There is already
a diary about this, and I already put up
a Breaking Blue piece on CA-50 today, but I just had to blog this on the main page.
Survey USA has a new poll out on CA-50. The overall numbers put the race at a dead heat, 45-45, but what most interested me were the internals. Want to know how Busby is staying competitive in a district with
a local partisan index of just over RNC +20? The answer comes from independents, among whom Busby leads by a whopping
54-19.
I simply cannot see any way to look at a set of numbers like that and not conclude that the Indycrat realignment is underway. This is a conservative district. Bilbray is considered to be a moderate Republican. Hell, Bilbray even used to represent part of this district during the 1990's. Despite all that, he is still only bringing in 19% of independents. 19%?! "Other" is actually bringing in 26% of independents, so Bilbray is actually in third among independents. These are numbers that pretty much match Bush's standing among independents nationwide, and Democratic leads among independents nationwide in generic ballots. This is a complete and total abandonment of Republicans on the part of independents.
Over the past couple of weeks, you may have noticed that I have pretty much dropped my once pessimistic outlook on the 2006 elections. Mind blowing poll numbers such as this, which completely back up
the Indycrat realignment postulated by Jerome, Ruy, myself and others over the past year, are the main reason why. A moderate Republican in a conservative district that he used to partially represent is in
third place among independents in a general election? I don't want to get all John McEnroe here, but
you can't be serious! This is really too good to be true, and has massive national landslide written all over it.
The main issue in the 2006 elections might not be whether or not Democrats have the political capability of pulling off a victory, but instead whether or not Democrats have the political capability ability of turning what is almost certainly a landslide election into a change election. Will this be a temporary landslide that is quickly reversed, ala 1946 or 1952, or will it be a long-term, coalition-changing landslide, ala 1974 or 1994? Right now, we are clearly still in the temporary range. Independents have been almost completely dislodged from the Republicans coalition, but large numbers of them are still waiting in a holding pattern between the two major parties. For example, Bilbray may only have 19% of independents in this poll, but Busby only has 54%. The outcome in CA-50 may hinge on where on where the 26% of independents currently supporting "other" end up turning. In that sense, the outcome in CA-50 will still offer us a large insight into the nature of the 2006 elections as a whole. Independents are clearly dislodged, but have they turned to Democrats yet? We shall see on June 6th, which continues to loom very, very large in the primary calendar.
