GOP's uptick just in time for Election Day

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

There has been a palpable shift in the mood in Washington in recent weeks. No longer are insiders in both parties sharing predictions of a Democratic rout of Republicans.

Some on both sides had expected an election debacle for the Republicans, driven by the Iraq war, high gas prices and the perception that a Republican-led Washington can neither shoot nor spend straight.

Now those perceptions have changed.

A 58 percent majority of Democratic insiders polled by National Journal, as well as an overwhelming 94 percent of Republican insiders, say the Republican National Committee is doing a better job for November than the Democratic National Committee.

Three weeks past the traditional Labor Day kickoff of campaign season, many Republicans are expressing greater optimism for their party's prospects on Election Day, now just six weeks away.

"This is not an election like 1994 and 1974, when we know the outcome is going to be a massive tsunami for one of the two parties," Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman says. "If the election were today, we would lose some seats, but keep our majorities."

It's the job of Mr. Mehlman and of his Democratic National Committee counterpart, Chairman Howard Dean, to wave pompoms for their respective teams, but there was no press corps eye-rolling over Mr. Mehlman's hopeful statements at a recent Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters.

John Zogby, whose polling until recently forecast a Republican debacle, now says a big reason for the mood shift is that President Bush is regaining crucial support among his party's voter base by emphasizing national security -- his strongest suit -- as often as possible.

In a mid-August Zogby poll, only 62 percent of likely Republican voters gave Mr. Bush an "excellent" or "good job" rating. But by mid-September, Mr. Bush's approval rating among Republicans had reached 76 percent.

"You have to turn out your base for congressional elections, and if the president has 62 percent approval among Republicans, you have a third who don't approve and a lot of people who might stay home," says longtime Republican strategist Charles Black. "When the president has 76 percent Republican approval, it makes it a lot easier."