My must read of the day is "POLITICO poll shows mounting danger for Dems," in Politico:
Nearly nine in 10 respondents said that the health care law would be important to determining their vote, including 49 percent who said it would be very important. [...]
Among voters who had an opinion of the ACA, the electorate was almost exactly split between those who want to repeal the law entirely and those who favor either leaving it alone or keeping it in place with modifications.
Forty-eight percent of respondents endorsed repeal, versus 35 percent who wanted to modify the law without repealing it and just 16 percent who said it should be left unchanged. [...]
Broken down by region, only in the South did total repeal of the law command the support of a majority — 51 percent. In the Northeast, Midwest, and West, repeal was the preference of a plurality of voters, but a majority favored either leaving the ACA as is or making changes to the law without repealing it.
The midterm electorate, however, is expected to be whiter and more conservative than the country as a whole, and many of the year’s highest-stakes Senate races are in Southern states such as Arkansas, North Carolina, and Louisiana. So even if the law has gained some legitimacy with the broader public, it remains ominous for Democrats that repeal is the plurality position of likely voters.
I agree with the argument that repeal is not the best or a "slam dunk" strategy and numerous polls support that idea, but those polls tend to be carried out on a national level. When it comes to 2014, what matters is how campaign tactics poll locally and in states.
2014 seems increasingly poised to be a referendum on the Affordable Care Act. What's most interesting about this poll is that it reiterates that most Americans do not want the law repealed entirely. It also show that in key states Republicans hope to turn, more people support repeal.
According to this poll, the majority of voters want to keep the law either as it is now or "modify" it. Slightly fewer than half want to repeal it. But of all the election issues, the health care law is the most important to voters.
The repeal strategy may not be a win in every state, but if it mostly hurts Republicans in states they had no chance of winning, doesn't hurt them in safer states, and potentially helps them in crucial ones such as North Carolina, Louisiana, and Arkansas (as this poll suggests) it may be a wise tactic for this election cycle—especially if Republicans are unable to build consensus on an alternative right now.