The Democratic advantage is less than half of what it has been recently, which is a clear indication of the poor electoral climate members of the party will face this fall.

The newly released Siena College poll – taken in historical context – paints at best a lukewarm picture for the fate of New York Democrats.

The poll shows that at the top of the ticket, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul leads her Republican challenger Lee Zeldin 53% to 39% – a lead of 14 points. Many will interpret this data as a sign of strength for Democrats. The thinking goes that despite the poor national and statewide mood and aided by an overwhelming party registration advantage statewide, Democrats are certain to prevail across New York on Election Day in November 2022.

However, looking back, it’s clear the Democratic advantage is less than half of what it has been recently, which is a clear indication of the poor electoral climate that Democrats will face this fall. In mid-summer of the 2010 gubernatorial contest, Andrew Cuomo had a 30-point lead over his opponent and in 2014 he had a 31-point lead. The 2018 primary was held in September, making the early August polling data hard to compare to where we are today. So, Hochul’s lead today is slightly less than half of what Cuomo’s was at a similar point in the race. And that potentially means a significant number of losses for the party downballot.

Furthermore, the conventional wisdom holds that if the 7% who are undecided voters break about evenly, that will be more than enough to re-elect Hochul by a healthy margin – say 57% to 43%. However, that same thinking was nearly wrong in the 2009 New York City mayoral race between Mike Bloomberg and Bill Thompson. Polling in that race had Bloomberg consistently between 50% to 55% of the vote, while Thompson polled in the 30% range on several occasions. On Election Day in November 2009, Bloomberg squeaked by with just 50.7% of the vote – evidence that undecided voters breaking in even modest numbers for the incumbent isn’t always the case.

Just four years ago, in the November 2018 General Election, with a growing Democratic and Independent backlash to President Donald Trump, Andrew Cuomo received 59.6% of the vote to Marc Molinaro’s 36.2% of the vote. Democrats are almost certainly not going to achieve that level of electoral success for a number of reasons – the headwinds are just too strong.  Consider the following:

1. The mid-term elections almost always punish the party holding the White House, in this case it’s the Democrats. Indeed, since 1994, the president’s party has lost the House vote in six of the last seven mid-term elections by between six and nine points.  And that’s before the Special Master in charge of redistricting redrew the congressional lines and state Senate lines, making success an even more uphill climb!
2. The political environment is terribly toxic to Democrats. Biden’s approval ratings are the lowest that the Gallup poll has ever recorded for any president, with just 38% approving of the job he is doing. Even in blue New York State, Biden’s approval ratings are underwater according to the Siena poll, with 47% saying they approve and 51% saying they disapprove.
3. Only 19% of New Yorkers say the country is on the right track and only 36% say the same of the state.

That is not to say that Democrats won’t win or cannot do well. Indeed, in the midst of the 2010 nationwide shellacking that Democrats took at the ballot box, Andrew Cuomo won 63% of the vote against Republican Carl Paladino, who won just 33.5% of the vote.

But here is the challenge for Kathy Hochul and the Democrats. Despite some legislative successes, Hochul isn’t getting enough credit. Her approval ratings are 52% approve and 41% disapprove. And, don’t expect a boost from her personal brand – 46% are favorable towards her and 41% are unfavorable towards Hochul. According to the Siena poll data, there doesn’t appear to be an obvious segment of voters who say they will vote for her. Her ratings at this point seem relatively flat.

Beyond the macro environment, several key points emerged from our analysis of the Siena poll suggesting trouble for Democrats – especially those downballot.

1. While Hochul leads in New York City by a large margin, Zeldin – even with only 39% of the vote statewide – has a three point lead in both upstate and in the suburbs. We are keeping a close eye on races on Long Island and the northern New York City suburbs and anticipate that Democrats will lose a good number of federal, state, and local seats there, even as Democrats atop the ticket will prevail.
2. Hochul has 84% of Democrats supporting her and Zeldin has 84% of Republicans in his camp. The critical group of Independent voters favor Zeldin 44% to 42% and, again, this is another reason why suburban Democrats in swing districts are in trouble.
3. Hochul’s vote margin is 70 points among Black voters, but only 8 points among Latinos, further evidence that they are a swing voter group that Democrats will need to work hard to win over. The fact that Zeldin is getting over 40% of their vote is an indication that the Democratic Party does not have a coherent strategy to win Latino voters over, and keep them in our camp.  

For all that is made of the issue of abortion and the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, we are skeptical that this will be the silver bullet that Democrats need in order to win in 2022. Kathy Hochul made protecting abortion rights the signature issue of her primary campaign and Democratic turnout was down 44% versus the Democratic primary of 4 years ago.

