Why independent voters are abandoning the Democrats...

Article Publishing Date: October 25, 2010


Election Day is almost here, and there is an increasing amount of evidence that independent voters are abandoning Democrats and are favoring candidates from the Republican Party. This is a key reason that the GOP (Grand Old Party), is very likely to gain control of at least the House, if not both the Senate and the House.

The latest poll taken that confirms this was called the new Politico/George Washington University Battleground poll. The results were released Monday and they said that independents are favoring Republicans over Democrats by a fourteen-point margin. Also, there have been other polls that have released information confirming the evidence, such as the Gallup Poll. The Gallup Poll was released on Friday and it showed that only twenty-three percent of independent voters agree that “most members of Congress deserve reelection”. It also said that only twenty-one percent of Republicans deserve to be reelected, and fifty-nine percent of Democrats say that most U.S. representatives should be returned to office.

Some self-described independents say that they may have backed Obama in 2008, but now, they are not happy with much of what the Democrats have accomplished since then. It has also been confirmed by Politico/GWU poll, that sixty-two percent of independents have an unfavorable view of President Obama’s health-care reform legislation. And, another poll has showed that sixty-six percent of independents say that the administration’s tactics to spike the economy and get it going again are not working.

Over the past few weeks, Democrats have become more and more positive on this measure, but another Gallup Poll has confirmed that only thirty-three percent of overall voters think that incumbents deserve the win. Apparently, this has been the lowest percentage before a midterm election that Gallup has found in the past sixteen years. For example, in 1994, thirty-eight percent of respondents to a Gallup poll said that most members of Congress deserved reelection. Because of this, the GOP gained 54 seats that year, and their first House majority since 1954.
Chris Arterton, a professor of political management at George Washington University, stated that, “Unless some drastic event shakes up the present dynamics, we will be headed in what the Japanese would call a ‘twisted’ Congress, with the House under Republican leadership and the Senate under Democratic leadership” (The Christian Science Monitor).

After reading this article, I do believe that this would cause many conflicts in Congress, especially if Congress was divided between the two major political parties. If the House and Senate were divided, I believe that even less things would be accomplished because there would be many disagreements. And, because of this they would pay more attention to solutions in Congress then actually solving the problems nationally. This would definitely create a ‘twisted’ Congress.
According to a Gallup poll, only thirty-three percent of overall voters think that incumbents deserve to win and be reelected into Congress. This means that there is a severe chance that the majority could be given back to the Republican Party, at least within Congress. This is because many people feel like there needs to be new government officials to try and fix problems happening within America. And, according to this pole, many people believe that there are problems happening within the Obama Administration. Or, these citizens just do not agree with what Obama’s Administration is trying to accomplish within the government concerning the economy, health care, etc.

This article is extremely important to be familiar with because, if America switches political parties once again, within a short period of time, other policies might change also. These policies will affect us as citizens greatly, such as education, big business, and the upper class. Citizens really need to pay attention to what is going on, especially with midterm elections taking place within the next couple of weeks.