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Why Can #39;t Democrats Capitalize on Republican Failure to Represent?
Members of the Republican party, including Mitch McConnell, have shown massive disconnects with the American citizens they purportedly represent in a huge array of topics-- social issues, civil...
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Why Can't Democrats Capitalize on Republican Failure to Represent? - Video
Carly Fiorina Discusses Democrats #39; War on Women
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Marcus Tulius Cicero Offers an Observation on the Obama Democrats
Marcus Tulius Cicero Offers an Observation on the Obama Democrats.
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Editor's note: Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" and "Governing America." The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- Labor Day used to be a big deal for the Democratic Party. For much of the 20th century, organized labor was at the heart of Democratic politics. Unions were a driving force that gave the party its heart and its muscle.
Unfortunately for Democrats, the importance of organized labor has diminished dramatically since the 1970s. Union membership has declined from nearly 30% of the workforce in the 1960s, according to the Congressional Research Service, to what the Bureau of Labor Statistics pegs at about 11% today. Politically, unions have become more controversial among Democrats: Once the status quo among Democrats, now they are often seen as outliers.
Many Democrats since the 1960s, including some environmentalists and civil rights advocates, concluded that unions were too often in opposition to their goals. Even though he came from a progressive background, President Obama has repeatedly disappointed union leaders with his failure to support key proposals that would make it easier for unions to grow.
Julian Zelizer
The loss of organized labor's clout within the workforce and among the Democrats has been a devastating loss for the party. As the party turned away from this constituency and hesitated to support policies that would reverse the damaging trends that have hindered union membership, they have lost an animating force that could help sustain them in their struggles against a rightward bound Republican Party.
The relationship has a long, important history. The union movement was pivotal to the success of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s. FDR and northern Democrats pursued policies greatly benefiting the organization of industrial workers in Northern states like Michigan and Wisconsin.
In 1935, Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act), which formally gave workers the right to join a union and created the National Labor Relations Board, ensuring that employers allowed legitimate elections to take place. In 1936, Roosevelt said: "The Fourth of July commemorates our political freedom. Labor Day symbolizes our determination to achieve an economic freedom for the average man which will give his political freedom reality."
While FDR's policies benefited workers, including the new Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, labor came out in droves for the Democrats. They rallied workers on Election Day, encouraged their members to show support for the party that had helped them, raised money to help Democrats succeed, and their lobbyists on Capitol Hill constantly helped round up votes for a liberal agenda that ranged from bills that directly benefited workers to other measures with even greater constituencies. At the height of its power, the civil rights movement relied heavily on union leaders like Walter Reuther to win support for legislation in Congress.
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How labor unions, Democrats broke up
Unlike pretty much every other polling analyst out there ranging from Nate Silver toThe New York Timess Upworthy to more traditional analysts, like Larry Sabato, Charles Cook, and Stuart Rothenberg Sam Wang believes that the Democrats are likely to hold on to the Senate this year, indeed he currently gives them a 72% chance of holding on to the Senate.While this is certainly a contrarian point of view at the moment, its worth noting that Mr. Wang did accurately predict the outcome of every Senate election in 2012 and, while he hasnt gotten the same press that people like Nate Silver have, his conclusions are at least worth paying attention to as we head into the final six weeks of the midterms.
Here are a few of the reasons why Wang thinks many of the analysts are underestimating the Democrats this year:
Senate Democrats are doing surprisingly well.Across the board, Democratic candidates in the nine states above are doing better in the polls-only estimate than the mainstream media models would predict. This is particularly true for Alaska, Arkansas, and North Carolina. In these three states, Democrats are outperforming the expectations of the data pundits (The UpshotsLeo, Nate Silver, Harry Enten, John Sides, etc.). Why is that, and will it last?
Fundamentals pull probabilities away from the present.For PEC and Daily Kos, the win probability is closely linked to the poll margin. The Daily Kos model was created by Drew Linzer, of Votamatic fame. Both are based on polls alone.
The mainstream media organizations are a different story. They show a general tendency to be more favorable to Republicans. For Alaska (AK), Arkansas (AR),and North Carolina (NC), the discrepancy between PEC/DKos and NYT/WaPo/538 is rather large. Where PEC shows an average of 4.02 out of 6 key seats going Democratic, those organizations show 2.75 to 3.16 seats.This key difference, 0.86 to 1.27 seats,is enough to account for the fact that PECs Democratic-control probability is 70%, while theirs is between 32% and 42%.
Longtime readers of PEC will not be surprised to know that I think the media organizations are making a mistake. It is nearly Labor Day. By now, we have tons of polling data. Even the stalest poll is a more direct measurement of opinion than an indirect fundamentals-based measure. I demonstrated this point in 2012, when I used polls only to forecast the Presidency and all close Senate races. That year I made no errors in Senate seats, including Montana (Jon Tester) and North Dakota (Heidi Heitkamp), which FiveThirtyEight got wrong.
In 2014, these forecasting differences matter quite a lot. This years Senate race is harder than any electoral forecast that the other forecasters have ever had to make. To be frank, 2008 and 2012 were easy. My own experience is guided by 2004 Presidential race, which was as close as this years Senate campaign. In 2004, I formed the view that the correct approach is to use polls only, if at all possible.
Some of what Wang talks about here is similar to the points I raised in my recent post on the lack of evidence for a Republican wave in 2014. If you look at the polling right now, there is simply no evidence for the kind of strongly pro-Republican electoral movement that we would expect to see if November is, in fact, going to result in a Republican take over of the Senate. One criticism of that point, of course, is the fact that we are still looking at pre-Labor Day polls and that, traditionally at least, the real campaign doesnt start until early September, when voters have returned from summer vacation. While this is true to some extent, its a mistake to discount pre-Labor Day polling or to argue that the situation on the ground, as we begin the final six-week sprint, doesnt matter in trying to figure out how the campaign is going to unfold. Four years ago, for example, Republicans had a 10 point lead in the Generic Congressional Ballot, suggesting huge Republican gains in the fall. Today, the RealClearPolitics average has the Democrats with a 1.5 point lead in the Generic Ballot.At this point four years ago, both Charlie Cook and Larry Sabato were noting signs of a growing Republican wave in 2010. This year, theres no real talk of a wave, and Sabato is noting that 2014 is looking at this point like it is going to be quite different from what we saw in 2006, 2008, and 2010 in the Senate.By early September 2010, there were signs that Democrats were abandoning races that it was clear they could not win. This time, theres no evidence of that, and, given how close the polls are in the states where the battle for control of the Senate is likely to be decided, its unlikely that will happen. In short, while theres still a lot of time left between now and Election Day, the fact that the battle for the Senate is as close as it is suggests strongly that this is how things will remain for the rest of the election. In that kind of environment, its not beyond credulity to suggest that Democrats are likely to hold on to the Senate.
Doug Mataconis appears on the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.
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Why Democrats will keep the Senate: A contrarian analysis of the 2014 midterms