Motivating sympathetic voters to support Democrats this fall will require a different kind of message, strategy and tactics than what are being used today at either the federal or state levels. 

Bradley Honan and Elisabeth Zeche are partners at the Democratic polling and data analytics firm Honan Strategy Group.

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By Bradley Honan and Arick Wierson

It was bound to happen.

Somehow, some way, sooner or later — we all knew it was coming. Hillary Clinton’s name was going to re-emerge as a possible presidential contender for 2020.

A recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal titled “Hillary Will Run Again,” by Mark Penn, Clinton’s former longtime pollster, and Andrew Stein, former president of the New York City Council, sent the media into a bit of a frenzy over the weekend. They argued that the former first lady, senator and secretary of state would definitely be back in the 2020 mix — perhaps not initially — but certainly by the time the primaries are in full swing. Voters, they suggest, should not be surprised to see Clinton announcing her candidacy around the time of the Iowa caucuses, just as the candidate field is beginning to separate the wheat from the chaff.

As the news of the op-ed spread up and down the Acela Corridor, many Democratic insiders found themselves silently burying their heads in their hands. Penn’s presage struck a chord among rank-and-file DNC staffers who still maintain a hardened belief that 2016 wasn’t about a Trump victory, but a Clinton loss — a defeat in a most spectacular fashion, brought on by her campaign’s hubris.

Meanwhile, the news that Hillary may run again suddenly put a skip in the step of some Republicans. Until Saturday, many had been hanging their heads low as the reality of the blue wave of the midterm elections, which reclaimed the House for the Democrats, sunk in.

“Dear God, please, yes,” tweeted Presidential Counselor Kellyanne Conway upon hearing the news.

All of the emotions and excitement may be jumping the gun, however. Keep in mind that Mark Penn is not Hillary’s spokesman, nor is Andy Stein. Their words should not be taken as any sort of announcement on behalf of Clinton.

It’s also possible that the op-ed could be some sort of trial balloon, sanctioned by the Clintons, simply to take America’s temperature and calculate the odds of one last hurrah before riding off into the sunset. Or it could be a canard — a carefully placed article meant to throw off Republican strategists, forcing them to prepare for a possibility that they had all but written off.

The most likely scenario, however, is that the Wall Street Journal piece was simply the oeuvre of a pair of provocateurs — two old partisans from the 1990s who are simply seeking to reclaim their space, and relevance — in the current political environment.

For the good of the country and the Democratic party, we can only hope that Penn and Stein are just grandstanding, and that nothing more comes of this talk of Hillary in 2020.

CNN’s Chris Cillizza gave a perfectly honed accounting of all the reasons why, if you are a Democrat, or even a Republican or Independent who can’t stand Donald Trump, the last thing you should be rooting for is a Hillary 2020 presidential campaign. We agree, but we think the Hillary question is bigger than just 2020 and the Democrats’ shot at dethroning President Trump; we believe that her re-emergence onto the national stage has the very real potential to drive a schism so deep within the Democratic Party that Democrats would not only come up short in 2020, the party might also be irrevocably fractured in two. Clinton’s candidacy would divide the it in a way that would make the current distance between the traditional free-trade wing of the GOP and Trump’s base of loyalists seem like next door neighbors.

In 2018, we saw the progressive, Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic party and the more centrist factions, previously marshaled by Hillary Clinton, temporarily band-aid over their differences that were on full display in 2016 for the common good.

By agreeing to play nice with one another, they were able to take back the House and a handful of governor’s mansions, providing the first real check on the Trump White House. But Hillary resurfacing as a presidential candidate would pick off that ugly scab, creating a toxic intramural dynamic that would infect the outcome of 2020 and well beyond.

We have also seen the demographic divide of the party come into clear view with the recent midterm elections. Women, people of color, LGBT people, and young candidates were elected at historic levels. It’s clear that Hillary’s election loss and Trump’s divisive, us-versus-them leadership style helped, in part, unleash this trend — which makes it all the more difficult to imagine Democrats turning back to her as their pick for 2020.

Moreover, how could the party, which has been at the forefront of the #MeToo movement over the past year, possibly reconcile its role as champion of women with its endorsement of a candidate who many feel whitewashed her husband’s womanizing?

If there is one takeaway from midterm election night, it’s that the face of the new Democratic party is increasingly female, more diverse and, yes, younger.

We can’t predict who will ultimately make a serious run for the Democratic nomination in 2020, nor who is most likely to come out on top. Yet, while Democrats should be encouraged by the midterm election results, it’s clear that they are a long way away from identifying the right strategy and message to successfully oppose Donald Trump; losses in places like Ohio and Missouri suggest that the electoral college math will still be a tough nut to crack.

