Midterms are a week away — which means both the Democrats and Republicans are hunting for big issues that swing in their respective favor.
For Democrats, it’s the minimum wage — quite possibly the only issue on which they are winning against the GOP, according to Politico.
Ninety percent of Democrats and just 53 percent of Republicans favor raising the federal minimum wage from its current $7.25 to $10.10, as proposed by President Obama, a Pew Research Center poll found earlier this year.
“It gives Democrats a concrete offer on what is increasingly seen as the main problem,” Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg told Politico.
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Four Republican leaning-states — Arkansas, Alaska, Nebraska and South Dakota — have state-level minimum wage increases on the ballot this year. The referenda are expected to pass in all four, giving Democrats hope that it will boost voter turnout.
A non-binding referendum on raising the minimum wage to $10 in Illinois is also expected to pass.
Three of those states have competitive Senate races, and Republican candidates in races across the country have been forced to tack to the center on the issue.
“I think it’s playing quite successfully as a wedge issue,” said Arun Ivatury, campaign strategist for Raise the Minimum Wage, an elections arm of the nonprofit National Employment Law Project.
Even if the Republicans take control of Congress, don’t expect the issue to go away any time soon.
