When in Doubt, Go to the Graphs

John Judis makes a convincing argument that the declines of Democratic candidates in recent months is intimately linked to Obama's approval rating in the state that candidate is running in. Except that he doesn't say much. He just lets polling graphs do the talking.

I don't know enough about the history of Senatorial candidates in these states to make an argument as to Obama's declining numbers have, in fact, dragged down democratic candidates in these states. What I think seems clear is that numbers really start getting bad for both Obama and Democrats around November. Missouri seems like a pretty conservative state. Obama is under 50% before August. But Robin Carnahan is very popular in the state and she is leading Blount until right around the middle of November. Colorado has a similar story: Obama's below 50% by September, but Senator Michael Bennett still has a lead until right around Thanksgiving (notice for Bennett how his numbers are flatlined, not declining, but the Republican's are rising). It should be extremely disturbing to Democrats that Obama's numbers are below 50% in Ohio and, particularly, in Philadelphia. Here is where you can really see the national trend emerge. Obama is still above 50% in both states at the beginning of November. The Dem Senate candidate, Fisher, and Ohio's (perhaps formerly) popular governer, Ted Strickland, both have leads all year that they lose right at the end of October. The one outlier to all of this is Arlen Specter, whose numbers have been a on a serious decline since he switched parties (remember how he was going to save his seat that way?).

One other point that should be made, however, is that none of these races--with the exception of Specter's seat (surprisingly)--seem even close to being lost. With the exception of Carnahan's race, which is still very close, all of these races have high numbers of undecided voters and the elections are 10 months off. That's a world of time away. However, what does seem clear is that over this past year Democrats let themselves be defined by Republicans, without Republicans offering any alternative for governing, and it worked. In every poll you can see Republican numbers rising, in some cases faster than Democrats' are falling. As of today, that trend is still going strong.