Democrats will need to not only find a better messenger, but develop a better message that is deeper than “I am not Trump.” If Clinton runs, many Americans will only see her candidacy as a personal vendetta or quest for redemption, not a move with the best interests of Democrats at heart.

So please, Hillary, don’t do it.

Bradley Honan is the CEO of Honan Strategy Group, a Democratic polling and analytics firm. He was formerly a senior executive at the political consulting and polling firm Penn, Schoen and Berland. Follow him on Twitter @BradleyHonan. Arick Wierson is an Emmy Award-winning television producer and former senior media adviser to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He currently advises political and corporate clients in the United States, Africa and Latin America. You can follow him on Twitter @ArickWierson. The views expressed in this commentary are their own.

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Let’s be clear, Democrats will hopefully win a huge number of races Election Day, including many ‘must win’ and tough Senate and gubernatorial races.  In general, we expect we will likely have a good Tuesday night.  However, our party will not perform nearly as well as we would like to (or should do) given the terrible Trump rollercoaster we have been riding on.  Indeed, we may be looking at 6 more years of Donald Trump in the White House and this reality needs to be forefront in our minds as we take in Tuesday’s election returns.

Despite the massive outpouring of grassroots enthusiasm, a tidal wave of non-traditional candidates (women, people of color and LGBTQ), protests in the streets and on social media channels, and record fund-raising for our candidates, Democrats have simply not found their electoral footing in the era of Trump – a trend that bodes very poorly for our prospects in 2020.  Indeed, many signs already point to Trump being on a path to getting reelected in 2020.  A big reason for this is that, fundamentally, our party has simply not found a strong and workable narrative against Trump outside of investigations and impeachments – neither of which are winning issues.

In thinking about the current electoral climate, there are four themes worth highlighting:

Teflon Trump

Despite nearly two years of incredible (and unprecedented) incompetence and terribly divisive leadership, Trump’s poll ratings have basically not budged – they stand remarkably stable from when he was first elected.  And much as Democrats hate to admit it, Trump stands today in a stronger poll position than either Obama or Clinton did at a similar point in time.  Yes, vital groups like college educated, suburban women appear to have turned away from Trump and the GOP, but it’s clear that Trump is a remarkably Teflon President – not much truly sticks to him.

Put another way, Democrats have been unable to take advantage of the corruption and mismanagement by Trump and turn that into a strong, coherent, and persuasive argument against him.  No matter how many races swing to our favor on Tuesday night, we cannot – and should not – deny this inescapable truth – Trump for the most part keeps outfoxing the Democrats politically.

Minimum Generic Ballot Advantage

Sunday’s Washington Post poll showed that the generic Congressional ballot has a Democratic advantage of just 7 points.  This is down from 11 points last month, and half the 14 point advantage Democrats enjoyed in August.  The NY Times and Siena College polling consortium shows Democrats and Republicans essentially tied in 30 toss up districts.  And why do all these numbers matter?  It matters because the Cook Political Report has suggested that Democrats will need at least a 6-8 point lead in order to overcome the significant gerrymandering advantage that the GOP enjoys in many states, as well as the intense GOP efforts to restrict the democratic voting access of poor and minority voters.

The Economy is Strong

While the economic gains of the past several years have not been felt by many Middle Class Americans, there is a sense that the economy has picked back up again in ways that it didn’t under Obama.  Overall growth is strong and the unemployment rate is as low as it’s been in generations.  Nevertheless, the reality is that wages haven’t risen very much and the Trump tax cut has only put a very modest amount of money back into people’s pockets.  While the stock market has indeed surged, most middle class families have a very small amount of equities and thus have seen little upside.  But nevertheless, there is a sense that the shackles have come off America’s economic engine, and Democrats have and will continue to have a hard time arguing that isn’t the case.

Impeachment and Investigations

For the most part, Democrats have localized the races they are running in, but have done so at the expense of projecting a coherent and unified message about what we stand for as a party – in contrast to Trump and the Republicans – and Democrats have not clearly communicated what we will do if elected – beyond impeachment and investigations.  Nancy Pelosi recently talked about a possible Democratic Congressional agenda, but it seemed to focus on addressing voting rights and ending gerrymandering, and while those are criticalissues, they don’t speak to the electorate that we need to reach out and persuade.  Should Democrats win the House, our agenda cannot continue to be drowned out by calls for more investigations and Presidential impeachment.

Democrats should be heartened by the wins we will see on Tuesday night, but more important, our party needs to immediately figure out how to compellingly and effectively take on Trump and win in 2020 – our country is at stake.  Nothing is more important than developing a winning strategy and identifying the right message.

Bradley Honan is CEO and President of Honan Strategy Group, a Democratic polling and digital analytics firm.

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