Take heed, Michigan.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The 2006 election is shaping up to be a repeat of 1994. This time, Democrats are favored to sweep Republicans from power in the House after a dozen years of GOP rule.
Less than two weeks before the Nov. 7 election, the latest Associated Press-AOL News poll found that likely voters overwhelmingly prefer Democrats over Republicans. They are angry at President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress, and say Iraq and the economy are their top issues.
Single state recession? Why is the rest of the country so unhappy if that is true?
At the same time, fickle middle-class voters are embracing the Democratic Party and fleeing the GOP - just as they abandoned Democrats a dozen years ago and ushered in an era of Republican control.
"I don't think the Republican Party represents what I stand for. The guys I golf with, we're in the middle class, we're getting hurt," says Joseph Altland, 73, a retired teacher in York, Pa. He is a registered Republican but says he is considering becoming an independent.
Republican policy favors the wealthy only.
88.3% of the total benefits from Bush tax cuts went to people with incomes over $100,000. In addition, the total number of taxpayers who got a vast majority of the benefits represent only 12.71% of all taxpayers.
Do you really expect DeVos to be any different?
Really? Has he ever addressed the needs of the middle class or small business? His tax cuts target large corporations only. Stop and think about that.
Aside from the level of voter anger, the other dynamic that invites comparisons to 1994 is the attitude of middle-class voters - those earning less than $75,000 a year and who have graduated high school or have some college education.
In 1994, these voters deserted the Democrats in droves, helping Republicans capture dozens of Democratic-held House seats to seize control for the first time in decades.
Democrats recovered some of that lost ground in the following years, but they never fully regained their grasp on the middle class. In the intervening midterm elections, Democrats and Republicans split the House vote among middle-income and middle-education groups.
This fall, however, the AP-AOL News poll shows that Democrats have an advantage - in some cases in the double digits - among middle-class voters.
A majority of middle-class voters now favor Democrats to control the House and say that Democrats best represent their most closely held beliefs. They trust Democrats more than Republicans to handle the situation in Iraq, which most of them view as a mistake. The war is this voting group's most important issue. The economy and health care are close behind.
Republicans don't represent the people anymore. They represent those who can afford to buy them. People like DeVos who stand to make out big from his own tax cut policies.
America is waking up to this fact. Let's hope Michigan gets it, too.
Republicans for Granholm. Check it out. They make a lot of sense.