If you are a conservative this isn’t really news: President Obama’s decision to force his health care regulation law through Congress against the American people’s wishes cost Democrats their majority in the House of Representatives. But many liberals are still in denial. They either have not come to grips with the fact that Obamacare is, was, and will always be unpopular, or they believe other factors, like the bad economy, are more to blame for their epic 2010 defeat at the polls.
But now, a new study by a group of liberal political scientists provides strong new evidence that Obamacare is to blame for the House Democrat collapse. The paper, titled “One Vote Out of Step? The Effects of Salient Roll Call Votes in the 2010 Election,” examined the effects of three unpopular votes House Democrats made in the 111th Congress: 1) Obama’s stimulus plan; 2) cap and trade; and 3) Obamacare. The paper found that a Democratic incumbents’ vote for Obamacare had the strongest association with lower vote share in November 2010. “Support for controversial legislation causes voters to see their representatives as more ideologically distant,” the paper explains.
