Democrats in danger of becoming a regional party? Sure looks

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Are Democrats in danger of becoming a regional party? Sure looks like it.

By: Mark Hemingway
Commentary Staff Writer
04/14/10 3:44 PM EDT

In the past two years, there was quite a lot of thumb sucking over whether the GOP was becoming a regional party concentrated in the South. See this Jim Geraghty post on the debate last year http://preview.tinyurl.com/y5232s6 as well as this New York Times blog post for a primer. http://preview.tinyurl.com/y5232s6 Well, I already noted other aspects of this interesting analysis written by Sean Trende of Real Clear Politics this morning, but take a look at this presidential approval ratings map Trende put together. http://preview.tinyurl.com/y6nc7ty Trende makes a pretty compelling case that Obama's sinking popularity has a direct correlation with Democrats prospects at the ballot box. Solid red means president's approval rating is a net negative of 10 or more, dark blue means plus 10 and grey means no polls available:

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Why if I didn't know better I'd say it looks like the Democrats are becoming a regional party, only dominant in the Northeast and the West Coast! Of course, I don't think you should read much into this for what it means for the future. (Huge GOP gains this election could have a dramatic effect on redistricting, http://preview.tinyurl.com/y4ey999 but that's another matter.) The point is that this stuff is cyclical, as parties rise and fall. That obvious point, however, did not stop a lot of premature Democratic triumphalism over the last few years. For instance, Carville's no Cassandra:

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