WSJ Unaligned Voters Tilt Rightward En Masse Nov 3 . 2010 By _GERALD F. SEIB_ (http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=GERALD+F.+SEIB&bylinesearch=true) Associated Press A tea-party supporter at a polling station at Kiker Elementary School in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday.
Election Day turned out to be Independents Day for Republicans. A massive swing by independent voters propelled the Republican Party to a series of key victories, bringing the GOP back from a near-death experience just two years ago, and delivering a rebuke to the president who rode the same independent wave into the White House. In House races nationally, Republicans won the votes of independents—voters who said they aren't affiliated with any party—by a 55% to 40% margin, a compilation of exit polls from across the country showed. That represents a stunning reversal from the last midterm election, in 2006. In that voting, which brought Democrats to power in the House, independents favored Democratic candidates, 57% to 39%. In other words, independents' preference did an almost complete turnabout over the last four years: They favored Democrats by 18 points then, Republicans by 15 points Tuesday. Independents also were a crucial element of the coalition that President Barack Obama used to win the White House two years ago, when, according to exit polls, he carried them by 52% to 44%. In a nutshell, these independents Tuesday made up about a quarter of all voters, and provided the margin of victory for the GOP, because voters who identify with the two major parties stayed largely in line. Some 92% of Democrats voted for the Democrat in their local House race, and 95% of Republicans voted for the GOP candidate. Full Results by State Senate, House, governors' and other races at the state, district and county level (http://newsapps.wsj.com/elections2010/#race=senate) * _More interactive graphics and photos _ (http://online.wsj.com/public/page/0_0_WP_2003.html) But the very fickleness that independents demonstrated in these two midterm elections means there's no guarantee they'll remain loyal to the GOP, any more than they stuck with President Obama and his Democrats. Even more important, Tuesday's vote appeared to be more a protest against what Washington has been doing than a clear declaration of a mandate for a new course. In effect, this year's congressional election brought forth a kind of primal scream from the independents. They expressed a high level of anger at the government, and were far more likely than voters overall to say the new Congress' top priority ought to be dealing with the federal budget deficit. "Independents aren't liberal spenders," said Republican pollster Whit Ayres. "They're just not. And that, more than anything else, drove independents into the Republican camp." For them, he said, the Democrats' big health-care overhaul was the "coup de grace" that symbolized government grown too large. Still, for all the decisiveness of the independents' shift, this election hasn't resolved the most fundamental question facing the country: What should the role of government be in the 21st century? Instead it has simply set up what figures to be a two-year debate over that question in Washington, and ensures that it will be a focal point of the 2012 election. Thanks to independents—along with other crucial swing blocs, such as suburban women, blue-collar workers and retirees, all of whom also shifted toward the Republicans—the GOP now has the strength to stop pieces of the Obama agenda and, perhaps in some instances, roll it back. The testing ground figures to be the coming twin debates over government spending and the federal deficit. In the exit polling, 39% of voters overall said reducing the budget deficit should be the highest priority for the next Congress; 46% of independents said it should be the top priority. And while this year's campaign has produced plenty of evidence of unhappiness over government spending, it hasn't produced many signs that voters are prepared to take the tough, specific steps that would really tackle budget deficits—or reward politicians who prescribe such bitter medicine. Exit Polls See how race, gender, age, income, key issues and other factors affected voters' choices in the House. _View Interactive_ (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704462704575590510679315310.html?mod=WSJ_ele_main#) (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704462704575590510679315310.html?mod=WSJ_ele_main#) Election Day in Photos When The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll asked Americans this summer about a variety of ways to cut the deficit, more than three-quarters of those polled said it would be "unacceptable" to cut federal spending on education. More than 60% said it also would be unacceptable to raise the retirement age to 70 to reduce Social Security expenses, or to gradually raise the eligibility age for Medicare. Tellingly, the survey found that independent voters, for all their dismay with Washington, may not be any more open than other Americans to taking those difficult steps. It's possible, of course, that the rise of the tea-party movement, with its clarion calls to cut the size of government, will succeed in shifting public sentiment toward accepting more cuts in such prized government services as Medicare. Certainly the more expansive Republican contingents in the House and the Senate are likely to test that attitude. In Tuesday's voting, four in 10 of those who answered exit polls said they were supporters of the tea-party movement. Just 31% said they were opponents of the tea party. It appears that the movement did what GOP leaders who embraced it had hoped above all: It energized core Republican voters at the grass roots in a way the party's traditional leaders couldn't. Now, though, the danger for Republicans is that those tea-party activists, so crucial to creating a GOP wave, are more gung-ho about slashing the government than are independent voters. All of which suggests that the question of how far voters truly want to venture in shrinking government will be the crux of the debate in the new Congress—and in the next presidential campaign, as President Obama seeks another term. Along the way, the fidelity of those independent voters to the Republican cause they have just advanced will be tested as well. "Obviously the real issue is the independents," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart. "If they are swinging to the GOP, then their share of the electorate will increase after 2010"—which could produce a long-term shift in the fine balance of power between the two major parties. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
