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If you find yourself playing the Word-Trigger drinking game this weekend and you pick the term “red flag” you could be a bit tipsy after watching pollster Richard Czuba on Off the Record.
Not once, not twice, not three times but four times Mr. Czuba uses the descriptive political term to underscore what’s unfolding on this campaign trail right now based on his latest survey data for the Detroit News and TV-4 Detroit.
“Republicans have huge Red Flags leading into this election because of a ten point difference in motivation. We have strong Democrats at 94% saying they will definitely vote and strong Republicans at 84%,” he explains. It’s been four election cycles since the 10 point spread has been that low.
And to make matters even worse for the R’s, young Democrats under the age of 30, 83% claim they will vote compared to 41% in that GOP age group who share the same motivation. And he explains that is potentially significant because U.S. Senate GOP candidate Mike Rogers in winning the independent vote. However if more and more young D’s show up, “El Sayed can absolutely over come his problem with Independents” but he does conceded they are “unreliable voters” despite saying they will not be no shows.
That sounds significant because those “I” voters make up a pretty hefty chunk of the total electorate but there is precedent in how this can work and President Donald Trump proved it back the last time he won.
You see he was doing poorly with citizens with no party affliction and the pundits were playing that card pretty hard suggesting that he was toast, or at least in the toaster, because of that. But give the president’s handlers credit. There was a wealth of votes among those angry young men, living with their parents in the basement, feeling disengaged. They were unable to find a job allegedly because of all the liberal do-gooders rigging the system for the least advantaged and lads felt they were helpless. When along comes Donald Trump promising that he felt their pain and if elected, he would do something about it. That voting block get in the game and provided a nifty cushion of votes that helped to water down the impact of Independents who did not support the president. So it can be done. Whether Dr. El Sayed can pull off a “Trumper” is up for discussion.
Another Red Flag for the GOP also revolves around President Donald Trump. (But then these days what doesn’t.)
According to Mr. Czuba just over 9% of the electorate is undecided and 80% of those voters disagree with Donald Trump. But Red Flag number three is “Benson and El Sayed are winning 71% of the disapprovers. Mr. Rogers and governor candidate John James are winning 83%-90% of the (Trump) approvers” but if that trend continues (between the two parties) the Republicans are in trouble because the disapprovers out number the pro-Trump segment of the electorate.
One hope that the R’s have is that more often than not, every “I” citizen does not participate and is so frustrated by both parties that their protest vote is a no-show vote. That number usually hovers around 3% ish but in this climate it could be higher and therefore the hoped for Red Flag benefiting Ms. Benson and Dr. El Sayed may remain folded in the closet.
Which brings us to the final R.F. that does not deal with candidates but with Ballot Proposition 1 the so-called Con-Con or state constitutional convention question.
If you are reading this column there’s a pretty good chance that you already know that every 16 years, according to the state constitution, the citizens get to check in on whether they are happy with the current document or so unhappy they want to toss it out and changes parts or just scrap the whole thing and start from scratch. That’s the choice in November.
The last time statewide voters had to decide whether to call such a gathering to consider rewriting portions or all of the current constitution, just over 70% voted no. But that last time the political climate was no where near as ugly as it is today.
Mr. Czuba reports, “voters want approval of everything right now…anything that says “we get control, we get to run the show, gets their support.” And guess what the last line of the Con-Con ballot questions is? Whatever Con-Con does if they meet, “it would go before the voters for final approval” giving them the power they seek. And beyond that, it seems like every organized government lobbying entity in town is urging a no vote for fear that the new document would remove some of the provisions they want to keep. Which in the end, that unity from special interests for a no vote, could backfire and feed the anger out there providing even more yes votes?
Mr. Czuba discovers “there are some Red Flags on Con-Con here. We have it at 47% support to 32% opposed The rest undecided (21%.)
“This could be very close,” he concludes given that in 2010 when they tested this issue the figures were 35%-39% instead of this current 15 point tilt toward a yes vote.
This must have sent some shock waves through the broadly based coalition hoping to kill it before it multiples.
And even more relevant, it is not the GOP voters who are riding this train which was the original expectation.
“It’s Democrats and Centrists who are most likely to vote for it not Republicans,” he found.
He thinks Democrats who oppose Con-Con need to start talking to their own members on “how dangerous:” it would be if adopted.