U.S. parties will struggle to cooperate: pollster

Ipsos managing director Clifford Young speaks at the Reuters Washington Summit in Washington September 20, 2010.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and his Democrats are likely to suffer a repeat of former President Bill Clinton's defeat by Republicans at midterm elections in 1994. But that's where the similarities end.

Clinton turned that vote loss around and tacked to the center, working with the Republicans in Congress on welfare reform. He won re-election two years later.

But the political climate now is more polarized and it will be difficult for Obama's Democrats to work with resurgent Republicans, pollster Cliff Young of Ipsos Public Affairs told the Reuters Washington Summit on Monday.

Republicans will pick up some 50 seats and win control of the House of Representatives at the November 2 elections, although the Democrats will probably hold on to the Senate, Young told Reuters.

Defeat for the Democrats could set off political gridlock, particularly on economic issues.

"I think it is going to be very difficult. I see a lot of those issues that there isn't commonality, some sort of common center," Young said.

"You'll probably have a more conservative House now. They're slightly more right, especially on the issue of intervention of the state, and Obama is probably more left than Clinton so you already have an issue there where the two sides are further from middle than in '94," he said.

Planned energy and climate change legislation looks particularly endangered after the November vote, when Americans will elect all 435 seats in the House and 37 seats of the 100-member Senate.

"Energy for instance is very complicated. Energy doesn't lend itself to be voted piecemeal," Young said.

There is some chance that Congress can agree to take on board recommendations of a bipartisan deficit commission on ways to cut the $1.47 billion budget deficit.

"Maybe something on the deficit," Young said, although "It's going to be complicated by the short-term political calculus this year which is that Obama wants to stimulate the economy and Republicans want to cut taxes or keep them low."

"GRIDLOCK'S NOT ALL BAD"

Financial markets often welcome political stalemate in the United States when the economy is going well but investors are also looking for politicians to work together to help dig the country out of its yawning fiscal gap.

Many Republicans see the election as a chance to put the brakes on Obama's ambitious economic agenda.

"Gridlock's not all bad. I think it's how you look at it," said Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.

Republican leaders in the House plan to announce their own "governing agenda" on Thursday.

The elections will probably ensure that Obama tries no more big-ticket legislation like this year's healthcare reform and Wall Street crackdown.

Republicans have cashed in on anger at high unemployment and worries about government spending, an issue that has fired up the Tea Party movement of conservative Republicans.

"That's a base that's very energized and in midterms it's all about getting out the vote," Young said.

The Democrats and Republicans may find more to agree on in foreign policy than on domestic or economic issues, Young said.

"Maybe you have a common point on Afghanistan. The Republican base agrees more with what Obama's doing on Afghanistan than the Democrats," he said.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland and John Whitesides; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)