Jay Carney, the former press secretary for President Barack Obama and now a CNN political commentator/analyst, said Sunday that 2014’s mid-term elections were going to deliver a crushing blow to members of the president’s Democratic Party.
According to Carney per The Daily Caller , there are a variety of reasons for the expected losses .
“The sixth year is always particularly bad for a president’s party…. You couple that with the fact so many seats are defended by Democrats in red states where Mitt Romney did very well against the president, double-digits in most cases, and there’s no outcome in November that anybody could say would be great for Democrats, except for barely holding onto the Senate.”
POLITICO reported Carney as saying that should Republicans win the House and Senate, any favorability the party currently enjoys could be eroded in very short order.
“The problem for Republicans, if they win, is Americans begin to think ‘We hate Congress’ and it’s now clear that one party is in control of Congress.”
Carney’s comments about Democrats and Republicans does not change the fact, he said, that Washington is stuck in the muck and mire of partisanship and no matter who wins in November, that is not expected to change.
“Either outcome produces terrible gridlock…. What we’ve seen for the last two years, I think, is record gridlock.”
A recent poll released by Fox News confirms what Carney has said, pointing out that 47 percent of voters would go Republican while 40 percent would vote Democratic, according to Fox News’ Dana Blanton. She added that polling on House races have bounced back and fourth for Democrats before dropping numbers tied to the race for control of the U.S. Senate , currently in Democratic hands.
“Almost all Republicans and Democrats plan to vote for their party’s candidate. Independents are twice as likely to say they would back the Republican over the Democrat, yet the largest number say they would vote for a third-party candidate or are still undecided.”
“In states with active U.S. Senate races, likely voters would back the Republican candidate in that race by a 48-39 percent margin. And when looking at the results in just the 14 Fox News battleground states, that GOP edge widens to 53-35 percent among likely voters.”
As Carney pointed out and Blaton confirmed, November looks like it could be a dark and cold one for Democrats. Maybe if former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ever publicly announces her plans about a run for president, the Democrats might find some excitement looking toward 2016.
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