There is much rejoicing or rending of garments in the political world at the moment, depending on one’s partisan persuasion (anyone with an active Twitter/Facebook feed can no doubt attest to this fact, not that it isn’t obvious from a variety of other sources).
As per a discussion in the comment section of one of my posts comes the question of whether we have enough evidence from the first year of the Obama administration (1 year old today, as a matter of fact) to discern a pattern going forward in regards to partisan fortunes. Let’s look at what we’ve actually got to work with.
Two caveats that are not new to my discussion of these issues (see here, here and here):
Caveat 1) The Democrats are almost certainly going to lose seats in both chambers in November. Exactly how many is the issue.
Caveat 2) Clearly this isn’t exactly an ideal political climate for the party in power (he said, demonstrating a gift for understatement). You know: bad economy, wars and such.
The issue at hand, however, is the pattern question. We have the following data points.
First, those that favor the Republicans:
1) Democratic Senate Retirements (Burris, Dodd, Dorgan and Kaufman).
Of those three retirements, the Dodd one is actually a net positive for the Democrats, as it helps them hold on to that seats. The Dorgan retirement is a true net positive for the Republicans, as it substantially increases the chances that they will win the seat.
Kaufman is the appointee that took Biden’s seat and likely to remain in Democratic hands as well.
I would compare the list of Democratic Senate retirements with the GOP list below and note that the GOP has several more to contend with.
2) Colorado’s Democratic Governor, Bill Ritter, chose not to run for re-election.
This strikes me as not all that significant, but was given more play because it came in proximity to the Dodd and Dorgan announcements. Politicians sometimes choose not to run.
3) Parker Griffith’s party switch (from D to R) in Alabama’s Fifth District.
This fits the notion that Blue Dog-ish Dems might switch or lose. However, as noted at the link above, it was a logical switch based on the electorate in the district and mirrors the strategic move made by Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania (see below). More importantly, this is a throwback to a process that was completed in most places in 1994: i.e., the switch of conservative southern Democratic Districts to Republican ones. The number of such districts currently in existences are small.
4) The VA and NJ governor’s races.
Prior to the recent election, Virginia had elected 5 Rs and 5 Ds to the governorship since 1970 (before that it was a one-party, southern Democratic state). As such, Virginia electing a Republican was hardly the thin edge of any wedge. New Jersey was more interesting, as an incumbent Democrat (John Corzine) got the boot. NJ has elected Republicans in the past, although not in recent cycles.
5) Brown’s win last night.
There is no doubt that the symbolic significance here is huge (the Teddy Kennedy seat and all of that) and there is also no doubt that it has a key effect on the health care debate. The degree to which is represents the beginning of a wave on Democratic defeats is another issue. Other factors to keep in mind here is that in most other races, incumbents will be running who are not lousy candidates like Martha Coakley. This follows on to the next point.
6) There are currently more toss-D seats in the Senate than Rs.
The Dem toss-up states are CO, CT, DE, IL, NV and PA
The Rep toss-up states are KY, MO, NH and OH.
Of those, I think that CT, IL and DE rather easily move to Dem-leaning status fairly easily, and KY to the GOP. Otherwise, the dearth of southern and/or conservative states here mean no easy Rep pickups.
I do think that Reid is in big, big trouble and would not be surprised to see NV go R.
I really have no good sense on CO.
MO, NH and OH could go D (or not), but in the absence of candidates, it is rather hard to say.
Those that favor the Democrats:
1) Arlen Specter’s party switch from R to D.
Significant if anything because it gave the pre-Brown Dems 60 votes. While PA is currently rated a toss-up, I think that likelihood is that Specter holds the seat.
2) NY23 went from Republican to Democrat.
Showed the difficulties that emerge when conservatives demand ideological purity (which may come into play in the Crist-Rubio nomination race in Florida). Interestingly, the Tea Party types became more willing to endorse a RINOesque candidate (so to speak) in the Brown-Coakley race, so perhaps that is an evolving situation.
Dede Scozzofaza, like Martha Coakley, also demonstrated the importance of quality candidates (or, really, the converse).
3) Republican Senate retirements (Brownback, Bond, Bunning, Gregg, LeMieux and Voinovich).
All I will say here is that those that see Democratic retirements as a huge deal need to remember that the GOP have had their share as well.
4) At the moment, there appears to be only 14 seats in the House held by Democrats that are toss-ups (and 1 that leans Republican). Meaning even that if the Dems lost all of them, they would still be quite a ways from losing the House. Indeed, they would need to win all of those and 27 more to gain a bare majority.
In this area I would note that the a +41 Republican swing is a tall order (the 1994 Republican Revolution was a +54 swing). It should be noted that a) 1994 was ripe for a substantial swing due to the presence of a large number of conservative Democratic districts that were still in a post-Reconstruction pattern (that is no longer the case), and b) congressional races have actually gotten less competitive (due to gerrymandering and other factors) since the 90s (see, for example, Abramowitz, Alexander and Gunning and/or Basham and Polhill).
All the above sum to less of a pattern than some might like to argue.
Cross-posted from PoliBlog.
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