Don’t Stereotype Voters

• By Charlie Cook
• July 15, 2013
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Many of us who write about politics have a sloppy habit of using catchall phrases when we should be more specific. We use terms such as “Hispanics” and “Latinos,” for example, to describe a group of 52 million Americans whose politics differ greatly, partly depending on their ancestral country. Cuban-Americans have traditionally voted Republican, though less so in recent years. Puerto Ricans are among the most ardent groups in the Democratic base. Mexican-Americans have traditionally voted more Democratic, but as their household incomes rose through the years, their willingness to vote Republican increased as well, at least until the immigration-reform issue came to prominence again. Remember that President Bush captured 44 percent of the Latino vote in 2004, one of several key factors in his narrow victory over John Kerry. As Mitt Romney proved, it’s hard to win the White House with just 27 percent of the Hispanic vote, even if you carry white voters overwhelmingly.

The same can be said about women voters: Generalizing too much is dangerous. Overall, President Obama beat Romney by 11 points among women, who made up 53 percent of the electorate last year, while Romney carried men, who were 47 percent of the ...

Why Americans Are Divided Between the Two Parties

• By Charlie Cook
• July 1, 2013
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After President Obama’s rather comfortable victory over Mitt Romney last November, some Democrats thought the president could defy the laws of political gravity. They are now disappointed. So are Republicans who thought that controversies over Benghazi, the Internal Revenue Service, and domestic surveillance would bring Obama’s approval ratings crashing down into the 30s, if not the 20s, as has happened with some second-term presidents. Obama’s approval numbers have been on a very gradual decline and are now at the political equilibrium point where equal numbers of Americans approve and disapprove.

In Gallup polling the week of June 17-23, 46 percent approved and disapproved of Obama’s performance. If you take an average of the most recent polls by ABC News/Washington Post, CBS News/New York Times, CNN, Fox News, Pew Research, and NBC News/Wall Street Journal, all conducted either this month or last, Obama’s approval is a point higher, 47 percent, with a disapproval of, you guessed it, 47 percent. This puts Obama’s job-approval rating at basically the same place as George W. Bush’s at this point in his second term and behind the 55 percent and 58 percent levels where Bill ...

Republicans' Choice: Expand or Expire

• By Charlie Cook
• June 25, 2013
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As the immigration issue moves front and center in Congress, a chorus of GOP voices is warning that if immigrants—and, let’s face it, the debate is focused mostly on those from Mexico, Central America and South America—are provided a path to citizenship, Republicans will never again win a national election. The same people also argue that Republicans would find it much harder to win statewide races in places such as Texas that now routinely fall into the GOP column. Implicit in both arguments is the notion that Republicans will remain a competitive party nationally and stay dominant in certain states if they can prevent Hispanic immigrants from becoming citizens and gaining voting rights.

But that position ignores the fact that the 45.5 million Hispanics already in this country legally are registering to vote and are seeing the Republican Party as distinctly hostile. The more the GOP comes to be seen as fighting immigration reform, the more difficult it will be for Republican candidates to compete for this group of voters. Remember, 50,000 Hispanic citizens reach voting age every month.

Two historic events should be recalled as this debate begins in earnest. As recently as 2004 ...

Why Obama’s Approval Rating Isn’t Higher

• By Charlie Cook
• June 17, 2013
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The good news for President Obama and his administration is that all the controversies swirling around the White House have not had a significant impact on his job-approval ratings. The bad news is that, like so many other second-term administrations, Obama’s may end up spending so much of its last four years fighting fires and fending off congressional inquiries that it gets little else done. Even if Obama manages to douse some of the current controversies, new ones, even minor ones, could constantly distract him and throw him off message to the point that he can’t make headway on any of his major proposals.

History has not been kind to second-term presidents. By that point, the novelty has worn off, and the energy, the new ideas, and the sense of purpose are lost. Often wars, recessions, or scandals plague the final four years; second-term presidents become like pitchers who have lost their fastball.

Obama’s job-approval ratings in the Gallup Poll have averaged between 47 percent and 51 percent each week since mid-February. This past week, June 3-9, his approval rating was 48 percent and his disapproval rating was 45 percent. All of the other major polls except ...

Gallup’s Open Book

• By Charlie Cook
• June 11, 2013
• comments

It isn’t unusual for individuals, organizations, or even political parties to make mistakes, but it is unusual, certainly in Washington, to see anyone own up to them. What is truly extraordinary is for any person or group to conduct, release, and publicize an exhaustive research project detailing what went wrong and why. In the past three months, we have now seen two groups do just that.

First, the Republican National Committee, chaired by Reince Priebus, issued its “Growth and Opportunity Project,” essentially an autopsy of what went wrong for the GOP in the last election. The report looked at mistakes the party made and what it needed to do for Republicans to get back on track. Now the Gallup Organization has released an executive summary of its own postmortem, which explains how its polling of likely voters ended up projecting a Mitt Romney win by 1 percentage point, 49 percent to 48 percent, in an election the Republican nominee ended up losing by almost 4 points (3.85 to be exact). Interestingly, Gallup’s final polling among all registered voters, as opposed to the smaller subset of voters judged to be the most likely to go to the polls ...