Republicans fearing a political backlash at the polls this fall need look no further than Colorado’s 5th Congressional District to confirm their worries.
GOP voters outnumber Democrats 2 to 1 in the Colorado Springs-based district, which has never sent a Democrat to Congress since it was created in 1972. Yet Republican Doug Lamborn and Democrat Jay Fawcett are neck-and-neck for the moment (with a large undecided group), according to a new Denver Post poll.
The race has its own peculiarities, such as retiring GOP incumbent Joel Hefley calling Lamborn’s primary campaign “sleazy,” but it may also be emblematic of what’s happening across the country this year.
Voters are unhappy with the ongoing war and violence in Iraq, with President Bush and with Republicans who control both houses of Congress and the White House. In fact, Republicans expect to lose at least seven House seats across the country this year, and fear they could lose as many as 30, according to a Washington Post analysis. The latter outcome would shift power back to Democrats for the first time since 1994.
In a USA Today poll released this week, Democrats had a 23-point lead over Republicans when voters were asked which party’s House candidate would get their vote – double the lead Republicans had a month before their 1994 takeover. It’s the largest Democratic advantage among registered voters since the post-Watergate years. A similar ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Democrats with a 54-41 percent lead over Republicans when voters are asked the same generic question, which is used as more of a gauge of the national mood rather than a predictor of individual races.
Democrats also can find some comfort in one particular statistic from the USA Today poll: For the first time since the question was asked in 2002, Democrats did better than Republicans on who would best handle terrorism, 46 percent to 41 percent.
Republicans, now enmeshed in the scandal over former Congressman Mark Foley’s text messages to underage pages, have long hoped that worries about terrorism would push more voters into their camp.
Some Democrats are calling the Foley scandal a “tipping point” in their favor. “It’s the absolute crystallization for people of everything they dislike about Washington and congressional Republicans,” Democratic strategist Anita Dunn told USA Today.
It’s true that there is still time for events and electioneering to change voters’ minds. But with less than four weeks until Election Day, that time is rapidly dwindling. And in Colorado, absentee voting already has begun.
