Another Corollary Of The Steve Israel Effect: Discouraged Democratic Voters Stay Home

All cycle we’ve been talking about The Steve Israel Effect— even before we named it. The Steve Israel Effect is when his grotesquely corrupt DCCC targets the wrong districts with awful conservative recruits, gets them to alienate grassroots Democrats with mealy-mouthed mystery meat positions by promising huge independent expenditures in their races— and then leaves them high and dry at the end of the campaign by withdrawing all the financial support and transferring it to even worse and more conservative (and corrupt) candidates. One of over a dozen examples in the last few weeks: Steve Israel just withdrew $2.8 million in support for moderate John Foust and gave the money to wretched Nebraska Blue Dog Brad Ashford and the shady little bank lobbyist Pete Aguilar.

One of the corollaries of the Steve Israel Effect is that it depresses Democratic turn-out. Grassroots progressives, who differ markedly and across-the-board from the corrupt Beltway Establishment, are not usually enthused by the horrifyingly low calibre of candidates Israel and other DCCC hucksters recruit. Garbage candidates like Jennifer Garrison— anti-Choice, virulently anti-gay, pro-NRA, pro-fracking… she’d be perfect as a Republican— do not draw informed Democratic voters. Conservative incumbents (Blue Dogs and New Dems)— encouraged all cycle by Israel and Hoyer to vote with the GOP on crucial matters— are now all in trouble and struggling to survive. It’s no wonder why. Conservative voters already have their candidates, i.e., Republicans. When grassroots Dems don’t see a choice, they stay home. And, sure enough, yesterday’s Hill broke the news that Israel and the other lame brains in the DC Democratic Establishment are panicking as they “suddenly” realize that many of their base voters won’t be showing up in 3 weeks.

The Democratic Party's worst fears about the midterm election look to be coming true.

Polling in recent weeks suggests turnout on Election Day could be very low, even by the standards of recent midterms. That’s bad news for Democrats because core groups in the liberal base are more likely to stay home than are people in the demographic segments that lean Republican.

A Gallup poll last week found that voters are less engaged in this year's midterms than they were in 2010 and 2006. Only 33 percent of respondents said they were giving at least “some” thought to the upcoming midterms, compared to 46 percent in 2010 and 42 percent in 2006. Even more troubling for Democrats, Republicans held a 12-point advantage  when those paying “some” attention were broken down by party.

Historically, the core Democratic constituencies of young people, minorities and single women are more likely to skip voting in midterm elections. The current projections suggest that months of effort by the Democratic Party to engage those groups on issues such as the minimum wage and women's pay may have been in vain.

If the numbers hold, it could mean a rout for Democrats similar to the 2010 "shellacking”— President Obama’s description— that swept away their House majority.

"We cannot have 2010 turnout. If we have 2010 turnout among our key constituencies, we're going to have 2010 all over again. It's math," said Democratic strategist Cornell Belcher, who served as a pollster for President Obama's election campaigns.

…Some Democrats think the party hasn't done enough to pep up the groups that form its main pillars of support. Veteran Democratic pollster Celinda Lake told The Hill last week that Hispanic voters would largely be unmotivated to vote in this year's elections due to President Obama's decision to delay an executive action on immigration.

“I think if we'd done something, it would have energized the Latino vote and drawn a clear distinction with the Republicans," Lake said.

Polling has further shown that young people are generally disengaged with this year's elections. A Pew Research poll this month found that only five percent of adults ages 18-29 were following the 2014 midterms very closely.

That could spell disaster for Democrats. National exit polls from the last midterm elections in 2010 indicated that voters aged 18-29 favored Democratic candidates over Republicans by 55 percent to 42 percent. Those figures were roughly reversed among voters aged 65 and older, who voted Republican 59 percent to 38 percent.

…Democrats are continuing to try hard to get their base to turn out. Leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus last month announced a multi-state campaign drive to motivate African American voters to go to the polls. The effort started with voter outreach drives at 3,000 African American churches across the country on September 21.

Way too late. It was all over when Pelosi reappointed Israel to head the DCCC and allowed him to start recruiting one wretched, unsupportable candidate after another. Although he’s trying to pad his “batting average” by including candidates from districts held by Democrats (Kathleen Rice, Aaron Woolf, Pat Murphy, Emily Cain, Seth Moulton), he’s likely to lose almost all his Red-to-Blue recruits, many of whom he’s already pulled the rug out from under. Of the 29 candidates left on his Red-to-Blue list, the only likely wins are 4 of the 5 running for Democratic-held seats (no Woolf) plus Pete Aguilar in an overwhelmingly Democratic district (D+5), plus Andrew Romanoff (CO-06), Staci Appel (IA-03), Gwen Graham (FL-02), and, maybe Domenic Recchia (NY-11), whose opponent has been indicted on 20 felonies. The rest look like they’re all going down, more victims of the Steve Israel Effect.


UPDATE: Latest Victims Of The Steve Israel Effect

Andrew Romanoff was once considered the most likely Democratic challenger to beat a Republican incumbent (extremist Mike Coffman). But Steve Israel has lost faith in him and just pulled a million dollars so he could better finance Blue Dog Brad Ashford in Nebraska and a gaggle of endangered conservative Democratic incumbents who have minimum support at a grassroots level after disappointing voters by sucking up to Wall Street for the last two years.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had reserved $1.4 million for TV spending to boost Romanoff in the final two weeks of his race against Republican Rep. Mike Coffman. But a DCCC aide said Friday that those funds would be distributed to other races.

Romanoff, a former state House speaker and unsuccessful 2010 Senate candidate, was once regarded as one of his party’s top 2014 hopefuls. But, with Republicans benefiting from a favorable national environment and Coffman running an energetic reelection campaign, Romanoff has seen his prospects dim.

Every candidate without exception who has followed Israel’s hollow losing advice has dim prospects now. A far less viable candidate than Romanoff, Israel fave Jennifer Garrison, has also had the legs cut out from under her feeble campaign in eastern/southern Ohio. Asked today by the Herald-Dispatch what steps the federal government should take to reduce the number of Americans living in poverty this was her response. (Keep in mind she makes her living tricking her neighbors into selling fracking rights under their property.) Sghe couldn’t think of any better way to help the unemployed and poverty-stricken than this GOP talking point— probably fed to her by Israel:

“The federal government should promote policies that encourage growth in our economy and create jobs. An example of these policies would be to invest in clean coal technologies and oppose the EPA standards on existing coal fired power plants that will result in a loss of jobs in this region. This can immediately encourage job growth in southeastern Ohio.”