Will 2014 be a GOP wave election à la 2010? It's still too early to say, half a year from this year's midterm elections — but actions locally and across the country aren't boding so well for Democrats on this Cinco de Mayo.A nationwide USA Today/Pew Research Center Poll out today shows the strongest tilt to Republican candidates at this point in a midterm in two decades, including Newt Gingrich's Contract with American takeover of the House in 1994 and the aforementioned GOP tsunami in 2010. Republicans lead Democrats by a 47-43 percent margin in congressional races. That may not seem like a lot, but it's the biggest margin for the Republicans at this juncture in over 20 years. Among some other findings that should concern the Dems is that, by a more than 2-1 margin (65-30 percent) Americans want the 2016 president to pursue different policies and programs than the Obama administration, rather than similar ones.
But what's even more concerning is what's happening in the states. The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that the GOP is prepared to go more Florida than ever before — by that I mean positioning more states to be run completely by the Republican Party, as has been the case in Florida since 1998..
Currently there are 23 states where the Republicans control both the legislature and governorship, compared with just 13 Democratic-controlled states. Republicans overall control 26 legislatures and have 29 governors in the 50 states.
Most national observers have said for months that the House is out of reach for Democrats to take back this fall and maintaining control of the Senate is a 50-50 proposition. But if you're looking for a sign that things might be better than predicted, I would humbly suggest you read no further..
On Friday Colonel Ed Jany, a political independent, became the Democrats' one and only candidate to declare for the seat captured in March by Republican David Jolly. The party has been trashed in some circles because of the inelegant way it handled the situation, telling Rev. Manuel Sykes to get out of the contest, with some of the reasons being that he doesn't live in the district and had never run for office before.
So now they've chosen another candidate who doesn't live in the district and has never run for office before.
The difference is that as head of the St. Pete chapter of the NAACP, Sykes is better-known than Jany at the moment. And oh yes, Sykes is black, which seemed to be another factor in the Dems' decision to support Jany, which really doesn't make sense, given that black voters have been a reliable Democratic constituency. We remain open-minded about Jany's candidacy, though his media conference call was less than stunning....
Meanwhile, in addition to watching plenty of exctinig NBA playoff action (and a very, very bad Spiderman remake), we enjoyed watching Joel McHale of Community and Talk Soup fame bash on all sorts of politicos Saturday night at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
And the issue of immigration reform is certainly on lots of folks' minds today. On Saturday around 30 activists marched in Ybor City, calling on the Obama administration to end the deportations of undocumented immigrants.