Issue/Agenda Path for GOP Hard to See – Some Thoughts on the Early 2016 Landscape

It is always a bit dangerous to extrapolate too much from a single poll, but findings in the new CNN/ORC poll if true and lasting are important for understanding the emerging 2016 landscape. The poll published earlier this week finds the approval of the President’s handling of the economy is now 52%, higher than his overall approval rating which stands at 50%. As CNN reports, this is the President’s highest rating on the economy in six years and may be the first time his approval rating on economic matters has been higher than his own personal approval rating. New consumer confidence data out yesterday shows a similar potentially structural jump in the public’s understanding of where the US economy is today (and it should be noted that these gains have come at the same time TPA was debated and passed once again challenging the conventional wisdom that advancing these trade agreements is bad politics).

Why is this so important? It speaks to where the GOP can go in 2016. Many commentators this past weekend dwelled on the anachronistic social agenda of the modern GOP and how it is likely to be a major drag for their party in 2016. This leaves the GOP candidate nominee more opportunity perhaps on the economy and security matters some suggested. But if Obama and Democrats are beginning to get credit now for turning the economy around, why would one elect a Republican in 2016? Particularly since this will have been the second consecutive Democratic Administration who had to turn things around from a GOP President whose policies brought us recessions and higher deficits? And the truth is the economy is far better now due to President Obama – tens of millions more are employed, tens of millions have gained health insurance, the annual deficit is a third of what it was in Bush’s last budget, the stock market is at historical highs, and there is a growing body of evidence showing that wages have begun to go up for the first time in fifteen years. Under this President and his policies the country is far better off, and the public is beginning to notice. And the projections for the next eighteen months suggest things are far more likely to get better than worse for the US economy.

Given all this it is just hard to see a way for the GOP to win the economic debate in 2016, particularly given that on fiscal matters – their supposed strong suit – the last two GOP Presidents have brought higher deficits while the last two Democratic Presidents have brought lower ones. Winning the economic argument in 2016 may be just as challenging for the GOP as winning on social issues. Democrats will be able to make a clear and convincing case that over the past generation it is just simply true that under Democratic Presidents the lives of everyday people have gotten better and under Republican Presidents they have gotten worse.

Thus, it is likely that the GOP is going to have count on winning the argument about who is best about keeping us safe as the cornerstone of their 2016 approach, an approach that worked well for them in 2014. Certainly there could be an opening for the GOP here. But my own view is that like the economy there is a lag in understanding of how much the President has achieved in foreign policy and security matters. He has pursued broad, strategic engagement in Europe and Asia, highlighted by his ambitious trade agreements in both regions. With his bold Cuba initiative, and other policies, relations with Latin America are strong and solid, and improving as was evidenced by the very warm event with President Rousseff of Brazil yesterday. The President has taken unprecedented steps to tackle global climate change, and his “all of the above” energy strategy has helped make the US far more energy and geopolitically independent. The US-Mexico border is far more secure than it was in the Bush era, and net undocumented migration into the US has gone from hundreds of thousands a year to zero. This President is helping rediscover the very best in the American foreign policy tradition, using all the tools in his tool box – economic sanctions, trade negotiations, traditional diplomacy and military might – to advance American interests abroad and make the world safer and more secure. Recent polling suggests the public likes this approach, and appreciates this President’s efforts to shape the course of history through more than just risky military conflict.

But what about the Middle East and terror? While President Obama may join the long line of American Presidents who struggled to improve things in the most challenging region of the world, the judgment of his strategic approach here still needs more time to settle on the ground and with the public. Much could change for the better, or the worse, in the next eighteen months. We don’t know how the Iran deal will turn out but at his point in his Presidency it would be ridiculous to dismiss these efforts as naive or ill thought through. But however the public will judge him next year it is hard to see how the simplistic belligerence of the modern GOP will either make the current global situation better, or their party popular with the American public skeptical of yet another American war in the Middle East. The last GOP President brought a series of foreign policy disasters for the US perhaps unparalleled in our history. And that legacy is likely to be as a big a drag in 2016 as any other the GOP faces no matter the record of President Obama next year.  So even this issue set is going to be hard for the GOP to prevail on next year. 

Finally, Hillary Clinton also seems prepared to open a new front which could end up being very advantageous to the Democrats in 2016 – political and governmental reform. As I have written elsewhere, this is an area of incredible opportunity for the center-left. What has become true in recent years is that there is one party which wants everyone to vote and to ease participation in our democracy, and one party which doesn’t. If fully developed this issue could become a powerful and meaningful new bludgeon for the Democrats in 2016, one making an already promising political landscape even more so.

So yes, it is early. And yes this is one poll. And yes much will change. But as we look ahead to 2016 a winning issue/agenda/argument path for the GOP is hard to see.  

In a long form magazine piece from a few years ago, I offered my own explanation for why the GOP is struggling so much with modernity, and been so unsuccessful in looking forward rather than back.

Update: Gallup reports a significant swing in Party ID towards the Democrats this quarter, providing further evidence of structural changes emerging in the 2016 landscape.