President Obama’s 2010 midterm campaign strategy has combined risk and caution, but his eyes never left the real prize: his re-election in 2012.
While shying away from Democrats in tight races in swing states, Obama has been traveling mainly to states he won in 2008 and has been appealing to some of the key groups of voters,like women and college students, who fueled his historic election that year.
It’s a gambit aimed at minimizing the damage Democrats are expected to endure Tuesday. But it also serves the needs of Obama’s next presidential run.
“He’s playing his role as leader of the Democratic Party, fundraiser and campaigner to see if he can stem the bleeding this year — and create some chits to be called in for 2012,” said Cal Jillson, a Southern Methodist University political scientist.
The pressure is on: A Gallup poll last week found 54 percent of Americans believe Obama should be limited to one presidential term, while 39 percent believe he should be re-elected.
Republicans, emboldened by expected wins on Tuesday — and the possibility of taking control of the House — are increasingly sounding off about defeating Obama in two years.
“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told National Journal.
At the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed talk about 2012 and said McConnell is trying to “gum up the system.”
“We have had, over the past two years, enough game-playing to satisfy ourselves for many political lifetimes,” Gibbs said. “Maybe Sen. McConnell is interested in running for president.”
Its demurrals aside, the White House has been careful this season to massage constituencies Obama would need again in 2012, including those unlikely to help Democrats on Tuesday.
History shows that young voters who turned out for a presidential election cannot be lured back for midterms, but Obama has doubled-down on his pitch to the young.
The president also has been making a similarly strong push to win back women voters. Women tend to favor Democrats on Election Day, but polls show them less engaged this year.
Obama in 2008 picked up a majority of female voters, and he’ll need them to win again in two years.
Conversely, Obama is largely avoiding places and people who didn’t support him in 2008 in favor of states he carried, including California, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The White House carefully screens his audiences and venues, orchestrating larger events on friendly turf like Madison, Wis., while sticking to smaller backyard events in dicier locales like Virginia.
The president has made several trips to historically blue California, where his approval ratings are generally better than in more conservative states like Kentucky though both states have close Senate races this year.
Obama on Saturday will headline a rally in his adopted hometown of Chicago at an as-yet-unnamed venue, a notable echo of the massive election night rally he headlined at Grant Park in 2008.
