Numbers to watch in 2015
From here on out, just about everything political -- whether deserved or not -- will be viewed in the context of 2016, but each of the parties has more immediate concerns to address as the 114th Congress convenes. At the top of that list is voters' dissatisfaction with both of them and with Congress, generally, and continued frustration over the economy. Soon enough the polls will start measuring how they're doing. Here are three big things to watch as they do:
#1 Can the Economy Get to "Good?"
Republicans did well in the midterms in part by seizing on economic dissatisfaction: just 13 percent of their voters said it was in good shape as they pulled the lever for a House Republican and 89 percent of their voters called themselves worried about the economy's direction. Some of those views are driven by partisanship, but it's clear the voters who gave them control of Congress wanted more than just a check on President Obama's policies (though they wanted that, too) and that easing some of that economic concern looms as one of the party's top tests -- and perhaps top opportunities -- for the year. Republican voters weren't alone in that concern, either: 66 percent of those voting for Democrats were, too.
Overall evaluations of the economy have been creeping up, and whether or not they continue is a critical measure to watch in 2015; it will sets the narrative for much of 2016, too. Gallup noted recently that economic confidence is up and in 2014 the yearly CBS News poll average for economy showed a relatively higher overall average since before the crash in 2008, though it still didn't measure up to the majority who said things were good before the recession hit.
(Poll watchers should also note, though, that these numbers are often driven by partisan-tinged answers to the question, as Pew and others have shown.)
#2 Can there be Compromise in Washington?
Americans almost uniformly say they want the two parties in Congress to compromise to get things done. But members of the House 114th not only won, but did so, by and large, with comfortable margins, as we so often see in House elections. The average incoming winning percentage in 2014 was 64 percent for incoming Republicans and Democrats who ran against major-party opposition. And those easy wins -- for each party -- are often seen as a structural disincentive to compromise: when there are enough partisans back home the legislators can be re-elected by simply pleasing them. And sometimes the worry about losing a seat is greater from a primary challenge than from the opposing party.
Moreover, using just the rudimentary partisan breakdowns of the districts, the Republicans should start the next cycle as favored to keep their majority in the House in two years, given how sizable their current majority is. They took 247 seats in 2014, their largest in more than eight decades. (They hold 246 with NY's 11th vacancy.) Even many of the Republican newcomers, including those who sit in districts carried by President Obama in 2012, won in 2014 fairly comfortably. In spite of this, whether or not there's a willingness to work across the aisle -- and whether Americans think it's happening -- is another key item to watch in the House this year.
(A note, too, that what constitutes getting things "done" varies depending on who you talk to, and when pressed America's partisans say it's the other side that should give up more in a deal; a reminder that hardened positions are just confined to Congress.)
The Senate, though, offers more intrigue in this regard: Republicans have to defend more Senate seats than Democrats do next cycle (24 versus 10 as of now) and a lot of them are in Democratic-leaning or likely battleground states (like Florida, New Hampshire, and Illinois for example.)
But polls show both parties head into the year needing to bolster their images, if for no other reason than those party "brands" will affect views of their eventual Presidential nominees. Even amid Republicans' long string of successes last year, the GOP, along with the Democratic party and the Obama administration, all showed net negative favorability ratings among midterm voters. This seems part of a larger political question now, which these next few months can only start to answer - whether the next cycle will find voters choosing between two sides they dislike, or whether either party can seize an opening and regain positive evaluations, which would amount to a big early step up on 2016.
#3 And what do those early Presidential polls mean, anyhow?
Which leads, in turn, back to the Presidential race. We'll see an open Republican race - no incumbent - being held while the GOP controls both chambers of Congress, which we haven't seen since 2000. The two will surely be connected: invariably the topics and bills Congress tackles, especially earlier this year - maybe taxes, immigration, budgets - will force the candidates to take positions and will likely steer some of the discussion.
The early Presidential preference polls - which will likely contain a lot of names - are fun, and they are important to fundraising, but there's little cost now for primary voters to shift from one candidate to another and try out one or more because there's no pressure to decide right away: that final decision can feel very far off. So numbers can move around. They don't really start to tell you much until the summer, if then.
You don't need to look far for examples. In the run-up to 2012 the so-called frontrunner changed a lot nationally on the GOP side. In January of 2007 -- as far from the 2008 election as today is from 2016 -- the most favorably-viewed potential Republican candidate in CBS News polls was Rudy Giuliani among the GOP's voters, and Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side, while a lot of Republicans still hadn't made up their minds about John McCain, their eventual nominee, and most Democrats didn't even have an opinion yet about the Senator from Illinois who would ultimately become President.
But the most important single number to watch early on may simply be how many Republicans get into that Presidential race, because the number of candidates can determine how the race is run, especially if most of them are viable. If it is a large fractured field, a leader can be out in front with perhaps 20 percent or even 15 percent support. When a smaller percentage makes someone the frontrunner of a crowded field, the campaigns could end up being more targeted, and maybe -- depending on their chosen targets -- more ideological. That makes for a very different strategic calculus than if it is a small field of viable candidates where one needs something closer to 30 or 40 percent of voters to be the frontrunner. Then the threshold to win goes up and appeals have to broaden across more different kinds of Republicans, and that could in turn shape the issue positions and the dialogue differently.
