GRIMNESS AMONG THE DEMS – AT 8:18 A.M. ET:  Michael Barone analyzes some recent numbers and, after a word of caution about the size of the sample, comes up with a grim medical diagnosis for the congressional Democrats.

The pro-Republican group American Action Forum has conducted polls, as Jim Geraghty reports in National Review Online, in 12 East Coast House districts (East Coast in this case includes Virginia, West Virginia and Florida) currently held by Democrats. The sample size for each district is only 400, so I don’t think it’s wise to read too much into the percentages in each race. On average, voters prefer Republican candidates to Democratic candidates by a 38%-31% margin—somewhat startling, considering that every one of these districts elected a Democrat in 2008. This seems consistent with Gallup’s most recent numbers on the generic House vote, which show Democrats doing worse than at any other time since 1950, when Gallup started asking voters which party’s candidate they would vote for in House elections. Gallup shows Republicans leading 50%-43%, which is very similar to Real Clear Politics’s average of recent polls, which is 47%-41% Republican...

...It’s beginning to look like see-saw politics. Barack Obama got a higher percentage of the vote in 2008 than any other Democratic nominees in history except Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. Now Democrats seem to be on the brink of doing worse in House elections than they have in any cycle since 1946.

COMMENT:  And they would deserve it.  But the votes haven't been counted, so all we can do now is fight and hope, with the emphasis on the fight.

August 18, 2010