Voters Are Hoping for Change

The Wall Street Journal has some ugly news for Democrats:

Americans are more pessimistic about the state of the country and less confident in President Barack Obama's leadership than at any point since Mr. Obama entered the White House, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

The survey also shows grave and growing concerns about the Gulf oil spill, with overwhelming majorities of adults favoring stronger regulation of the oil industry and believing that the spill will affect the nation's economy and environment.

Sixty-two percent of adults in the survey feel the country is on the wrong track, the highest level since before the 2008 election. Just one-third think the economy will get better over the next year, a 7-point drop from a month ago and the low point of Mr. Obama's tenure.

Amid anxiety over the nation's course, support for Mr. Obama and other incumbents is eroding. For the first time, more people disapprove of Mr. Obama's job performance than approve. And 57% of voters would prefer to elect a new person to Congress than re-elect their local representatives, the highest share in 18 years.

The results show "a really ugly mood and an unhappy electorate," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducts the Journal/NBC poll with GOP pollster Bill McInturff. "The voters, I think, are just looking for change, and that means bad news for incumbents and in particular for the Democrats."

Mr. McInturff said voters' feelings, typically set by June in any election year, are being hardened by frustration over the economy and the oil spill. "It would take an enormous and seismic event to change the drift of these powerful forces before November," he said.

That's all pretty bad news if you're a Democrat. But it may be even worse. The White House recently announced that they would be bringing back David Plouffe, the campaign strategist who got all those uninformed people who often don't vote to become uninformed Obama voters. He's got his work cut out for him:

Just 44% of Obama voters—those who voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 or told pollsters they intended to—now express high interest in the midterm elections. That's a 38-point drop from this stage in the 2008 campaign.

By contrast, 71% of voters who supported Republican John McCain in 2008 expressed high interest in this year's elections, slightly higher than their interest level at this stage in that campaign.

Good luck with all that.

That's why you'll see a push to pass every liberal policy Obama's got before the November election, or during the lame duck session to follow, because if the election goes the way it looks now he won't have a Congress willing to approve anything after January.