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Title: Democrats Making Progress
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URL Source: http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot ... democrats-making-progress.html
Published: Aug 2, 2010
Author: None
Post Date: 2010-08-02 16:08:09 by Skip Intro
Keywords: None
Views: 163
If you simply look at the national trends Democrats are in pretty bad shape right now. Barack Obama's approval numbers are hitting record lows in a lot of polling and the balance of the generic ballot surveys show Republicans in the lead. If you look at the trends in the actual races though things are getting sunnier for the Democrats. In June and July PPP polled eight Senate match ups that we had a previous poll to compare to- in all eight the Democratic candidate improved his/her position, by an average of 4.25 points. There's a variety of reason the Democrats' numbers are improving. In Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina Joe Sestak, Lee Fisher, and Elaine Marshall respectively saw their numbers improve as their parties unified around them after hard fought wins in primary contests. Barbara Boxer and Paul Hodes didn't have to deal with serious primaries themselves but may be benefiting from the nomination battles their Republican opponents are going through. Carly Fiorina had to lurch to the right to win her primary and Kelly Ayotte is now doing the same in hers. And then of course there are the races with flawed Republican candidates: Charlie Melancon and Alexi Giannoulias have seen improvement as David Vitter and Mark Kirk have had to deal with character issues and Jack Conway has seen his standing rise as Kentuckians have had to consider whether Rand Paul is an extremist. The national picture does matter and there's a real possibility the GOP will end up winning every close race. But the improvement Democrats are seeing is a reminder that candidates matter too and that the party may be able to buck the overall trends in the places where it proves to have a superior candidate. Here are the before and after numbers: 
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