How discouraged are Democratic strategists as voters prepare to go to the polls tomorrow?
I’ve reported on nine midterm elections, and I’ve never read comments quite as bleak as the ones the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza has collected from a major party’s operatives.
“The environment has settled, and it’s bad,” said one senior Democratic Party operative
“Challenging,” acknowledged Ali Lapp, executive director of the House Majority PAC, a super PAC spending millions of dollars on ads to promote House Democrats, referring to the national dynamic.
“It’s a very challenging environment,” agreed Penny Lee, a Democratic lobbyist and longtime political aide to former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell.
“Unsettled,” offered Democratic pollster Fred Yang.
“The trends are not good,” said Steve Rosenthal, a veteran Democratic and labor strategist.
And here’s the bottom line as reported by Cillizza:
The one factor that virtually every person I talked to cited as the biggest reason for the party’s predicament was President Obama.
“This off-year election has become almost entirely a referendum on the president,” said one Democratic consultant involved in many closely fought congressional races. “It’s not just anger at [the Affordable Care Act]. He has become, rightly or wrongly, the symbol of dysfunction in Washington. That has led to a demoralized Democratic base, energized Republicans. And those in the middle have an easy way of venting their frustration, and that is to punish the president’s party.”