Re-electing Pelosi...

The re-election of Nancy Pelosi as the Speaker of the House may well be a consequence of a continued focus on generic ballot numbers, and an insistence that this election is not about the individual republican candidates, but rather only about the failings of Democratic control.

Tel Opinion (TOR) reviewed studies (19 by TOR) from 82 congressional districts which are either held by Democratic incumbents or are open seats, to determine what if any patterns might exist. We looked at the three basic groups: those where the Republicans lead, those with a Democratic lead, and those where the ballot results are within the margin of error (+/- 5.7 or less).

Of the 82 districts, the Republican candidate leads in 25 districts by some 6 points or more. All of the districts where Republicans lead have at least two of three characteristics:

-Generic ballot favors Republicans by more than 10 points

-High unfavorable for the Democratic candidate

-Republican candidate favorable rating is equal to or greater than that of the Democrat candidate (2-3 times higher in some cases).

* In 13 of these districts, the generic ballot heavily favors Republicans and the Democrats have an unfavorable rating over 28%.

* In two, the Republican has an advantage in the favorable rating, and the Democrat has high unfavorable, over 40%.

* In ten, The Republican candidate has a higher favorable rating than the Democrat, and there is a strong GOP advantage on the generic ballot..

In the group where Democrats are leading, there are 23 districts where they do so by 5% or more. Their advantage appears to come from one of three places:

* Twelve districts: the Republican candidate is relatively unknown, and has a hard ID of less than 30%.

* Two districts: the smallest group and the most obvious: Republicans with an unfavorable rating, nearly 1:1 in some cases, poisoning their chances for success.

* Nine districts. The democrat in each case has a high favorable rating, 45% or higher, and a minimum of a 2:1 fav/unfav ratio.

That leaves 30 races that are within the margin of error. In all of these contests, the Republican name identification or favorable/unfavorable reveals the reason these races are so close:

In each case, the Republican candidate has either very low hard name id, making him virtually unknown, or has very high unfavorable, making him as disliked as his democratic opponent.

Conversely, in each race the democrat candidate either has high unfavorable (25 races) or is just as unknown as the Republican (5 races).

* There are 19 races where the Democrat has a high unfavorable rating and the Republican has low hard name identification.

* There are an additional added 5 districts where both have low identification.

* Finally, there are 6 districts where both the Republican and Democrat candidates have high unfavorable ratings.

The conclusions here are somewhat self-evident, and nothing particularly new:

• The correlation between identification and approval levels and the ballot is clear.

• There are 36 districts where the enhancement of Republican name id/approval levels appears to be able to significantly improve the ballot.

• 12 of these contests are currently being led by a Democrat

• 24 of these are currently within the margin of error.

• 47 of 81 Republican candidates were not meeting the generic ballot percentage in their head to head matchups.

• A positive generic ballot is helpful, but not the end-all-be-all. Without a significant name identification and/or approval factor, in many cases it is almost useless.

• The mantra that this election is not about the individual candidates is weak, and not the ultimate answer. One size does not fit all.

You can’t defeat somebody with nobody. Individual Republican candidates must be known in order to be perceived as a legitimate alternative (e.g. measure up to the generic ballot). The key to maximizing Republican victories and potentially ensuring a Republican speaker is the enhancement of selected Republican candidates’ id and approval levels.

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Bill Lee is the President of Tel Opinion Research, LLC, a survey research firm based in Alexandria, Virginia. The opinions expressed herein are personal, and not necessarily those of Tel Opinion Research per se, or its employees.