Divide and Conquer

If Republican strategists can read poll results, it's not hard to figure out what some of their closing arguments will be heading into the November 2 midterm elections.

Republicans know that their brand is still damaged from the eight years of George W. Bush's presidency and the six years that the GOP controlled Congress. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows, for example, that just 31 percent of adults nationwide rate the Republican Party positively and that 43 percent rate it negatively. Indeed, in three NBC/WSJ polls this year, the GOP was viewed positively by 30 to 32 percent of respondents and negatively by 38 to 43 percent. Voters are hardly telling the Republican Party, "Come on back; all is forgiven."

But another finding in the latest poll provides a clue as to what the GOP will be stressing this fall. When Democratic pollster Peter Hart and Republican pollster Bill McInturff, two of the best in the business, asked, "In general, do you think that it is better for the same political party to control both the Congress and the presidency so they can work together more closely, or do you think it is better to have different political parties controlling the Congress and the presidency to prevent either one from going too far?" only 30 percent of all adults and 31 percent of registered voters preferred one-party control. A whopping 61 percent of all adults and 60 percent of registered voters opted for divided government.

Simply put, voters don't really trust either party. To many voters, in midterm elections when the party that holds the presidency is a constant, the idea of not putting all of their eggs in one basket is pretty attractive.

Even in the heady days just after President Obama was inaugurated last year, when the February NBC/WSJ poll indicated that 68 percent of adults viewed him positively, 60 percent approved of the job he was doing, only 26 percent disapproved, and just 19 percent viewed him negatively, the Democratic Party was viewed positively by just 49 percent and negatively by 31 percent. Now the party's numbers are, in pollster parlance, "upside down": The Democrats' 43 percent negative score is 6 percentage points above its 37 percent positive rating. Obama's job-approval rating is down to 48 percent, with 47 percent disapproval; but he is still viewed a lot more favorably than the Democratic Party or the Democratic-controlled Congress, which now has a job-approval rating of just 17 percent, with 77 percent disapproval.

Although some Democrats try to take solace from the fact that the Republican brand is even more damaged than their own, they should not forget that midterm elections are a referendum on the party in power. It's rare for midterm voters to want to punish the minority party.

Democrats hold 59 percent of the House seats, so the responses to a recent Hart-McInturff question should truly alarm them. The pollsters asked, "If there were a place on your ballot that allowed you to vote to defeat and replace every single member of Congress, including your own representative, would you do this or not?" Fifty percent of voters said they would; a minority, 47 percent, said they would not.

On the generic congressional ballot test, Democrats held a 3-point advantage among all registered voters in the latest NBC/WSJ poll, 45 percent to 42 percent. Among the subsample of voters most interested in the coming election -- a group that is more likely to resemble the midterm electorate, which generally has one-third fewer voters than in a presidential election -- Republicans had a 13-point edge, 52 percent to 39 percent. That was similar to their 15-point advantage, 50 percent to 35 percent, among very interested voters in the January 10-14 NBC/WSJ survey. (In the Gallup tracking survey of all registered voters for the week of March 8-14, Democrats had a 3-point advantage as well, 47 percent to 44 percent. Gallup noted, however, that in its experience, Democrats need a 4-point lead among registered voters to run ahead among likely voters, and to win a majority of House seats.)

Heading toward an election in which the Democratic-controlled Congress is less popular than the Democratic president, don't be surprised if Republicans spend more time advocating divided government than talking up their own battered brand.