Unlikely Voter

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There’s something to be said for consistency. And no matter who hires Greenberg Quinlan Rosner to gauge the House outlook for Democrats, bad news seems to come back.

That consistency continues with GQR’s poll of “voters,” both likely and not, for Citizen Opinion, H/T to Liberty Central.

GQR again sorts voters into two categories: likely voters (LV) and drop-off voters (DV). Among LVs, 98% voted in 2008 and 94% voted in [2006]. Among DVs, 92% voted in 2008 but only 25% voted in 2006. 99% of LVs are “probably” or “almost certain” to vote in 2010, while 56% of DVs are “50-50” or worse to vote in 2010.

So again, we have the difference between the 2008 electorate and the 2010 electorate identified. Can we then describe the two groups? GQR does.

In partisan ID, DVs fall 53% toward the Democrats, 34% toward the Republicans, and 12% in the middle. LVs split 44 D – 48 R – 7 I. The total voter poll splits 46 D – 46 R – 7 I. Boiling that down to two-party splits, DVs swing 22 points toward the Democrats from the total electorate, while LVs swing 4 points to the Republicans. As we’ve seen in the past, Democrats are losing a chunk of their base in the transition from the 2008 Presidential election to the 2010 midterm.

GQR asked these voters if they voted for, by name, their district’s Democrat or Republican in 2008. Republicans and Democrats tied 41-41, but LVs favored Republicans 43-41, and DVs favored Democrats 47-26. LVs also favored John McCain 46-45 while DVs favored Barack Obama 61-30.

Now consider that a moment. GQR’s registered voters split evenly for the House, when the actual popular vote was 53-43. They also favored Obama by less than the actual national popular vote.

Are we at the point that dissatisfaction with Democrats runs so high, that people are lying about their 2008 votes? That’s what this poll suggests to me. And that’s an amount of doom that can’t be quantified.