Meanwhile, we see that the GOP has opened a lead — rare for Republicans who even in good years may trail on this measure and make it up on turnout — in many generic congressional polls at a time the Islamic State crisis has come to a head. In battleground states, the numbers are even more striking. In the most recent Fox poll, voters in key battleground states (Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, New Hampshire, South Dakota and West Virginia) favor a Republican over a Democrat by a margin of 47 percent to 37 percent. It is also striking how many hawkish nominees with military backgrounds Republicans have nominated (e.g. Rep. Tom Cotton in Arkansas, Joni Ernst in Iowa, Dan Sullivan in Alaska) or re-nominated (e.g. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina).

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There is also some evidence that the swing toward Republicans and, specifically, Republicans who happen to be hawkish, is due to national security. Amy Walter of Cook Political Report reports on focus groups of “Walmart moms” in Arkansas and Iowa:

While economic anxiety is still an ever-present concern among these women (“prices of everything go up but we get further behind,” complained one mom in Little Rock), physical security has taken on a more salient role than it has in recent years. When asked by the moderator to describe “how things are going” in the country, the women in these groups used words like scary, unstable and unsettled. Concerns about violence, from ISIS to school shootings to the riots in Ferguson, were top of mind for these women. One woman in Little Rock remarked that life felt like “a box of chocolates… where you never know what you are going to get” day to day. From Ebola to ISIS to Ferguson, this summer has been both unpredictable and predictably unstable. . . .[M]any Walmart moms express specific concern about ISIS is “unusual for swing voters and not a common theme we have heard in previous groups.” . . There is an anxiety about safety and security like we haven’t seen since 2001.

Walter warns, “Democrats, who had been hoping that a strong populist economic message could win them some key races, must now contend with the reality that voters — even those who normally tune out international crises — are deeply concerned about the threat of terrorism and a sense of unraveling here at home.”

Given this, it also makes sense for Republicans to eschew passivity in foreign policy and not cater to paranoia about drones and the government “listening to your calls.” However, voters want someone calm, dependable and reasonable. (“In the words of one Des Moines mom, they are looking for the candidate who can provide a ‘more stable future'”). That doesn’t sound like they want yellers, obstructionists, grandstanders or polemicists. (Nor does it sound like they want hand-wringing over whether the police are too well-armed.)

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