There is already a diary about this, and I already put up a Breaking Blue piece on CA-50 today, but I just had to blog this on the main page. Survey USA has a new poll out on CA-50. The overall numbers put the race at a dead heat, 45-45, but what most interested me were the internals. Want to know how Busby is staying competitive in a district with a local partisan index of just over RNC +20? The answer comes from independents, among whom Busby leads by a whopping 54-19.

I simply cannot see any way to look at a set of numbers like that and not conclude that the Indycrat realignment is underway. This is a conservative district. Bilbray is considered to be a moderate Republican. Hell, Bilbray even used to represent part of this district during the 1990's. Despite all that, he is still only bringing in 19% of independents. 19%?! "Other" is actually bringing in 26% of independents, so Bilbray is actually in third among independents. These are numbers that pretty much match Bush's standing among independents nationwide, and Democratic leads among independents nationwide in generic ballots. This is a complete and total abandonment of Republicans on the part of independents.

Over the past couple of weeks, you may have noticed that I have pretty much dropped my once pessimistic outlook on the 2006 elections. Mind blowing poll numbers such as this, which completely back up the Indycrat realignment postulated by Jerome, Ruy, myself and others over the past year, are the main reason why. A moderate Republican in a conservative district that he used to partially represent is in third place among independents in a general election? I don't want to get all John McEnroe here, but you can't be serious! This is really too good to be true, and has massive national landslide written all over it.

The main issue in the 2006 elections might not be whether or not Democrats have the political capability of pulling off a victory, but instead whether or not Democrats have the political capability ability of turning what is almost certainly a landslide election into a change election. Will this be a temporary landslide that is quickly reversed, ala 1946 or 1952, or will it be a long-term, coalition-changing landslide, ala 1974 or 1994? Right now, we are clearly still in the temporary range. Independents have been almost completely dislodged from the Republicans coalition, but large numbers of them are still waiting in a holding pattern between the two major parties. For example, Bilbray may only have 19% of independents in this poll, but Busby only has 54%. The outcome in CA-50 may hinge on where on where the 26% of independents currently supporting "other" end up turning. In that sense, the outcome in CA-50 will still offer us a large insight into the nature of the 2006 elections as a whole. Independents are clearly dislodged, but have they turned to Democrats yet? We shall see on June 6th, which continues to loom very, very large in the primary calendar.

Mystery Pollster has an excellent piece up on the Rasmussen poll. It is lengthy, and I can't possibly summarize the entire piece here, so poll junkies should go check it out for themselves. I think this post goes a long way toward explaining the age-old question (age-old in blogosphere time, anyway): why does Rasmussen end up with results that lean to the right? Basically, the answer can be found in the significantly lower number of independents Rasmussen includes in their surveys compared to other polling firms. MP writes:The biggest difference is that Rasmussen has fewer respondents in the independent and other categories (29%) than most of the other polls of adults (an average of 39%). However, Rasmussen's independent/other result is very close to average of recent surveys that screened for registered voters or likely voters (LV - an average of 30%). Now, we all know here at MyDD that independents have long since soured on Republicans and on Bush. So, it should seem pretty obvious to everyone here that when a poll reduces the number of independents in a poll, that poll will trend favorably for Republicans, even thought he poll still gives Democrats an edge in overall partisan self-identification.

One word of caution: it might be entirely reasonable to reduce the number of independents in a poll and instead focus on a more partisan universe of voters. This is especially the case for a low-turnout, mid-term election. Combined, Democrats and Republicans will probably make up at least 72% of the vote in November, and might make up more than 75%. Compare that to recent polls, where they are only combining for an average of 61% of the estimated electorate, and you might see our problem. Independents turn out at low rates, so the Democratic lead among independents might not be as important as many are currently construing it to be.

A more partisan universe improves Republican odds greatly in 2006. While the last twenty-seven polls over at Polling Report show Bush with an average approval of 37.6% positive and 57.3% negative, the last sixteen Rasmussen polls show an average of 42.4% positive, 55.9% negative. In terms of net approval, that is a 6.2% improvement for Bush in the more partisan Rasmussen universe. This is the type of swing that moves the election away from a landslide-realignment, and toward a close battle for control.

Since there are many good reasons to believe that the electorate will be more partisan than the general public, or even more partisan than the universe of registered voters, do not discount the Rasmussen results lightly. 2006 will be a base turnout election, and our party leadership needs to realize that there are more to elections than independents. Emmanuel and Schumer seem to believe that anger alone will be enough to drive up Democratic turnout. I am not convinced. We must appeal to the activist base to build our political machine in ways other than simply watching Republicans implode.

