Heading into Tuesday's midterm elections, the Republican mood is buoyant "but they must remember it's difficult to defeat incumbents," writes veteran GOP strategist
Karl Rove in The Wall Street Journal.
What matters most now — especially if the party is to win the U.S. Senate — is to get Republican-leaning voters who don't usually come out for non-presidential elections to the polls and to capture the support of the undecided.
"Everything is about getting out the vote," writes Rove.
From a Republican viewpoint the stage is set. President Barack Obama is disliked. His policies are out of favor. Some 65 percent of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. People likely to vote prefer that Republicans run Congress by a 52 to 41 percent margin, according to Rove.
Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia — three open Democratic seats — are likely to fall to the GOP, writes Rove. Projections are that the Democrats will lose the Senate.
He notes that voting by absentee ballots or at early voting locations has already begun, and in places like Colorado, Republicans have returned 42 percent of the ballots compared to 33 percent from Democrats. This pressures incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Udall to capture the majority of that state's unaffiliated voters.
In other places, like Iowa and North Carolina, Democrats have returned more ballots than Republicans.
In Georgia, Democrats have done well in bringing out early African-American voters, which could give Michelle Nunn a starting lead Tuesday over David Perdue. But Rove figures neither Perdue nor Nunn will pull more than 50 percent, because of votes going to the Libertarian candidate, and will face off again in a Jan. 6 runoff.
Both parties are focused on turning out "low-propensity" voters — the ones who stay home when it's not a presidential election.
To make the point that every vote matters, Rove notes that Republicans lost the Senate in 2006 when Democrats won Montana by just 2,847 votes.
If the results go well for the GOP, they could portend "a tipping point for the Obama presidency," Rove concludes.
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