Read More of the Same Day's Blog

It is a rule of thumb that whenever President Barack Obama is presented as the central figure in a Campaign 2010 story by a White House correspondent, we are not going to hear a story about public policy or issues. We are going to be told about demographic trends and get-out-the-vote efforts. CBS' Chip Reid showed us Obama "giving it the old college try" as he tried to energize the Democratic Party's twentysomething base on campus. Later Reid reported on CBS News' poll of voters who supported Obama in 2008: 67% plan to vote Democratic; 8% Republican; 21% uncommitted. ABC's Jake Tapper investigated the party's vanishingly small gender gap: "The women's vote is up for grabs."

The get-out-the-vote effort for another bloc in the Democratic Party's coalition was covered by CBS' John Blackstone. There are nine states in which Hispanic voters make up at least 10% of the electorate. Blackstone reckoned their vote will be decisive in California and Nevada. ABC's Jonathan Karl sliced the problem geographically: "Perhaps no state has swung more dramatically away from the Democrats than Ohio. They are preparing for a bloodbath here…It is hard to imagine the Republicans winning back the House without winning big here in Ohio."

Last month, at the end of the primary season, Tyndall Report pointed out that the Tea Party was the season's leading newsmaker, after its series of insurgent challenges to favorites of Republican Party leaders. Now the networks are conducting their own opinion polls in the run-up to the general election. CBS News' poll found that fully 81% of the Tea Party plans to vote Republican, "overwhelmingly white, male, Protestant and fired up," according to Dean Reynolds. But they are not, apparently, that numerous: ABC's George Stephanopoulos reported that his network's poll measured just 18% of likely voters to be Tea Party supporters. CBS' Ben Tracy used the same 18% estimate in his coverage of the Tea Party Express.

This is how NBC political director Chuck Todd put it: "The Tea Party has been helpful to the GOP in both rebranding the party away from George Bush and giving it a real grassroots component but this Tea Party influence in Republican primaries has put a number of Senate seats in play for Democrats that at this point should be out of reach…Delaware, Kentucky, Colorado, Nevada--and even Alaska."

The bottom line to explain voters' decisions, as far as NBC's Todd is concerned, does not rely on demographic voting blocs or minority ideological factions. Simply, 59% of likely voters believe the country is headed on the "wrong track," according to his network's poll. In 1994 that statistic was 55%; in 2006 it was 61%: "The bottom line--this is a national environment that indicates we are headed to a change election."

Andrew Tyndall 10/27/10 8:35:36 pm

© 2010 Tyndall Report