Looking to the Midterms
Josh Kraushaar writes in Politico:
After an August recess marked by raucous town halls, troubling polling data and widespread anecdotal evidence of a volatile electorate, the small universe of political analysts who closely follow House races is predicting moderate to heavy Democratic losses in 2010.
Some of the most prominent and respected handicappers can now envision an election in which Democrats suffer double-digit losses in the House — not enough to provide the 40 seats necessary to return the GOP to power but enough to put them within striking distance.
I think it’s important to have the proper perspective on this stuff. The political system has a tendency in the direction of parity. Consequently, any party currently enjoying a large majority should expect losses in the next election. At the moment, virtually every left-of-center congressional district is already in the hands of a Democrat (the seats held by Reps Joseph Cao and Mike Castle are the main exceptions) while many right-of-center districts aren’t currently represented by Republicans. So the GOP will probably pick up seats. What’s more, the President’s party usually loses seats in midterms.
Nate Silver has a useful chart reminding us of this:
Even popular presidents usually lose seats. So Democrats will almost certainly lose seats. But that shouldn’t be taken as evidence that some kind of fiasco is looming—the loss of seats is something that can and should be taken in stride. The loss of the House majority, by contrast, would be a huge deal. But nobody seems to think that’s in the cards at this point.
15 Responses to “Looking to the Midterms”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
August 31st, 2009 at 1:52 pm
The question is what happens in the Senate. The seats up for reelection in 2010 were last contested in ‘04, which was a big Republican year. All things being equal, the Democrats ought to pick up seats, since they are in a much better position as a party than they were 6 years ago. And adding a few Senate seats would be much more politically significant than losing a few House seats.
August 31st, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I think taking out some of the fake Democrats might actually have a positive effect. My own representative (Ann Kirkpatrick) votes with Republicans more than Democrats. Having her replaced with a Republican doesn’t change my frustrations with my representation, and actually furthers my prospects of being represented by a real Democrat one of these days.
August 31st, 2009 at 2:04 pm
RE “The political system has a tendency in the direction of parity. ”
————–
Given the massive damage Republicans have inflicted on this country, they should be out of power for 40 years , just like after the Great Depression. Anybody ever hear of Franklin Roosevelt talking about “parity” with his Republican opponents??
But given that today’s Democratic Caucus has neither the character to criticize the Republicans nor the courage to offer an alternative, it is possible that a disgusted Democratic grassroots will decide to stay home next November.
August 31st, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Who gives a crap anyway? Our “2 party” system is like 2 tired old high mileage street whores hustling for the same pimp. You can fuck one or the other – it’ll feel the same.
August 31st, 2009 at 2:18 pm
I suspect that Sarah Palin choosing to appear in Hong Kong in late September constitutes stronger evidence that some kind of fiasco is looming.
August 31st, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Total horseshit. The Republican party (with a whole lot of D help) has sent American into 2 wars and a financial crisis that stat men and technocrats dont feel or understand.
If there is a significant shift in the electorate it will not be some bullshit natural leveling effect of political parity. No. It will be an absolute failure of the Democrats to govern effectively, improving the real economy and passing serious healthcare reform.
I live in DC and I here this psychobabble broder-like political guru talk everday. The simple fact is the Democrats were much better at not being in power than actually having it. At this point, they are too compromised to do the job the electorate voted them in for.
All blame for congressional losses lays at the footsteps of the administration, the party leadership and the individual D congress critters that are too cowed to do what is right by the citizenry.
Please, Nate and Matt, dont piss on my leg and…you get the point.
August 31st, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Good post by Matt. I would add further that the Democratic Party currently controls 59% of the House seats while only having won 53% of the vote in the House elections last year.
August 31st, 2009 at 2:57 pm
I think it would behoove all the chattering chowderheads in DC to remember that mid-term elections are more than a year away, and the American political attention span is very, very short.
