OPINION:
A few days ago, the Republican State Leadership Committee, which recruits, trains and elects Republicans to state legislatures and statewide offices, released some remarkable survey results from four states.
The four states — Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington — have one thing in common: They are currently ruled by Democratic governors and Democrats have majorities in both bodies of the state legislatures.
Despite this, or perhaps because of this, the survey results indicated that in each of those states, Republicans either led or were within the margin of error in the generic ballot test (“Are you planning to vote for the Republican or the Democrat candidate in 2022?”) for state legislative races. The polling work, which was done by Cygnal, included interviews with 600 likely voters (margin of error of 4.0%) in each state.
In Nevada, where the Republicans need to net six seats in the Assembly and just two seats in the Senate to take the majorities, the generic ballot shows the Republicans ahead 48%-46%. Republicans currently hold a 16-point lead among Independents.
In Maine, the Republicans need to net eight seats in the House and five seats in the State Senate to take the majority. The generic ballot test is essentially tied, with the Democrats ahead 48%-47%. Republicans hold a 5-point lead among Independents.
In Oregon, the Republicans need to net seven seats in both the House and the State Senate to come to parity. They currently are ahead in the generic ballot test by 47%-43%.
In the state of Washington, the Republicans need to net five seats in the State Senate and nine seats in the House to take the majority. The Democrats are ahead in the generic ballot test, but their lead is within the margin of error, 48%-46%.
Given all of this, it should not be surprising that these states now have one other thing in common: The RSLC announced last week that each of them is now a target of opportunity to change party control of the legislature in 2022.
There is no doubt that these survey results are a reflection of the complete dissolution of confidence among the voters in the Democrats’ ability to manage the nation and the states they rule.
The RSLC data shows that voters want state legislators to serve as a check on the president (despite the fact that he won each of the four states handily in 2020) and his allies in state governments. It is bad enough that when reports surfaced that Team Biden was considering sending President Biden out to campaign for state legislators, RSLC Communications Director Andrew Romeo offered to pay Mr. Biden’s airfare.
Nor is the current focus on abortion likely to move the needle for the Democrats. Again, the RSLC surveyed voters nationwide at the end of June. When asked to identify the most important or pressing issue facing them, 56% of voters offered some variation of “the economy.” Just 8% said abortion. While there is no telling how that 8% split, as recently as May 2021, a Gallup nationwide survey indicated that 49% of voters considered themselves pro-life, while 47% considered themselves pro-choice.
In that same survey, 55% thought abortion should be outlawed in the second trimester, and 71% thought it should be illegal in the third trimester.
As Dee Duncan, the president of RSLC has noted: “The media didn’t learn their lesson when they said abortion would hurt Republicans in 2020 after the Amy Coney Barrett nomination and [Republicans] net-gained two state legislative chambers, or when Democrats made abortion the centerpiece of their campaigns in Virginia in 2021 only to suffer a string of embarrassing defeats and lose the [Virginia] House of Delegates.”
That sort of attitude is an example of why the Republicans currently hold 62 of the 99 state legislative bodies and have outperformed the Democrats on the state level for years. The simple truth is that for some time now, the Republican cadre of operatives at the state level — led by the RSLC — is just a lot better than the Democratic team.
As the Democrats shrink down to a party focused entirely on the federal level, devoting all their energy to salvaging Mr. Biden’s teetering presidency, that mismatch is likely to become worse.
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