Redstate

By malbis Comments (11) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

The recent non-reaction of ABC to threats by the Democratic leadership over the Path to 9/11 miniseries revealed a dirty little secret the mainstream media doesn't want you to know.

The GOP is going to win. The Democrats are going to lose seats.

They know it.

The Democrats are beginning to know it.

You can count on it.

How do I know it, and why am I so certain? The answer to those questions, along with the facts and figures to back it all up, is after the jump...

Let's start with some things that you've already heard and probably believe:

"Voter anxiety over the economy, health care and financial security threatens to put Republican candidates across the country on the defensive this fall." That decisive statement comes from the Washington Post. They are not alone in their assessment.

Pundit and Congressional expert Stuart Rothenberg issued the warning that "a heavy-damage scenario for the Republicans" was certain to come in the November elections. He based this on widespread dissatisfaction among voters and the desire for change.

The situation was so grim for Republicans and so positive for Democrats that a confident statement was issued for the record by the Democrat House minority leader: "We’re going to win the House back."

You've heard those statements, and others like them, and you probably believed them when you heard them.

There is only one major problem with what was said.

Those statements were all made four years ago before the 2002 elections.

None of them, of course, actually came true.

The same tactics are now being tried four years later as virtually the same things are being said with equal force and equal certainty.

This has, after all, become the whole strategy of the Democrats and the mainstream media.

Talk loudly about how unpopular President Bush is, how unpopular the War in Iraq is, how tired people are of the GWOT.

Talk about how the party in power always loses seats in off-year elections.

Talk about how all the polls show people favoring Democrats over Republicans throughout the country in states both red and blue.

Talk loudly and hope that no one remembers that it wasn't true when you said it before--and it isn't true now.

It isn't true because the polls are showing something very different from what the mainstream media is reporting. The polls are showing a trend toward Republican candidates in both the House and Senate races in districts that the Democrats simply cannot afford to lose.

Here are the facts:

At the end of August, Gallup released a poll that received very little coverage in the press. That poll showed something surprising in the so-called "generic ballot" question of If the election were held today, which party’s candidate would you vote for in your congressional district?

The surprise was that the race had tightened, and tightened in favor of Republicans.

The often-cited 54% to 38% advantage that Democrats held on that question through the summer had vanished. This late August Gallup poll found a dead heat of 48% to 48% on the question among all voters--Republican, Democrat and Independent.

That in itself would be good news for Republicans, but it isn't the end of the story.

The Gallup organization was curious about why the Democrat advantage had disappeared so quickly and decided to do a deeper analysis of their polling data. Why had the shift happened, and what did it foretell for November?

They began by reviewing all thirteen polls they had conducted in 2006 that contained the "generic ballot" question. Checking demographic data, they divided responses up according to whether the respondent lived in a district represented currently by a Democrat or by a Republican. Obviously, if their results showed Republican-held districts in rebellion, it would mean a lot more for Democrat hopes of re-taking the House.

Through July of this year, that is exactly what the polls showed.

Democrats were favored in much higher than expected numbers in Republican districts than were incumbent Republicans. The margin, in fact, was a 51% to 40% advantage that had Democrats choosing up new committee heads, making calls to decorators, and threatening television network executives.

So far, it was a situation designed to warm the heart of Nancy Pelosi...assuming such a thing is possible, of course.

This trend toward Democrats in Republican-held districts actually peaked in late June with that eleven point margin mentioned above. The Republican base was energized--but in the wrong direction.

From late June, however, things started to fall apart. The 51% high in Repubican districts favoring generic Democrats over Republicans, the margin fell by July to 46% pro-Democrat. By late August, it had fallen to only 40%. During that same time, support for the Republican party in Republican-held districts rebounded by 14 points. It now stands at 54% and is higher than the highest point achieved by the Democrats this year.

The Democrats are not going to re-take the House in 2006 any more than they re-took the House in 2004 or in 2002. They are not going to re-take the Senate either. They are, in fact, going to lose seats in both.

I can say that with confidence because of another key fact that the Gallup organization turned up in their meta-analysis of their 2006 polls. The Republicans picked up seats in 2004 with an indentical 54% to 40% "generic ballot" margin over the Democrats in Republican-held districts. The situation is set up for Republican gains similar to those made in the last election cycle to happen again.

That is why ABC aired the Path to 9/11 with vitually no cuts that would have appeased Clinton and Co. and the Democrat leadership. They may not have reported on the shift in polling data, but they know about it.

The mainstream media knows exactly what is going to happen in November...unless, of course, they can convince you to sit the election out.

Because, after all, everyone knows that the Republicans are going to be trounced on election day and your vote really doesn't count.

Just like your vote didn't count in 2004.

Or in 2000.

If they repeat it often enough, maybe you will accept it as a "higher truth".

Would they lie to you?