Independents want time out, favor Republicans in 2010 election

In an ominous sign for President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, independent voters now favor Republicans by nearly the same margins that they went for Obama in 2008 and for his party in the 2006 midterms, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press released Wednesday.

“For the third national election in a row, independent voters may be poised to vote out the party in power,” Pew concludes after its study of 2,816 registered voters, including 1,069 independent registered voters. The study, conducted Aug. 25 to Sept. 6, has a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.

If the breadth of the GOP’s gains this fall is determined by these independent voters, the one possible problem for the party, the poll found, could be if GOP candidates pay too much attention to a handful of social issues that historically have driven away some swing voters.

That is among the few areas in which more independents, 39 percent, say Democrats reflect their views, compared with 33 percent who say Republicans do.

Republican strategists are mindful of the risk, which helps explain why House GOP leaders downplayed such issues as abortion and gay marriage when they unveiled “A Pledge to America,” a pamphlet that emphasized the economic agenda Republicans say they will push if they regain the majority.

It’s a message they hope will have broad appeal with independent voters who, the Pew survey found, are paying more attention to and are likely to participate in higher numbers in this year’s midterms than in those of the past decade.

Unlike the most recent election cycles, when independents complained about the lack of progress in Washington on major issues facing the country, these critical swing voters now are expressing high anxiety with what Congress and the White House have already done.

Overall, 45 percent of independents disapprove of the health care reforms passed this year, compared with 41 percent who approve of them. A third of independents say Obama’s economic policies have made conditions worse for them rather than better, compared with 24 percent who take a more positive view.

“They feel that the issues have been dealt with but not in a way that is satisfactory to them,” said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center.

The upshot is that independents appear to be clamoring for a time-out in Washington, as they absorb what already has passed and stall any other big new reforms.