Sequestration Hits Obama in the Polls

• By Charlie Cook
• March 12, 2013
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Just as I was about to file a column noting that President Obama’s job-approval rating had dropped to 46 percent for two consecutive days in the Gallup Poll—its lowest levels since late October—his rating popped back up 3 percentage points to 49 percent. That’s still below the 52 percent that he averaged over the first eight weeks of the year, but a 3-point drop is a good bit less than a 6-point drop.

During periods of unusually high political turbulence, instability in poll numbers is common. Sometimes when a lot is happening and voters are not sure what to think, their poll responses can reflect the impression they got from a television news story an hour before the pollster called or from a newspaper article or headline they read that morning. Their response today might be different from the one they would have given yesterday or the one they might give tomorrow. In such times, numbers bounce around a lot, so drawing conclusions from the results of one or even two polls is risky—as I almost learned again for the millionth time.

The early suspicion that Washington’s inability to head off budget sequestration would ...

The Threat to Republicans

• By Charlie Cook
• March 5, 2013
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A recent poll by the Pew Research Center attracted a great deal of attention because it found that 62 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that the Republican Party was “out of touch with the American people”; only 33 percent disagreed. Even 36 percent of Republicans thought their party was out of touch. Sixty-five percent of independents also held that view, and, unsurprisingly, 77 percent of Democrats. By 52 percent to 42 percent, Americans said the Republican Party was “too extreme.” Conversely, only 39 percent saw the Democratic Party as too extreme, while 56 percent did not.

As Republicans enter this month of budget battles, their leaders seem keenly aware of these numbers. Among rank-and-file GOP members of Congress, it’s a different story. Some acknowledge the party’s problems, but others do not. The divisions in the ranks are reflected in their approaches to sequestration. One group wants to give House Speaker John Boehner a free hand to negotiate a deal. Another faction doesn’t particularly like sequestration but thinks that, for all of its problems, it is perhaps the only way to get meaningful budget cuts. A third group thinks that the cuts slated under sequestration don ...

Why Obama Should Be Quiet on Immigration

• By Charlie Cook
• February 25, 2013
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Sometimes, silence really is golden. In politics, taking the path of highest visibility isn’t always the smartest way to do things. Last week presented two good examples of that principle being violated, one by a Democrat and the other by a Republican.

As we watch President Obama stumping for comprehensive immigration reform, the question arises: Does his high-visibility association with this issue make reform more or less likely to happen? The challenge of achieving comprehensive immigration legislation is not in winning the votes of House and Senate Democrats; it’s in getting enough Republican votes to pass it in the House and to avoid a filibuster in the Senate. Even after the party’s election debacle in November, and the role of Latino and Asian voters in bringing it about, persuading enough House Republicans and at least five GOP senators to support comprehensive immigration reform is going to be a heavy lift for party leaders, who clearly understand the importance of getting this issue off the table.

Every time Obama takes a public stand on immigration, he makes it that much more difficult for Republican members of Congress to support it. Keep in mind that 94 percent of House ...

Death of the Swing Seat

• By Charlie Cook
• February 15, 2013
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Democrats face twin struggles as they seek to retake the House majority they lost in 2010. First, the chamber has largely sorted itself out. With 96 percent of Democratic House members representing districts carried by President Obama and 94 percent of Republican House lawmakers representing districts won by Mitt Romney, each party pretty much has the seats God intended. The House simply doesn’t have much elasticity right now. Substantial gains would either require Democrats winning a bunch of Romney districts or Republicans capturing a lot of Obama districts. Given this sorting out and the almost parliamentary-style voting we’re seeing these days, either party would require one heck of a head of steam to pick up a lot of seats from the other side.

But there is a second reason why there is less elasticity in the House. As House Editor David Wasserman of The Cook Political Report points out, notwithstanding all the Democrats in Obama districts and Republicans in Romney districts, the chamber has fewer swing districts altogether. UsingThe Cook Political Report’s Partisan Voting Index, which ascertains how the presidential voting patterns in each congressional district differ from the national average, we took a look at ...

Huge Hispanic Support for Obama Was No Sure Thing

• By Charlie Cook
• February 11, 2013
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At this point, the narrative is pretty familiar to all: President Obama beat GOP nominee Mitt Romney by 44 percentage points among Latinos, 71 percent to 27 percent, exceeding the 67 percent of the Latino vote he won in 2008 over John McCain. Obama’s popularity among Hispanics since Election Day remains impressive; Gallup’s compilation of about 15,000 total interviews each month shows the president with job-approval ratings among Latinos of 74 percent in November, 75 percent in December, and 70 percent in January.

But as recently as a year ago, one might not have guessed this would happen. In January 2012, Obama’s approval rating among Latinos stood at only 55 percent, 12 points below his share of the 2008 Latino vote. During 2011, his rating among this group dropped as low as 48 percent, with a 41 percent disapproval rating. In other words, Obama’s big electoral win among Latino voters, who made up 14 percent of his total vote according to national exit polls, was not a foregone conclusion.

For much of the president’s first term, grumbling among Latino voters was considerable. The jobless rate was significantly higher among Hispanics than the population as ...