With public's trust at new lows, forecast for midterm elections looks stormy

Voters are sending one unmistakable message in 2010 — it doesn’t matter what you’re selling, we’re not buying.

“They’re fed up,” said local Republican consultant Jeff Roe, who’s in California after working in that state’s Tuesday primary. “There’s a new world in motion here … and those who operate in the old world are probably going to die an old world death.”

Evidence of overwhelming frustration is everywhere as the nation moves to the midpoint of the midterm election year with half of the states holding primaries:

•Longtime incumbents and political veterans in both parties have fallen, or face serious challenges.

•Campaigns have collapsed after verbal errors and scandal.

•Congress, afraid of voter wrath, has slowed its work to a crawl, leaving hot-button issues such as energy and immigration unfinished.

•Polls show trust in Washington and Congress has dropped to historic lows — the Pew Research Center called it “epic discontent with Congress and elected officials.”

There are, however, themes that are likely to dominate discussions among strategists between now and November. The popularity of women candidates. President Barack Obama’s influence on races. Anti-incumbent fervor. And the tea party movement.

What is less clear, however, is which political party will be damaged the least by the voters’ anger.

Republicans once hoped voter frustration would enable them to regain control of Congress, but a series of divisive and expensive GOP primaries has given Democrats a chance of hanging on to slim majorities in one or both houses.

“A number of things are happening that are starting to improve our prospects,” Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine told The Kansas City Star. “We’re in the toughest times we’ve been in economically since the 1930s, and people are impatient and want to see change, but I think they’re beginning to see it.”

Republicans, though, expect voter anger to break their way, largely because conservative voters on their side seem angrier — and thus more likely to vote — than liberals, who may stay home because they’re disappointed with Obama.

“Right now, our side would appear to be highly engaged and active,” said longtime Missouri GOP consultant John Hancock, “and I think you’re going to see historic sea changes (in November).”

Pete Sessions, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a memo Wednesday that “the troubling mix of anti-incumbent attitudes, a toxic political environment, and a faltering economy means that Democrats are facing a monumental challenge.”

Still, the general election remains more than four months away and projecting outcomes in a volatile political season is dangerous, experts in both parties said Wednesday.

But there are changes taking place, to be sure.

Women

The 2010 midterms may be defined by women candidates, who have defeated men in dozens of primaries in both parties.

In California, former business executive Carly Fiorina easily won the Republican nomination Tuesday to face Sen. Barbara Boxer, the incumbent Democrat. It’s the first time both parties in the nation’s biggest state have nominated women for a Senate seat (both California senators — Democrats — are women.) Also in California, Meg Whitman won the GOP gubernatorial nomination to face former Gov. Jerry Brown.

“In an election season in which voters are desperately searching for change, this may yet turn out to be another ‘Year of the Woman,’ ” Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter wrote Wednesday.

That could be good news for Democrat Robin Carnahan, who has pulled close to Rep. Roy Blunt in some polls in the Senate race in Missouri, and House candidates such as Stephene Moore, Patricia Lightner and Lynn Jenkins in Kansas and Vicky Hartzler in Missouri.

Strategists also are closely monitoring the Sarah Palin effect in the Republican Party. The former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate endorsed winner Nikki Haley in the South Carolina GOP governor’s race, and Haley is the favorite in a June 22 runoff for the nomination.

“Perhaps an endorsement can shift just a tiny bit of momentum in some cases, and I think that’s what we saw,” Palin told Fox News, downplaying her role in South Carolina and other states Tuesday. “It certainly wasn’t me as an individual.”

Obama

Halfway through his first term, the Democratic president’s popularity — with voters and candidates — continues to waver, and the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico hasn’t helped.

An average of recent polls shows Obama with 48 percent approval and 46 percent disapproval. Roe predicts that if Obama’s approval number continues to slide, a GOP takeover becomes more likely.

Some Democratic candidates, such as Moore in the 3rd Congressional District in Kansas, are keeping Obama at a discreet distance, at least so far. “Stephene is focused on Kansas and our race,” said campaign manager Matt Sinovic.

But Carnahan would be happy for a hand from Obama or former President Bill Clinton, who has helped Democrats in other states and who remains popular in Missouri.

For his part, Blunt, the likely GOP Senate candidate, will do his best to tie Carnahan with the White House.

“Barack Obama has already been to Missouri to raise money for Robin Carnahan because he knows she would be another liberal rubber-stamp,” said Blunt campaign spokesman Rich Chrismer.

Carnahan’s spokesman, Linden Zakula, countered that, “the recent elections spell trouble for Representative Blunt because voters across the country are rejecting Washington insiders, who, like him, have long records of putting special interests … ahead of middle-class families.”

Incumbents

Current office holders are still nervous, despite Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s surprising runoff victory Tuesday in the Arkansas Democratic primary.

Lincoln, a moderate who faced down an expensive challenge from organized labor, is now looking at an uphill re-election campaign in a state that gave Republican John McCain a 20-point victory in 2008.

Already two senators — Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Robert Bennett of Utah — have lost nomination fights, although in both cases the specifics of each race might have mattered more than a general anti-incumbent mood.

Several other House incumbents have retired rather than face difficult re-election campaigns.

Tea party

The conservative/populist/libertarian movement has had some success at the ballot box and some failures.

In Kentucky, Rand Paul won a surprising Senate Republican nomination, while Sharron Angle came from behind Tuesday to win the GOP nomination in Nevada to run against Sen. Harry Reid. Tea party-endorsed candidates also won in South Carolina.

But tea party candidates in states such as Virginia lost Tuesday, in part because of infighting among tea party factions. Tea party conservative Chuck DeVore lost to Fiorina in California.

And tea party-supported candidates in the 3rd Congressional District in Kansas are considered long shots against state Rep. Kevin Yoder, who appears less popular with tea party activists.

Columnist David Corn suggested that tea party power may depend a lot on geography.

“This inchoate, unorganized movement still has the ability to influence certain elections — such as GOP primary contests in Nevada and Kentucky,” he wrote Wednesday on the Politics Daily website. “But its reach may be severely limited.”

Yet Roe insisted the tea party has energized the most important part of the Republican base.

“Any time conservatives are fired up, it just absolutely helps Republicans,” he said.

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