The fate of Republican candidates in marginal districts depends on a number of factors: turnout rates, top of the ticket performance and party favorability among them. The later especially matters in state and federal races where party label appears next to a candidate’s name on the ballot.
Republican candidates and strategists should be concerned with Gallup data released this week showing that the Republican Party’s favorability rating has dropped to 28% — a historic low, and 10 points lower than it was a month ago.
This is not helpful.
In his book Courage and Consequence Karl Rove correctly notes that the higher the office, the more likely the voters will see the candidates for who they truly are. The reverse is also true: the lower the office, the more voters don’t know the candidates by name, and by extension need to rely on other signals – such as their party affiliation.
For this reason party favorability has a disproportionate impact on downticket candidates for state and federal office.
It’s no secret that both parties have taken a hit in their favorability: the Democrats are down a few points as well, but their decline is not as severe as for the GOP. President Obama hasn’t escaped unscathed either: his approval rating in one poll is down to 37%.
However, President Obama isn’t on the ballot in 2016, so a big decline in his support only indirectly hurts Democrat candidates.
In California, the Republican National Committee is investing heavily in building infrastructure to support House candidates in competitive districts. You can bet those candidates are not being helped by a drop in GOP favorability. In fact, this dynamic threatens to undermine the good and important grassroots work currently under way.
Lacking the Presidency’s bully pulpit, the party that does not hold the White House typically has a more difficult time positively defining itself: its messengers are splintered, divided between two chambers and then their respective factions. This puts Republicans at a natural disadvantage in the current budget fight (not to mention a television news media that, with the exception of Fox, is very sympathetic to the Democrats’ viewpoint).
The data points cited above should not be construed as casting blame on House Republicans, who are working in good faith to reign in a bad law (Obamacare) that is doing real damage to employment. (Investors Business Daily, for example, has documented the job losses created by Obamacare.) Rather, we can see from the data that a better job must be done in communicating why the federal government is in this mess, why Republicans are fighting this fight, and for whom.