Well, the pattern in the Democratic primaries Tuesday indicates both discontent and enthusiasm on their part as well. Did you know that Democratic turnout in the KY primary was twice that of Republicans?
Right now, most of the national polls are giving a slight edge to the Democrats in generic balloting, after they’d been trailing for months. I don’t think this is due to a slowdown in the momentum of the Tea Party, but rather a renewed sense of purpose on the part of Democrats. It will be interesting to see how this trend will play out over the next 6 months.
This is an interesting take on November. The author writes for a liberal blog, but I think his analysis is spot-on. One point that stands out, one that all the polls clearly support, is that Americans’ contempt for Congress, as bad as it is, is not as bad as their contempt for Congressional Republicans. That’s why you have Tea Party challengers like Paul defeating establishment candidates.
However, they’re competitive in only a handful of races. Although they’re picking up momentum, they’ve lost rather miserably so far in the Republican primaries. But to the extent that they’re winning, they seem to be hurting the Republicans’ prospects more than helping, further evidence of the disarray within the Republican Party. It’s going to be hard for them to win the day in November when they can’t get their own house in order.