Midterm voters’ slump could be Democratic candidates’ biggest obstacle

WASHINGTON — For a time, U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley seemed to have had a cakewalk to winning the U.S. Senate seat held by the retiring Tom Harkin.

The Waterloo Democrat had no primary opposition. Fundraising has been very healthy.

Almost all polls as of mid-April showed him leading all potential Republican challengers by numbers beyond the margin of error. And the Republican effort has become a five-way struggle ahead of the June 3 primary.

But Braley has a very Democratic problem — a traditional slump in turnout by Democratic voters in midterm election years.

The problem is so prominent that at an April 9 fundraiser in Texas, President Barack Obama addressed it, calling it a 'congenital disease.' He pointed the finger mostly at women and minorities whom he said simply don't show up at the polls in midterm election years.

Since 2002, data from the Iowa secretary of state's office show Republican turnout has trumped that of Democrats in every midterm election year — 2002, 2006, and 2010 — sometimes by margins of up to 59,000 voters, as in 2002.

Even in presidential election years, Democrats have a mixed record. Their turnout swamped Republicans in 2008, which is viewed as an anomaly as it was the year of Obama's rise to power amid record turnout.

But in 2012, the most recent presidential election year, 21,000 more Iowa Republicans than Democrats cast a ballot. Those numbers generally mirror national trends.

Compounding the problem is the fact that there are even fewer registrations of Democratic voters in midterm years. In 2010, for example, 170,000 fewer Iowa Democrats registered than in 2008. The comparative drop-off among Republican voters was only 50,000.

That trend continued in 2010.

The color purple

Braley's team is well aware of the obstacle. But rather than deny or dismiss it, they are choosing to confront it.

'There is a historic drop-off in Democratic turnout between presidential years and midterm elections in Iowa. It's something we are aware that we have to combat,' said Jeff Giertz, a former Braley aide who is now his campaign spokesman.

The Braley race is among a scant handful of contests nationwide that could determine control of the U.S. Senate. Democrats now control the upper chamber by a 55-45 margin, meaning Republicans only need to win six seats and are already in an offensive position as Democrats have to defend 21 of the 36 seats that are up to voters this year.

Mindful of that, Giertz and others say they are in the throes of a ramped-up effort this year to lure sporadic, midterm Democratic voters into the Braley race. It involves a 'coordinated' strategy that combines the Braley effort with those of other Democratic candidates on the ballot, from state officers to the state Assembly to the governor's race — the largest such effort in state history, according to Giertz.

Party leaders also are investing more heavily, starting earlier and focusing more specifically on inconsistent voters and less on core, base voters who already can be counted on.

'There will be a special focus on mobilizing sporadic voters, and our data-driven analytics allow us to more closely target who we want to turn out in higher numbers, including lower turnout constituencies as well as no-party registrants,' said Christina Freundlich, spokeswoman for the Iowa Democratic Party.

Accordingly, Freundlich points to another factor that is unique to Iowa — the state has remained so politically purple in recent years that no-party voters, or independents, now make up more of the electorate than either registered Democrats or Republicans.

Independents total 37 percent of registrants, followed by 32 percent of registered Democrats and 31 percent of registered Republicans. She said those statistics show that the struggle for disconnected or disinterested voters isn't just a Democratic problem.

'Soft' voters

State Republican leaders hope to take advantage of the Democratic struggle. Even though the five-way Republican primary is costing each candidate valuable time and money, they plan to make the race a state referendum on Obama and the Affordable Care Act.

The leading contender in recent polls is state Sen. Joni Ernst, according a compilation of polls as of April 14 on the RealClearPolticis website, but with polling totals inside the margin of error.

Obama won Iowa in 2012 by 88,501 votes, or 5.8 percent. But Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Danny Carroll told The Gazette that the president's current unpopularity in the polls gives Republican candidates an advantage this summer and fall, particularly in midterm or 'soft' voters.

He points to Braley's support for the health care law and the fact that the Obama administration's spending habits continue to be controversial. As with the Democrats, he said Republican campaigns are focusing on sporadic voters, but he said they also are working to pinpoint voters motivated by concerns over the health care law.