If we have won independents, we have won the election. --Chuck Schumer on a March 29th conference call with bloggers.This election will be a referendum on Bush. --Rahm Emmanuel on a March 29th conference call with bloggers. Most members will be elected with between 80% and 100% of their support coming from Republicans. --Republican pollster Jan van Lohuizen in a March 3rd memo to RNC Chair Ken Mehlman.The difficulty for President Bush here is that he is noticeably less popular among independents than one would expect of a president with a 38% overall approval rating. Instead, his approval among independents is some 9-10% below what we might expect based on other presidents. --Political science professor Charles Franklin, March 4"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?"Independents: 28% Approve, 62% Disapprove --CBS News Poll. March 9-12, 2006. N=1,136 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults) Among independents, the number approving of Bush's job performance has fallen from 47% in January 2005 to 26% today/ --Pew Center for People and the Press, March 151. Bush's overall approval rating is 79 percent among Republicans and 14 percent among Democrats-a gap of 65 points. But his rating is also just 29 percent among independents, producing a very sizable gap of 50 points relative to GOP identifiers. Put another way, independents are 50 points away from Republicans, but just 15 points away from Democrats. 2. Only 20 percent of independents believe the country is going in the right direction, a mere 12 points more than the comparable figure among Democrats-but 37 points less than the figure among Republicans. 3. Twenty-six percent of independents approve of Bush's handling of the economy (66 percent disapprove), 14 points more than the number of Democrats who approve-but 44 points less than the number among Republicans. 4. Twenty-six percent of independents approve of Bush's handling of the Iraq situation-15 points more than Democrats; 43 points less than Republicans. 5. On handling the campaign against terrorism, 38 percent of independents approve of the job Bush is doing. That's 11 points more than Democrats, but 45 points less than Republicans. 6. How about whether Bush has "the same priorities for country as you have"? Sixty-nine percent of Republicans agree, but just 11 percent of Democrats and 25 percent of independents. 7. Was removing Saddam Hussein from power worth the loss of American life and other costs of attacking Iraq? Only 30 percent of independents and 15 percent of Democrats say yes, compared to 70 percent among Republicans. 8. And what should the US do now? Just 24 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of independents believe we should "stay in Iraq as long as it takes to make sure Iraq is a stable democracy" (the administration position), compared to 61 percent of Republicans. --Ruy Teixeira, October 13th 2005, in coining the term IndycratsHere is an eye-opening fact about the Survey USA 50-state tracking released today: in every single state, Independent approval of Bush was closer to Democratic approval of Bush than Independent approval of Bush was to Republican approval of Bush. That was the case in every state. Fifty out of fifty. Massachusetts and Utah. California and Alabama. New York and Idaho. In every single state in the country, Independents were more in line with Democrats than they were with Republicans. In fact, in thirty-three states, the difference between Democratic approval of Bush and Independent approval of Bush was less than half the difference between Republicans and Independents. In twelve states, the difference was three times as great. Nationwide, Democrats were more than 25 points closer to Independents than were Republicans. --Chris Bowers, August 17, 2005It's an alignment I've not seen in many years, since '98 probably. What it says is that Independents and Democrats have a potential new majority, apart from the lockstep Republicans. Post Sept. 11th's upswing of non-partisanship, and then all through 2004, the Independents remained in the 50-50 range in reaction to Bush. Now they've shifted, and further, have aligned with Democrats. Rove's got to do something, because this puts Bush in dangerous territory. Gone are the 50-50 days, and approaching are the 40-60 days. --Jerome Armstrong, June 24, 2005 For the 2006 elections, Democrats cannot increase their advantage among independents any further than they already have. This is the largest Democratic lead among independents in 24 years, and historically is only clearly surpassed by the advantage they held among independents in 1974. Given this lead among Independents, there has to come a time when Democrats realize that success in this election depends less on continuing to target and appeal to Independents, and more on building a political machine that can make their current appeal and potential majority into a reality at the ballot box. At the same time, there needs to come a point within the progressive activist base when we realize that in our lifetimes it is entirely possible that there will never be a better opportunity than 2006 to wreck permanent damage on the conservative movement and all for which it stands. Pass up this chance, and the next time an opportunity of this level comes around there is a good chance you will be either dead or retired. I do not doubt that the 2005-2006 election cycle has seen a significant increase in progressive grassroots and netroots electoral activism over previous cycles, as Schumer indicated yesterday. However, considering the degree to which progressive grassroots electoral activism was all but dead in the 1990's, that really isn't saying much. The potential for progressive netroots and grassroots electoral activism is much, much larger than its current level. For this to happen, there needs to be a reinvigorated belief among all Democrats that we can in fact win. For this to happen, there needs to be at least some increased transfer of resources away from constantly appealing to Independents, and toward invigorating progressive activists. For this to happen, there needs to be a greater embrace among congressional Democrats of at least the courage and the bravery of people like Murtha and Feingold, even if they don't want to embrace their particular stances. For this to happen, there needs to be action on the part of people like Murtha and Feingold to become leaders of the activist base, and regularly speak to their concerns in a way that will keep them motivated for 2006. For this to happen, there needs to be a strategy for Democrats beyond just watching, and assisting in, Republican implosion. For this to happen, there need to be a wider recognition among progressive activists as to just how rare and precious this opportunity actually is.

Here is yet more evidence that the narrative about Democrats needing a better message or some such thing in order to better appeal to swing voters is horribly out of date. This time, it comes from a Republican pollster apparently contracted by the RNC (emphasis mine):President Bush continues to have the strong loyal support of Republican voters. Despite slippage in approval ratings among all voters, the President's job approval among Republicans continues to be very high. Most members will be elected with between 80% and 100% of their support coming from Republicans. I don't see that Republicans driving a wedge between themselves and the President is a good election strategy. Even Republican pollsters are warning the Republican leadership that they have already completely lost Independents. In this environment, Democrats do not need a better message to appeal to Independents--they have already won Independents. What Democrats need now are the electoral resources to bring this new majority to the polls, and the political machine to solidify these gains over the long-term. As I argued yesterday, in large part this is going to mean maintaining a high level of enthusiasm among the progressive activist base that provides election resources and supports progressive infrastructure. That is the new key to the 2006 elections.