for an effort to grant an embryo the same legal rights as a person, which could have outlawed some types of birth control and all abortions. Gardner now says he opposes the "personhood" measure. In Iowa, Democrats have signaled plans to highlight Republican Joni Ernst's support of a personhood amendment to the state's constitution. And in Montana, Democratic Sen. John Walsh aired an ad in May criticizing Republican Rep. Steve Daines' support of legislation to restrict access to abortions and quickly pounced on the Supreme Court ruling, saying it would "infringe upon the right to make private health choices."

Republicans are in trouble- Democrats are gaining support from single women


Jones 7/2/14 (Sarah Jones, Senior White House and Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA, “All The Single Ladies: Female Voting Power and The Looming Extinction of The GOP” http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/02/single-ladies-rise-power-female-voter.html )

Democrats are wooing single women — a rising power of a voting bloc, while Republicans spit in their face. While Republicans at Fox insult single women by calling them “Beyoncé voters” who depend on the government, Democrats embrace them. Specifically all the single ladies out there — a growing and powerful new voting bloc, who tend to vote for Democrats. They’re even calling their new get out the vote push ROSIE, as in Rosie the Riveter, Re-engaging our Sisters in Elections. (Yes, Beyoncé has paid homage to Rosie.) DCCC Executive Director Kelly Ward explained ROSIE to NPR’s Mara Liasson in May, “We can identify a voter by their marital status and then match that to a turnout model that helps us identify those unmarried women who when they vote they will vote for Democrats, but are not likely to vote this cycle. We want to go after those voters and start a conversation with them about how this election has a stake in their lives and why they should care about it.” And now, post Hobby Lobby, Democrats have quite the calling card.

Democrats still have hope


Hohmann 6/30/14 ( James Hohmann, reporter for Politico, “Democrats: Hobby Lobby ruling could boost 2014 hopes”, http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/hobby-lobby-decision-2014-democrats-changes-108449.html )

Democrats may be decrying the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling, but the party’s campaign strategists believe they can use it to their benefit in this year’s midterm elections. Despite the legal setback for Obamacare, the strategists hope the ruling will boost Democrats’ efforts to keep the Senate by persuading some Republican-leaning women to defect in states with competitive races while galvanizing younger women who typically don’t vote in midterms. They argue the 5-4 decision dovetails well with claims that the GOP is waging a “war on women,” a charge they have used effectively in recent elections. Monday’s decision “is a disappointment for Democrats, but it does put a big welcome spotlight on Republicans’ support for ‘personhood’ [initiatives] and other measures that would go much further than today’s decision to outlaw common forms of birth control,” said Matt Canter, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee deputy executive director.

African-Americans

Democrats will win using strategies that microtarget black voters


Miller 7/6/14 (Steven A. Miller, staff member for The Washington Times, “Democrats microtarget blacks in South in effort to keep Senate”, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/6/democrats-microtarget-blacks-in-south-in-effort-to/?page=2&utm_medium=RSS&utm_source=RSS_Feed )

Black voters across the South increasingly recognize that they have the electoral muscle to swing statewide races, but that doesn’t guarantee they will show up at the polls this year to save white Democrats struggling to hold on to their Senate seats. Democrats and their allies are painfully aware that they can’t win without significant turnout among black voters in states such as Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina, which are crucial battlegrounds in the party’s fight to keep majority control of the U.S. Senate. They have engaged in a massive campaign to recapture some of the Barack Obama enchantment that lured droves of Southern blacks to the polls and even flipped North Carolina from red to blue in 2008. In Louisiana, where more than 30 percent of the electorate is black, the state NAACP has launched the most aggressive and sophisticated voter drive in the organization’s history. The effort includes microtargeting, using the same Voter Activation Network database as President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. “This is more than we usually do. This is a true concerted effort,” said Louisiana NAACP State President Earnest Johnson. “We think this year’s Senate election will be an excellent opportunity to demonstrate whether or not our strategy will work.” The goal is 60 percent turnout among black voters, he said, matching the surge for Mr. Obama in 2008. Mr. Johnson stressed that his group is nonpartisan and promotes black voter participation regardless of political affiliation. However, blacks have provided near-monolithic support for Democrats in recent decades. The chief beneficiary of the NAACP’s Louisiana experiment would be Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, a three-term Democrat who faces a strong challenge from Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy. Ms. Landrieu trailed Mr. Cassidy by 6 percentage points in one of the two most recent Real Clear Politics surveys and was tied in the other. In a similar effort, the North Carolina NAACP is deploying about 50 organizers across the state for the next 10 weeks. “This is the first time we’ve done something of this caliber,” said North Carolina NAACP President William J. Barber II. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is helping persuade blacks to vote in key Southern states through its Bannock Street Project, a scheme to spend $60 million and put 4,000 paid staff in 10 states.





Download 0.68 Mb.

Share with your friends:
1   ...   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   ...   21




The database is protected by copyright ©ininet.org 2024
send message

    Main page