Greenberg Quinlan Rosner released a new poll today conducted on behalf of the Women's Voices Women Vote Action Fund and Democracy Corps that polled the 2012 Obama coalition known as the Rising American Electorate which is made of minorities, millennials, and single women. They have some very promising news for Democrats in their chances to take the Senate but they also showcase the work that needs to be done:
Senator Michael Bennet (D. CO)
The poll has some good news for Democrats. The survey, which was taken in four key battleground states — Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin — suggests that in those states, the demographics do favor Dems. That’s because the poll finds that RAE voter groups — who helped drive Obama’s wins — now make up a “majority or near majority of the vote” in all those states. The poll also finds Dems leading in Senate races in two of those states and tied in two others.
But members of the RAE are insufficiently engaged in next year’s election when compared to Republican-aligned voter groups.
Unmarried women, minorities, and particularly millennials are less interested in next year’s voting than seniors, conservatives, and white non-college men are. Non-college women — a group the Clinton camp is reportedly eyeing as a way to expand on the Obama coalition — are also less interested.
“Unmarried women are a key dynamic in American politics,” Page Gardner, the president of Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund, tells me. “It’s clear that the party or candidate who can increase turnout of unmarried women and the other segments of the Rising American Electorate will be well-positioned for victory in 2016.”
Now, obviously there is a very long way to go, and plenty of time for these voter groups to get more engaged. If Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, and the prospect of electing the first female president seems increasingly within reach, you could see engagement kicking in much more substantially. (It will be interesting to see how non-college, unmarried, minority and millennial women respond.)
But Greenberg’s pollsters are sounding the alarm now, warning that Democrats need to take more steps to tailor their message towards boosting the interest level among these voters. As Stan Greenberg outlines in his new book, America Ascendant, the key to engaging these voters is two-fold. It isn’t enough to simply outline bold economic policies to deal with college affordability, child care (universal pre-K), workplace flexibility (paid family and sick leave), and so forth, though those things are crucial. What’s also required to engage these groups, Greenberg argues, is a reform agenda geared to reducing the influence of the wealthy, the lobbyists, and the special interests over our politics. Today’s new poll suggests the same.
The basic problem outlined by Greenberg (and noted by other Dem pollsters) is that, even if Democratic economic policies are broadly popular, this isn’t enough on its own, because many Americans don’t believe government can or will actually deliver on those policies. Greenberg writes: “when voters hear the reform narrative first, they are dramatically more open to the middle-class economic narrative that calls for government activism in response to America’s problems.”
Here are the polls results:
Colorado:
Senator Michael Bennet (D. CO) leads Rep. Scott Tipton (R. CO) 50-44
Florida:
Rep. David Jolly (R. FL) leads Rep. Patrick Murphy (D. FL) 44-43
Ohio:
Senator Rob Portman (R. OH) & Former Governor Ted Strickland (D. OH) are tied at 47-47
Wisconsin:
Former Senator Russ Feingold (D. WI) leads Current Senator Ron Johnson (R. WI) 51-46
A Few Notes:
Tipton hasn’t announced his candidacy and doesn’t sound like he’s going to run and it remains to be seen if Jolly will even win his own party’s nominee. Same goes for Murphy but he looks like he’s more likely to be the nominee than Rep. Alan Grayson (D. FL) but I could be wrong. If you would like to know more about Bennet, Murphy, Strickland and Feingold’s campaigns, click the links below:
