Obama’s State Approval Ratings Spell Trouble for Senate Democrats

Sen­ate Demo­crats have a big prob­lem. His­tor­ic­ally, Sen­ate can­did­ates struggle where their party’s pres­id­ent is the least pop­u­lar. And, as Gal­lup’s 2013 state ap­prov­al-rat­ing av­er­ages show, Pres­id­ent Obama is very, very un­pop­u­lar in the states Demo­crats have to de­fend in the 2014 elec­tions.

One look at Obama’s state-by-state ap­prov­al rat­ing av­er­ages ought to send a shiver through the ranks of Sen­ate Demo­crats.

Re­pub­lic­ans need to cap­ture six seats to win con­trol of the Sen­ate, and Demo­crats have to de­fend five deep-red states — Arkan­sas, Alaska, Montana, South Dakota, and West Vir­gin­ia — where Obama’s ap­prov­al rat­ing was at or be­low 35 per­cent in 2013, ac­cord­ing to Gal­lup’s 2013 polling av­er­ages. The pres­id­ent was also far un­der­wa­ter in an­oth­er two Demo­crat­ic-held states he lost in 2012, Louisi­ana (40 per­cent) and North Car­o­lina (43 per­cent), as well as purple-tinged Col­or­ado and Iowa (42 per­cent), which Obama won.

Over­all, Gal­lup cal­cu­lated Obama’s av­er­age ap­prov­al in 2013 at 46 per­cent. Ore­gon, New Hamp­shire, and New Mex­ico (45 per­cent) also just fell be­low that line. In two red states where Demo­crats hope to gain seats this year, Geor­gia and Ken­tucky, the pres­id­ent’s job ap­prov­al stood at 45 per­cent and 35 per­cent, re­spect­ively, in 2013.

In the past 10 years, just nine sen­at­ors of the pres­id­ent’s party have won elec­tions in states where pres­id­en­tial ap­prov­al slips be­low the na­tion­al av­er­age, ac­cord­ing to a re­view of exit polls and elec­tion res­ults since 2004.

Not a single Re­pub­lic­an vic­tory is as­sured in 2014, and Demo­crats have sol­id can­did­ates de­fend­ing most of their seats. But re­cent his­tory un­der­scores how dif­fi­cult it will be to de­fend so many Sen­ate seats that lean so strongly against the lead­er of their party.

As George W. Bush won and served his second pres­id­en­tial term from 2004 through 2008, only four Re­pub­lic­an sen­at­ors won reelec­tion in states where Bush was less pop­u­lar than he was na­tion­ally. Sens. Ar­len Specter and Judd Gregg de­fied the trend in Pennsylvania and New Hamp­shire in 2004, and Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins in Maine achieved that rare res­ult in 2006 and 2008.

In 2010, when 44 per­cent of voters said they ap­proved of Pres­id­ent Obama, just one state be­low that line elec­ted a Demo­crat­ic sen­at­or: West Vir­gin­ia, where Sen. Joe Manchin mem­or­ably fired a rifle shot through the cap-and-trade bill in a TV ad. Over­all, from 2004 through 2010, Sen­ate can­did­ates in this situ­ation bat­ted just 5 for 49.

It’s al­ways hard to win a state that typ­ic­ally sup­ports the oth­er party, but it seems to be much more dif­fi­cult for a sen­at­or whose party holds the White House. It was much easi­er for Arkan­sas Sen. Mark Pry­or or Louisi­ana Sen. Mary Landrieu to win reelec­tion with George W. Bush as pres­id­ent. Former Neb­raska Demo­crat­ic Sen. Ben Nel­son even won reelec­tion in 2006 des­pite Bush’s 55 per­cent statewide ap­prov­al rat­ing. But can­did­ates like Manchin, who won in 2010 des­pite Obama’s 30 per­cent ap­prov­al rat­ing in West Vir­gin­ia, are far more rare.

Exit poll­sters didn’t re­lease pres­id­en­tial ap­prov­al data in every state in 2012, but the ac­tu­al elec­tion res­ults provide a reas­on­able ap­prox­im­a­tion. Demo­crat­ic Sen­ate can­did­ates per­formed ex­traordin­ar­ily well in the states Obama lost in 2012, win­ning four — In­di­ana, Mis­souri, Montana, and North Dakota — where the pres­id­ent lost by at least 9 per­cent­age points. (Manchin also won a full term in West Vir­gin­ia as voters routed Obama there.) A com­bin­a­tion of sev­er­al made-for-the-mo­ment Demo­crat­ic can­did­ates and sev­er­al ill-timed Re­pub­lic­an stumbles — hello, Todd Akin — helped Demo­crats over­achieve in a num­ber of con­ser­vat­ive-lean­ing states.

Demo­crats can hold onto two key hopes for 2014, as far as Obama’s ap­prov­al rat­ings go. First, he may have suffered through the worst months of his pres­id­ency in late 2013, and his job-ap­prov­al rat­ings have re­covered, slightly, in Janu­ary. If that re­viv­al per­sists, the pres­id­ent could be in a bet­ter po­s­i­tion to help his fel­low Demo­crats help them­selves in the fall.

More im­port­ant, since Obama’s ap­prov­al will nev­er climb that high in the red states they must de­fend to keep the Sen­ate ma­jor­ity, Demo­crats be­lieve they have the right can­did­ates and ex­per­i­ence to pull off more wins in the mold of Manchin’s or their quar­tet of en­emy-ter­rit­ory vic­tors from 2012. Among their in­cum­bents, Sens. Mark Be­gich (Alaska), Mark Pry­or (Arkan­sas), and Mary Landrieu (Louisi­ana) demon­strated in 2008 that they could win tick­et-split­ting votes, and Sen. Kay Hagan ran ahead of the pres­id­ent in North Car­o­lina, too.

Sev­en months be­fore the 2012 elec­tion, Na­tion­al Journ­al‘s Ron­ald Brown­stein wrote: “For all of the fo­cus on fun­drais­ing, ad­vert­ising wars, and grass­roots cam­paign or­gan­iz­a­tions, no single factor may shape this year’s battle for con­trol of the Sen­ate more than at­ti­tudes to­ward Pres­id­ent Obama.” It is as true now as it was then.