Independents could undermine support for an ambitious Democratic agenda and imperil the party's 2010 prospects. Dems alarmed as independents bolt

Mounting evidence that independent voters have soured on the Democrats is prompting a debate among party officials about what rhetorical and substantive changes are needed to halt the damage.

Following serious setbacks with independents in off-year elections earlier this month, White House officials attributed the defeats to local factors and said President Barack Obama sees no need to reposition his own image or the Democratic message.


Since then, however, a flurry of new polls makes clear that Democrats are facing deeper problems with independents—the swing voters who swung dramatically toward the party in 2006 and 2008 but who now are registering deep unease with the amount of spending and debt called for under Obama's agenda in an era of one-party rule in Washington.

A Gallup Poll released last week offered a disturbing glimpse about the state of play: just 14 percent of independents approve of the job Congress is doing, the lowest figure all year. In just the past few days alone, surveys have shown Democratic incumbents trailing Republicans among independent voters by double-digit margins in competitive statewide contests in places as varied as Connecticut, Ohio and Iowa.

Obama’s own popularity among independents has fallen significantly, too. A CBS News poll Tuesday showed the president’s approval rating among unaligned voters falling to 45 percent — down from 63 percent in April.

“We withdrew from the accounts of voters and now we need to pay them back,” said Nathan Daschle, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association. “We are having these conversations right now about what independents need to see and hear.”

Pat Waak, the chairwoman of the Colorado Democratic Party, said the party had so far failed to convince independent voters of the steps it had taken to improve the economy.

“I think the economy is at the base of the tension,” she said. “Quite frankly, we’ve got to do a better job of messaging. There’s a lot of work to be done to get independents more comfortable with what we’re doing.”

“Listen, it hasn’t been an easy time,” said T.J. Rooney, a former state legislator and the chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. “It’s almost like we’re a victim of our own success. When you’re governing, that changes the political dynamic.”

Andrew Myers, who polled for Democrats in Virginia House of Delegates races this year, said his analysis of exit polls indicated that voters had come to see Democrats as a party of high spending — too willing to make a rush for the pocketbooks and unable to effectively articulate how their health care reform push benefited independents, many of whom already have insurance plans.

“This is what’s particularly heartbreaking: There is a real sense that no one in Congress is standing up for them,” said Myers. “It’s a real problem for messaging for us.”

Nowhere was that more obvious than in Virginia and New Jersey, where GOP candidates captured governorships on Nov. 3 on the strength of landslide margins among independent voters.

In Virginia, Republican Bob McDonnell won a 65 percent to 34 percent victory over Democrat Creigh Deeds among independents in a state where President Barack Obama split the independent vote 49 percent to 48 percent against Republican John McCain just one year earlier.

In New Jersey, Republican Chris Christie won a 58 percent to 31 percent victory over Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine among independents — a stark contrast to Obama’s 51 percent to 47 percent win among independents in 2008.

“The perception of what’s happening in Congress is polluting what’s happening down below,” Myers said.

Michael Dimock, a pollster for the Pew Research Center — which reported in a new survey that only 45 percent of independents want their own representative to return to Congress — also believes Democrats have suffered for their inability to move the ball on key agenda items such as health care.

“I think it’s about action and not about words right now. The public wants to see action,” said Dimock. “I’m not sure words are going to help Democrats at this point. They’ve got to achieve some successes.”

“Independents are typically more frustrated with the political process,” noted Dimock. “They tend to have a real distaste for partisanship and ideology, and that’s about all they’re hearing right now.”

Some strategists, however, attribute the party’s weak Election Day showing among independent voters to changes in the composition of the independents who showed up at the polls.

“What we saw are more independents who are like Republicans and fewer independents who are like Democrats,” said Brad Lawrence, a veteran Democratic media consultant in New Jersey who worked for Corzine. “I think there was an enthusiasm gap.”

“This was not the same group of independents who showed up in 2008,” noted Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist. “For Obama’s election, the participating independents were more moderate; for Christie and McDonnell, the composition of the independents that came to the polls was more conservative. It’s this self-selection among the independent voter pool that helped the Democrats in 2008 and hurt them in 2009.”

Democrats also argue that with polls showing fewer voters identifying themselves as Republicans, the pool of independent voters is simply becoming more conservative than in the past, as those formerly Republican voters move into that camp. An October Washington Post/ABC News survey, for example, found just 20 percent of those polled identifying themselves as Republican.

“It looks a lot worse than it really is,” said John Anzalone, a veteran Democratic pollster. “Independents aren’t just falling away from Democrats.”

Still, Anzalone cautioned that with the party’s agenda under fire from Republicans and allied conservative groups, Democrats in conservative Southern and Western states need to be aware of the potential peril in alienating independent voters.

An automated survey released Monday by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling underscored that message with its finding that Democratic Rep. Vic Snyder, a seven-term Arkansas congressman, was only narrowly leading his little-known Republican challengers and held just a 30 percent approval rating among independents.

The erosion among independents, however, isn’t simply a regional problem. Democrats are anxious about the prospects of five-term Sen. Chris Dodd in Connecticut, who trails one of his GOP opponents by 28 percentage points among independents in a prospective head-to-head matchup, and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and Iowa Gov. Chet Culver, two Democratic incumbents with shrinking approval ratings among independent voters. A Des Moines Register poll released this weekend showed the first-term Culver trailing the GOP front-runner among independents by nearly 30 percentage points.

“It’s a challenge,” said Chris Redfern, the chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, referring to the current election environment. But, he added, “we don’t need all of them back. We just need a majority.”

Sen. Robert Menendez, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, acknowledged that the recent polls constituted “red flags” for Democrats. But he said voters remained unsatisfied with a Republican Party that, he said, had yet to demonstrate an ability to prove it has answers to the problems facing the country.

“I take this data with a grain of salt,” Menendez told POLITICO. “At this moment in time, we may not be doing as well with independents as I’d like, but Republicans aren’t doing well, either.”

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