Political Memo: Obama’s Tax Policy Targets Slice of His Base: The Affluent

You would not know it from Republican cries of class warfare swirling around Mr. Obama’s new budget, which reiterates his calls for higher taxes on individuals earning more than $200,000 and households earning more than $250,000. Conventional understanding of election-season populism assumes that the president will be looking to stick it to die-hard Republicans.

In fact, affluent Americans have represented a growing portion of the Democratic Party for a generation. Even though Jimmy Carter won the presidency in 1976, for example, he trailed the Republican incumbent, Gerald Ford, 62 percent to 38 percent among voters in the highest income group (those earning more than $20,000, the equivalent of roughly $80,000 today) that were measured by people conducting exit polls.

By 2000, Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee, trailed George W. Bush 54 percent to 43 percent among the highest income group (those earning more than $100,000). In winning the presidency four years ago, Mr. Obama defeated Senator John McCain by 52 percent to 46 percent among voters in the top income group, those earning more than $200,000.

The conservative author Charles Murray, in his new book “Coming Apart,” which is about the nation’s widening class divide, identifies “Super ZIP codes” that the “hyper-wealthy and hyper-elite” call home. Even as he proposed higher taxes on the wealthy in 2008, Mr. Obama beat Mr. McCain in 8 of the top 10 such ZIP codes — by a ratio of 2 to 1 in communities like Atherton, Calif., Gladwyne, Pa., and Chappaqua, N.Y.

Mr. Obama also continued the Democrats’ progress among the much larger group of upper-middle-class voters. In counties with above-average incomes that the research organization Patchwork Nation calls Monied ’Burbs, Mr. Obama received 55 percent of the vote, up from the 49 percent President Bill Clinton received in 1996, the 43 percent that the Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis received in 1988 and the 36 percent Mr. Carter received in 1980.

To make the point that he is not lashing out at opponents, Mr. Obama often notes that his proposals would raise his own taxes or those of allies like Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor. But the Democratic Party’s increasing electoral success in upper portions of the income scale points to something broader: an argument that people like him have a civic responsibility to bear more of the burden of deficit reduction and to pay for government spending priorities.

“It is the opposite of a pander,” said Dante Chinni, the director of Patchwork Nation. And it carries risks as well as potential rewards.

Some fallout appears evident in donations from Wall Street executives, who feel particularly aggrieved by Mr. Obama’s criticisms and policies. After besting Mr. McCain four years ago with donations from the securities, hedge-fund and banking sectors, the president has seen the former Bain Capital executive Mitt Romney amass far more cash from each of them, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

And in the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, Mr. Obama is supported by 43 percent and Mr. Romney by 47 percent of voters earning more than $100,000, even as he leads by six percentage points over all in a head-to-head matchup. In 2008, Mr. Obama split voters in the $100,000-plus category evenly with Mr. McCain. Yet Democratic strategists consider that fallout relatively modest and ascribe it more to frustration over gridlock in Washington than ire over potential tax increases. They see Mr. Obama as more vulnerable to defections among economically pinched working class voters than among higher earners whose taxes he would raise.

In large part that owes to the cultural influences that turned a large chunk of well-educated baby boomers toward the Democrats beginning in the 1960s. Those include support for activist government in areas like education, training and job creation, which Mr. Obama argues are necessary to spur growth and stem widening inequality of income and wealth.

“The types of affluent voters who have been going to vote for Democrats are unlikely to be driven away” by the prospect of higher taxes, said Geoff Garin, a pollster for Democratic candidates and for the “super PAC” backing Mr. Obama. “They have an appreciation for what those higher taxes pay for.”

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Poll Finds Support for Contraceptive Policy and Gay Couples

Despite the deep divide between some religious leaders and government officials over contraceptives, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll found most voters support the new federal directive that health insurance plans provide coverage for birth control.

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In addition, most voters said they favored some type of legal recognition for same-sex couples, at a time when the New Jersey Legislature is set to vote on gay marriage and after a federal appellate court ruled that Proposition 8’s ban on same-sex marriage in California was unconstitutional.

While same-sex marriage and coverage for contraceptives have generated significant debate this month, the poll suggests that voters do not place social issues high on their agenda. When asked to name one issue that presidential candidates should discuss, most voters, including Republicans who described themselves as primary voters, mentioned an economic problem, like unemployment or the budget deficit. Few said they wanted to hear the candidates talk about abortion or gay marriage, for example.

On contraceptive coverage, 65 percent of voters in the poll said they supported the Obama administration’s requirement that health insurance plans cover the cost of birth control, and 59 percent, said the health insurance plans of religiously affiliated employers should cover the cost of birth control.

In a compromise last week, President Obama said insurance companies could shoulder the costs required under the new federal health care law, but the Conference of Catholic Bishops and other religious leaders continue to oppose the rule.

A majority of Catholic voters in the poll were at odds with the church’s official stance, agreeing with most other voters that religiously affiliated employers should offer health insurance that provides contraception. Jennifer Davison, 38, a Catholic from Lomita, Calif., agrees with the federal requirement. “My opinion is that it is a personal issue rather than a religious issue,” she said in a follow-up interview.

Unlike Catholics, white evangelical Christian voters were more divided, with half objecting to requiring the health insurance plans of religious employers to cover contraceptives; 43 percent supported it. “It is a religious issue with me,” said Jessica Isner, 22, an evangelical Christian from Elkins, W. Va. “I believe that providing birth control is O.K. if the hospital is not religiously affiliated.”

Gay marriage is another debate in which the Catholic laity disagrees with church doctrine. More than two-thirds of Catholic voters supported some sort of legal recognition of gay couples’ relationships: 44 percent favored marriage, and 25 percent preferred civil unions. Twenty-four percent said gay couples should receive no legal recognition.

Again, white evangelical Christian voters expressed more conservative views. A majority said there should not be legal recognition of a gay relationship, while 18 percent said they should be allowed to marry and 25 percent supported civil unions.

The nationwide telephone poll included 1,064 registered voters, of whom 226 were Catholic and 238 were white evangelical Christians. The margins of sampling error are plus or minus three percentage points for all voters, plus or minus seven points for Catholics, and plus or minus six points for white evangelical Christians.

Marina Stefan contributed reporting.

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