Obama's Shrinking Base Won't Help Dems Much This Year

All those hope and change enthusiasts who supported Obama and the Dems in 2008 seem to have disappeared, or at least shrunk significantly. They probably won't be there to help with the Dems troubles in this election cycle:

Barack Obama won two groups at unprecedented levels in the post-war era -- blacks and youth. This feat carried with it two stark realities for the next contest. Both blocs have a low turnout rate in midterm elections. And both blocs were particularly personally attached to Obama and the change he personified.

Obama's absence from the 2010 ballot was, therefore, always to be a problem for Democrats. But the gravity of that problem has grown with Democrats' larger problems.

Republicans' potential electoral wave has turned a cyclical Democratic dilemma into an existential issue. Next month, the Democratic National Committee will begin a $50 million program to turn out the Obama base in November. The nascent, exceedingly fragile Democratic majority is turning to the least likely heroes to save it.

Young voters capture this Obama-base problem. Obama won a larger share of younger voters than any president since at least the Second World War.

History, however, appears unlikely to repeat itself. About half of voters under age 30 are enthusiastic about voting this year, according to Gallup, compared to about two-thirds of seniors.

Young Republicans are also more likely to vote in 2010 than young Democrats, 41 to 35 percent respectively, according to a Harvard poll earlier this year. The same is true for young adults who disapprove of the president, compared to those who approve.

Only about three in 10 youth told Harvard pollsters that they "definitely will be voting" in the 2010 election. The poll found more than twice that share in 2008. This means youth turnout, at best, appears typical for midterm elections. And that too is a problem for Democrats.

One quarter of young voters typically turn out in midterms. That's about half the rate of all other voters. Compared to presidential contests, midterm turnout generally skews at least 10 percent more toward the over-age-45 crowd.

Democrats' hold on youth has also loosened. Only about half of young voters say they are going to back a Democrat in their House district, according to Gallup. In 2006, Democrats' share was closer to six in 10.

It leaves Democrats' with a hard reality. Their general decline in public standing extends even to their most-favorable demographic groups. Both youth and Hispanics' approval of Obama has declined from roughly the mid 70s to the mid to high 50s, according to Gallup. In 2006, like 2008, Democrats won about two-thirds of Hispanics. Now only 58 percent of Hispanics say they expect to support a Democrat in their district.

As I've pointed out before, the youth vote is the mirage in the voting desert.  It looks good but it never shows up.  Hispanics may be a little more fired up this year thanks to the Arizona immigration law, but I don't look for them to actually swing districts away from the GOP.

But wait, you say, there's still another group that loves Obama more than life itself - African-Americans. Surely they'll still show up to support his agenda.

Even if they do, it won't matter:

This bad Democratic news has one exception, blacks. They continue to approve of the president at near-unanimous levels. But blacks midterm turnout is also traditionally low compared to white and older voters.

Blacks were 13 percent of the vote in 2008. But blacks were only about 10 percent of the vote in midterm election years -- like 1994, 1998 and 2006. And this trend is unlikely to change based upon recent races. This is where Obama's absence from the ballot matters most.

But what if black turnout actually does increase this year? The Democratic majority is vulnerable in the House. But Obama's base, blacks above all, is concentrated in secure Democratic districts. In short, blacks are not big factors in the districts where Democrats need them most.

Thank you, gerrymandering, and the Voting Rights Act which required that a certain number of minority districts be created. By piling all the members of a particular ethnic group into one congressional district you may guarantee that that district has a minority representative and stays in Dem hands, but you remove that ethnic group's power in other districts.

A perfect storm could be building against the Dems.