Poll Finds More Americans Identifying as Republicans

A new poll by Rasmussen Reports shows  the number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats has fallen two percentage points in November to 36% the lowes number of Democrats since 2005.

On Nov. 4, 2008, Americans by a lopsided margin turned over complete control of the federal government to the Democratic Party — the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House, where a new president promised to change the partisan tone of the nation’s capital.

Now, 13 months later, after a turbulent year of rancorous politics, rising war casualties in Afghanistan and unemployment now above 10%, 5% fewer Americans are calling themselves Democrats.

Hardly an enthusiastic endorsement of the record so far of the incumbent president, whose approval rating has also dropped below 50% for the first time. Approval of President Obama’s war handling has fallen the most, plummeting from 63% last spring to 45% this fall.

A new poll by Rasmussen Reports finds that despite — or perhaps because of — legislative progress on Obama’s 2009 keynote issue of healthcare reform, among other issues, the number of adult Americans calling themselves Democrats fell by almost 2 whole points just in the month of November.

Conversely, Politico ran an article yesterday headlined Warning signals for House Democrats wherein former Democrat congressmen, Martian Frost, details his friends and colleagues in the party starting to see the warning signs for those in swing states, saying that history and current policies and positions are not in their favor.

Highly respected Blue Dog Democrats Dennis Moore of Kansas and John Tanner of Tennessee have both announced that they are retiring from Congress and will not seek another term in 2010.

Both represent swing districts and both are about the same age – Moore is 64 and Tanner is 65. Their decisions spell trouble for Democrats seeking to maintain a decent majority in the next Congress.

Let’s just look at history as a guide. When Democrats lost control of the House in 1994, their inability to hold a number of open Democratic swing districts contributed to massive GOP pick-ups. Again in 1996, when Democrats rebounded by picking up nine seats, they would have returned to the majority but for their inability to hold 10 open seats.

Swing open seats in the South and Midwest are particularly troubling for Democrats. Popular incumbents like Moore and Tanner can hold onto seats in basically conservative territory because of their track record of delivering for their constituents. However, once seats like these come open, they often revert to form and that means Democrats will need to find exactly the right candidate and run strong races to retain them.

The pendulum is clearly swing in the right’s direction, just how far… remains to be seen.

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