Romney's mistakes may cost more than one seat

Generic Script

Mitt Romney has had a bad few weeks. It all started at the end of August at the Republican National Convention, a convention most remembered for Clint Eastwood’s infamous, seemingly-improvised conversation with a chair. Then, the following week, the Democrats held their convention and pundits were drooling over fantastic speeches from Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden. President Barack Obama’s speech, on the other hand, was met with mixed reviews, but it was clear that the convention was a great success.

A week later, riots popped up across North Africa and the Middle East and in a horrific attack in Tripoli, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens was killed along with three other Americans. Romney responded to this incident by accusing Obama of sympathizing with the rioters, a comment that was met with almost-universal disdain and condemnation for being insensitive and dishonest.

Finally, on Monday, Mother Jones released a video of Romney at a private fundraiser in which Romney describes 47 percent of Americans as “dependent on government.” He says that those 47 percent “will vote for the president no matter what” and that “[his] job is not to worry about those people.” With the release of this video, Romney chances of winning the presidential election have gone from unlikely to almost impossible.

Unfortunately for Republicans, the effect of Romney’s blunders goes much farther than simply shoring up an Obama victory in November. When taking a closer look at some recent polling, it appears that Romney’s bad few weeks could have not only killed his chances of winning, but could also have some effect on Congressional races across the country.

First, let’s look at presidential polling to see to full extent of the damage Mitt has caused himself. If you look a RealClearPolitics’ poll average, Romney was only 0.3 percent behind Obama on September 1^st, two days after the Republican National Convention ended. He actually received a slight bump after the convention and was tied with Obama on September 5^th. Shortly thereafter, Obama received his convention bump and since then, has opened an almost 3 point lead. Talking Points Memo’s poll average shows a similar story with the candidates just about tied on September 1^st, only to see Obama open up a 3 point lead since then.

Romney has clearly suffered the last few weeks in the polls, but now let’s focus on Congress. In the Congressional generic poll question (usually in polls it is phrased something like this: “If the election for U.S. Congress in your district were held today, would you be more likely to vote for the Republican candidate or the Democratic candidate?”), there has been significant movement that parallels the movement of presidential poll average. On RCP, Democrats and Republicans were tied on September 5^th after Republicans had actually held a lead for much of August, but now Democrats are up by over 2 points. TPM shows a slightly different story as they have had Democrats ahead since early August. That being said, Democrats have still gained almost a percentage point on Republicans in the TPM poll average since the beginning of September.

This still isn’t enough proof to show that Romney’s fall from grace will have an effect on congressional elections as the generic poll question doesn’t take specific candidates into account so let’s look at some Senate races.  In TPM’s poll average for the Massachusetts Senate race between Democrat Elizabeth Warren and Republican Scott Brown, the candidates were tied as we approached the end of August, but Elizabeth Warren now holds a 3 point lead in a contest that Scott Brown has led since the beginning of July. Having said that, Warren spoke at the Democratic National Convention so she might be receiving a bump from that and not from Romney’s recent failings. So let’s look at some other races.