The Corner

Did Health-Care Hurt Senate Democratic Incumbents?

Public Policy Polling says maybe, but it’s too soon to be sure:

On average the Democratic candidate is now doing 2.4 points worse on the margin than before the health care bill. It’s a little premature to say that’s all about health care though, particularly given that one of the races is Illinois where Alexi Giannoulias’ family problems have a lot more to do with his standing than the bill passing.

I’d sum up the post-health care landscape this way: I don’t think things have gotten better for Democrats, and I think it’s possible they’ve gotten worse. But it’s still too early to tell for sure. Here are the before and after Senate polls:

There is more, including a table breaking down Senate Dem winners and losers, over at PPP.

For what it’s worth, this is about the sort of net effect I’d expect to see at the Senate level. It is in the House, which for structural reasons includes a large contingent of Democrats in purple or straight-up red districts, where you’d expect to see yes votes on health-care hurt plenty of incumbents in a real way.

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