Jim McTague’s latest “D.C. Current” column in Barron’s focuses on the latest predictions for the 2014 elections.
VA, NSA, IRS, GDP, ISIS. President Barack Obama — O for short — is wallowing in Acronymgate, a veritable freight train of scandals and policy flops threatening to drag down his Democratic Party come the midterm election, giving the Republicans control of both the House and the Senate. O’s popularity ratings are stuck at an average of 41.5% — meaning that over half of the legal citizenry dislikes the way he is conducting the country’s business. Pundits, who are notoriously bashful prognosticators, already are giving the GOP a slight edge in November. The highly predictive Iowa Electronic Markets also sees the Republicans winning the Senate.
WALL STREET’S WASHINGTON WATCHERSare getting in on the soothsaying, too. Newedge USA, a unit of Société Générale, says that the GOP this year has its best opportunity in two decades to retake the Senate and, consequently, gain control of the entire Congress. The investment implications would be significant. …
… Of course, it’s still a long way until November. Never underestimate Republicans’ ability to blow an election, as they did in both 2006 and 2010.
FORECASTS OF A GOP victory also rest on the assumption that the African-Americans and young adults who turned out in massive numbers in general elections to support O won’t be fired up enough to go to the polls in the midterm voting to support congressman and senators.
This has been true in the past but is not a sure thing in the present. O has developed an impressive get-out-the-vote organization. Mississippi Republican Sen. Thad Cochran enlisted savvy Democratic vote-getters to beat a Tea Party challenger in last week’s GOP primary runoff. Democrats who hadn’t voted in their own party’s primary were allowed to participate. If a Republican can succeed in a midterm primary by using the Democratic machinery, think of what O can do with it. The Democrats are not DOA.