Democrats have a problem and everyone knows it. President Obama calls it a “congenital disease.” If they can’t control it, Obama could spend the final years of his presidency battling not only a Republican House but also a Republican Senate. Democrats are banking on the belief that they can better identify potential supporters, motivate them and get them to the polls — in essence, reshape the midterm electorate to make it look more like the electorate in a presidential year. To try to do so, they will for the first time fully employ the sophisticated tools and techniques used in Obama’s presidential campaigns to aid Senate and some House candidates. Whether Democrats can overcome the party’s historic disadvantage in midterm election turnout with more money and more sophisticated techniques is the critical question. “If you can convince your base to behave like it’s a presidential election, it would be a game-changer for the Democrats,” said Notre Dame’s Nickerson. “But I don’t know how you do that. If anyone did, the Democrats would be far more successful than they are.”
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