Clearly the polling data and Terry McAuliffe’s nail-biter victory in Virginia have created some upheaval among vulnerable Senate democrats up for reelection in 2014. President Obama met with a group of anxious senators to hear their concerns as we begin to enter the 2014 midterm election cycle. In an attempt to stem souring public opinion, the President recently interviewed with NBC News where he apologized for his inability to fulfill his campaign promise regarding the ability to keep your existing health insurance plan.
Report from Fox News:
President Obama on Wednesday sought to assuage anxious Democrats who are worried that ObamaCare’s troubled rollout is going to come back to haunt them during the 2014 midterm elections.
“There’s a lot of pent-up frustration” among Senate Democrats who are facing voters next year, a party source familiar with the meeting told Fox News.
A Democratic source told Fox News’ Ed Henry that some of the senators in the room floated a delay of up to one year in the law’s implementation – an idea the president rejected. The source said, however, that senators left the White House feeling that it was a “constructive meeting.”
The meeting could suggest that momentum is building for Democrats to force changes to the law. A letter circulated in late October among Democratic senators urged the Obama administration to delay enforcement of the health care law’s individual mandate, a recommendation supported by senators Mark Pryor, D-Ark., Mary Landrieu, D-La., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Mark Begich, D-Alaska, and Kay Hagan, D-N.C., all of whom were present at Wednesday’s meeting.
The vulnerable Democrats are now pushing for a delay of some sort in the hopes of easing continued frustrations among voters about the website failures, cancellation letters and premium rate shock. The President has stated that a delay of the individual mandate is not on the table.
What does this mean for 2014? Can Republicans ride this issue to a Senate majority or will voter frustrations diminish in 12 months?