'We anticipate that (health care) will motivate those midterm voters,' Carroll said. 'Braley's involvement in passing that is certainly an issue in Iowa, and spending and debt also continues to be an issue I hear about a lot in Iowa.'

At the University of Iowa, associate professor Timothy Hagle has been working to debunk the common theory that no-party voters hold the key to a successful election. Hagle has published several papers, one of which shows that regardless of registration trends, fewer no-party voters have actually cast ballots in every election since 2000, both in midterm and presidential election years.

In 2012, for example, only 63 percent of no-party voters turned out, compared to 77 percent for Democrats and 82 percent for Republicans.

Hagle, as with Freundlich of the state Democratic Party, also said slumping turnout in midterm election years isn't just a Democratic problem. He has statistics from the Secretary of State's office that show Democratic voter turnout in midterm years was only a few percentage points behind those of Republicans.

'It's been in the news, and Obama has talked about it, and yes, there is kind of a drop-off for Democrats, but it's not just Democrats,' he said. 'It's also Republicans to a lesser extent.'

Zeroing in

At the national Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, spokesman Justin Barasky said there is a sense of a turnout challenge for Democrats in the midterm year.

But he added that operatives are able to use much of the fieldwork and technology used by Obama's 2012 campaign to identify and focus on sporadic voters. He also noted that on a national level, Democratic congressional committees are outraising Republicans.

National Democrats plan to spend $60 million this year on Senate races across the country — a combination of DSCC funds and contributions from coordinated campaigns in various states — up from just $7 million in 2010.

Braley's campaign alone has raised $5.25 million so far, en route to an eventual total that Giertz guesses will hit $10 million.

Like Barasky, Braley spokesman Giertz said the 2014 Braley campaign is using Obama's 2012 campaign work to zero in and focus on sporadic voters.

'In years past, it was like using a chain saw — they took rough cuts to find out where a particular demographic group was, and made broad assumptions,' he said. 'Today, with the advances that have been made, it's more like using a scalpel to determine which voters are on the fence and which are most likely to turn out.

'We can find people within a subgroup — working families, no-party voters, blue-collar voters.'

There also are other advantages popping up for Democrats, Freundlich said, such as the fact that Democrats already are trumping Republicans in absentee ballots. Secretary of State numbers show the state office has received 2,667 vote-by-mail ballots from registered Democrats, while only 536 have come in from Republicans.

Much about the race still remains uncertain. Braley campaign officials note that the state has been rocked by developments that were unforeseen when the election cycle started after the 2012 races. Harkin announced his retirement in January 2013, and Rep. Tom Latham (R) also announced in December he wouldn't seek re-election.

Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, who historically has enjoyed strong public approval ratings, is now only two percentage points ahead of Democratic challenger Jack Hatch in a late April poll by Daily Caller-Vox Populi — likely due to the ongoing issue involving 'secret settlements' to state employees.

The wide-open nature of the electoral field has lured millions of dollars in special interest money to invest in the Iowa races, most notably a $1 million investment in anti-Braley ads by billionaire conservatives Charles and David Koch of Wichita, Kansas.

Democratic unhappiness over the Koch brothers' political activity has been so pronounced that in Washington, D.C., Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has taken to the Senate floor to accuse Republicans of being 'addicted to Koch.'

Giertz, Freundlich and Barasky all say the Kochs' stances on issues simply don't align with those of Iowans, pointing to polls showing statewide support for the federal farm bill, raising the minimum wage and reworking — rather than repealing — the federal health care law.

Barasky said the Koch brothers have had the unique effort of uniting Iowa voters against them.

'It's giving us a way to believably tie Republican candidates to the unpopular causes they support, as well as a way for voters to correctly attribute the agendas these candidates support to them,' he said. 'The voters are with us on these issues.'

But at the same time, Giertz said the Koch investments cannot be ignored.

'We expect the flood of billionaire-backed ads to continue, and it's something we'll have to fight against,' he said. 'That's one reason we're investing so heavily in turnout efforts, partly to fight misinformation.'

Republican Party Chairman Carroll dismisses the claims and counters that Braley has been raising money from trial lawyers, a practice with which he said most Iowa voters would disagree.