A watched
pot never boils, so the saying goes. But in Washington, it can seem
like every
watched pot boils. Casual remarks and minor poll movements are
overanalyzed
and overinterpreted. It can be easy to forget that voters are typically
not as
sensitive as DC pundits might have us believe. But the data typically show broader political
attitudes unlikely to swerve with every debate.
And so
it's been in the wake of Health Care Reform's passage (HCR). Many have
jumped
into the debate. Does it help or hurt
Democrats? Has it given Democrats back their "mojo"? Has it
done nothing
whatsoever?
But if we
look at pollster.com's
tracking of key political measures, we don't see a whole
lot of movement beyond those specific to health care (and even then, the
movement is gradual).
Let's
start with Obama's approval from March 1st till now (HCR passed on March
21st). This chart, to me,
could not say "no movement" more clearly. (We see a bit more
movement on Obama's ratings on health care, as his
approval ratings have increased just slightly.)
Much has been made about
Republicans overtaking Democrats in the generic Congressional ballot in
this
recent Gallup survey.
But even in Gallup's own writeup, the change is within the margin of
error.
It's too soon to tell whether this represents a new pattern, or simply
usual
variance. The current pollster.com
average shows Republicans leading by less
than two points, as illustrated in this chart.
This is
not to say that voters' views can't be volatile. The average of
favor/oppose HCR does in fact move quite a bit, although not very dramatically in the
weeks before and after passage. And, of course, views toward Obama and
Democrats have softened considerably since the 2008 election. But these
movements are generally slower, rather than the quick, dramatic lurches
suggested by poll-watchers.
Finally,
it's worth putting recent numbers in the context of long-time tracking.
While
attitudes indeed fluctuate, some things hold true over the long haul.
The Washington Post tracks
favorable and unfavorable impressions of the two parties (using not only
their
own polling but some older data from Gallup and CBS News/NYT). The
chart below
illustrates net favorable (favorable minus unfavorable) for each
party. Two
things jump out. First, the Democratic Party is always net favorable,
while
Republicans are sometimes not. Second, the gap in favorability is much
larger
now, in Democrats' favor, than in 1994. The oft-floated premise that
HCR has
damaged the Democratic party is just not borne out by the data.