That’s why I think if Dems would quit being afraid of voters and just vote to get things done, the new laws would be in place before the elections, and no one would be talking about them anymore, they’d be talking about the next thing. Then Dems can go into the elections saying “look at all the stuff we got done. We’re not a do-nothing Congress!”
August 31st, 2009 at 3:09 pm
7: but that doesn’t mean their 59% of House seats is over-representative. In theory, they could’ve gotten 53% of the vote in every single house district, in which case they’s control 100% of House seats.
August 31st, 2009 at 4:31 pm
It is an unfortunate failure of the political system when House Democrats lose office because Senate Republicans are successful at blocking health care reform. That is why requiring super-majorities is a bad idea- the voters cannot be trusted to figure out whether to blame the majority or the minority if the majority cannot pass the basic budget programs that they wish.
Of course, losing House seats while picking up Senate seats would be a great trade for progressives at this point, so I don’t see any reason to worry yet. That doesn’t change the increasing impression I have of Obama as yet another in a long line of enormous douchebag politicians though…
August 31st, 2009 at 4:52 pm
I think it would behoove all the chattering chowderheads in DC to remember that mid-term elections are more than a year away, and the American political attention span is very, very short.
That would be nice, but your local House rep is spending a good chunk of the day on the phone to donors already to fill up the war-chest. The political attention span may be short, but fundraising season never ends.
The loss of the House majority, by contrast, would be a huge deal. But nobody seems to think that’s in the cards at this point.
This also factors in the incumbency rate. Most House members are most vulnerable in their first re-election campaign, but the Dem class of ‘06 pretty much survived unscathed in ‘08. This doesn’t make them invulnerable to wave elections, but the usual precursor is a bunch of retirements, and the only people getting out of Congress and top-tier politics this year appear to have been Republicans.
That brings me to a semi-request — the Japan thread got a bit sidetracked by the immigration issue, but I think the really striking thing is that you’re going to have a lower house that has around 200 new members from the governing party. There are shades of 1997 in the UK, when a number of surprise Labour winners had to quit their day jobs and find somewhere in London to live in a hurry. But that kind of new blood in parliament (nearly half) makes 1997 and the 54-seat turnover in 1994 look very small-scale indeed.
August 31st, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Notice that 5 of the 6 points on the graph below the line (bigger losses for the president’s party) are in 1974 or earlier, and 7 of the 10 above the line are from 1978 or later. Districts are more gerrymandered than they used to be, and this is probably limiting the losses.
August 31st, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Districts are more gerrymandered than they used to be, and this is probably limiting the losses.
In practical terms, what gerrymandering does is twofold:
It amplifies wave elections while suppressing turnover in more normal years.
If you look at the Republican gerrymanders of House districts in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan and what happened over the course of the 2000s you can see this trend. The Republicans in all three states created a bunch of 55-45 districts designed to elect Republicans while “wasting” as few Republican votes as possible and shoving as many Democrats as possible into a handful of districts, a task made easier by normal patterns of settlement (Democrats tend to be concentrated in big cities) and the trend towards the creation of majority-minority districts. In the relatively normal years of 2002 and 2004, Republicans held most of those 55-45 type seats with little trouble. But the political ground shifted just enough in 2006 and a tipping point was reached where lots of them went down, including many who didn’t see it coming. Even more of them went down or retired in 2008.
This won’t work quite as well in reverse for the GOP since the “wrong party” group in the House is nowhere near the size of the Southern Dems who lost or retired in 1994 or the Frost Belt Republicans who lost or retired in 2006. But it is something to keep in mind; a lot of the Dem winners in 2006 or 2008 are in potentially unfriendly districts.
August 31st, 2009 at 8:32 pm
If Democrats did a better job with the stimulus, bailout and healthcare we would all be talking about how the Dems are poised to break the off year election trend. Instead we have Matt and Co. telling us that losses are just the way it is.
Maybe Obama can start a war right after Labor Day next year.
August 31st, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Is this a hypnotic suggestion? Sure the Democrats are a pisser right now, but the Republicans keep appealing to their nut-case base, which isn’t sufficient to win elections.