TO: Friends
FR: Jim Boulet, Jr.
DT: November 7, 2006 6:30 PM EST
Today is Election Day. Rather than add my second guess to a legion of them tomorrow polls close, I thought I would offer a few thoughts now.
Keep these numbers in mind: 232 - 202. That is the present division of House seats between Republicans and Democrats. A switch of just 16 seats would shift control of the House.
Recent history shows sixteen seat or greater switches rare
When has there been a 16 seat or greater gain by the opposition party in the sixth year of a presidential term during the last 50 years? Just once, in 1966, when Republicans gained 48 seats.
Just three other times did the opposition party pick up 16 seats or more during the last 50 years: 1974 (Republicans lost 48 seats); 1982 (Republicans lost 26 seats) and in 1994 (Democrats lost 54 seats, including 34 incumbents).
There is a common reason for all of these drastic shifts: incumbents who did not match their districts. The 1966 election followed the LBJ landslide of 1964. The 1974 election followed the Nixon landslide of 1972. The 1982 election followed the Reagan landslide of 1980. Landslides sweep in weak challengers into marginal districts. Two years later, most of these districts revert to type.
What to make of 1994? That was the first election following a major redistricting that transformed many districts and it was the first election that "yellow dog" Democrats began voting for Republicans for Congress. Southern Democrats were replaced by Republicans.
Incumbent-District Mismatch Much Lower Post-1994
One thing 2006 does not have anything in common with 1966, 1974, 1982 or 1994 is far less low-hanging fruit, incumbents who do not match the party preference of their district.
Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics.com puts it this way: "[The Democrats] just have relatively few Republican-held districts, about 15, where Kerry beat Bush in 2004."
Cost also notes that in 1994, "[o]nly 6 seats flipped that were in reliably Democratic districts. This was a sign that, though the electorate generally was pretty peeved, Democrats were not really that peeved, at least not enough to toss out their members."
If there aren't that many Republicans in Democrat districts, how then does Stuart Rothenberg come up with a 34 or 40 seat switch or Charlie Cook conclude on October 31st that "44.4% of the total playing field this year is in solidly Republican territory?"
Cost reviewed Rothenberg's numbers and concluded: "Rothenberg's final estimate of net 34 to 40 means that the Democrats will win 63% to 73% of the seats on this list [of 57 vulnerable GOP seats].
Cost found a similar problem with Cook's numbers: "Cook sees 42.4% of Democratic gains coming from conservative districts ... [Furthermore] the average partisanship in these districts is more Republican than any 1994 pickup was Democratic."
Looking at the electoral math this way, a 16 seat gain by the Democrats is not quite a foregone conclusion that folks like Kevin Drum think it is. Drum was crowing as late as Monday, November 6th in the Washington Monthly that "Dems are going into Tuesday with a lead in the generic polls of 5-10%, which is huge, and with pretty good prospects in upwards of 40 congressional districts."
Two other factors suggest a better Election Night for Team Elephant (2) GOP Voters re-engaging and (3) Democrats suffer form living in a media cocoon.
GOP Voters Re-Engaging in What is a National Election for the GOP
While many conservative Republicans are disappointed with the performance of the Republican controlled Congress, they evidently have concluded that their concerns will be addressed even less by a House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a gaggle of Democratic Committee chairmen well to the left of the majority of the Democratic Party as a whole.
This is a national election, but a national election primarily among Republicans, not Democrats.
Some smart Democratic advisers have worried correctly that their House leadership is unwelcome anyplace but the bluest of the blue states, like California and Massachusetts.
"House Speaker Pelosi" has probably been featured far more often in Republican brochures and commercials than in anything advocating support for Democrats.
Virginia Senate candidate Jim Webb stumps with two of Virginia's Democratic governors, not Senator Patrick Leahy. But a U.S. Senator Webb will vote to make Leahy chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, something Webb manages to avoid mentioning.
This return of the disgruntled Republican voter panicked Walter Shapiro of Salon yesterday:
The Washington Post-ABC News poll had the Democrats leading by a 51-to-45-percent margin on the generic ballot question. A new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press had the Democrats ahead among likely voters by 47 to 43 percent. Two weeks ago the margin was 50 to 39 percent. ... Because the Democratic vote is clustered in many one-sided inner-city congressional districts, analysts believe that the Democrats need a 5- or 6-point spread on the generic ballot to translate that margin into the 15-seat pickup that would make Nancy Pelosi speaker.There may even be some GOP pickups, such as two Georgia races.
Democrats Draw False Conclusions From Their Media Cocoon
Many Democrats of a certain age seem all too eager for America's effort in Iraq to fail, just as America's effort in Vietnam failed. They forget that Ronald Reagan won friends when he called the Vietnam War "a noble cause" just a few years after our defeat.
Ads denouncing the Iraq war may please Helen Thomas, Cindy Sheehan, Noam Chomsky and the Daily Kosites of the world, but most Americans are not eager to join the "let's lose another war" caucus.
They tell each other that polls show they will win. Yet the Mystery Pollster's web site reports that there is "no public poll data for 351 of the 435 districts."
The accuracy of polls which do exist is an open question. Polls taken by John Zogby in upstate New York were rejected because Zogby "polled the 25th district but then weighted the data using voter registration information from the more-Republican 24th district." He then used "the same larger sample of 5,000 likely voters as he had on the first survey" for a second survey he claimed to produce from scratch. A commentator to the Zogby blog item added:
"Zogby is not alone. Mason-Dixon made two sloppy mistakes this week in Nevada. In the attorney general race they included Independent American nominee Chris Johnson among the choices, with 4% choosing Johnson. One problem: Johnson died in August and is not on the ballot. In the heavily publicized sheriffs race, Mason-Dixon provided a "None of These" option, with 4% selecting it. But sheriff is a Clark County race, not a statewide race. Nevada law requires "None of These" on the ballot in statewide races only.The endless biased coverage of the mainstream news media has poisoned its own well as far as many voters are concerned. They see Republican scandals trumpeted for days (see "macaca") while Democratic scandals are swept under the rug (e.g. Harry Reid's land deal).
George W. Bush would not have survived the CBS News attack on his military service in 1970, because the were no alternatives to the big three television networks. By 2004, talk radio and the Internet can actually rebut such falsehoods before they can do the damage they used to do.
Just as union members are more likely to trust the white envelope from their union as opposed to the slick brochures of either party, conservatives turn to candidate ratings by Christian Coalition, Gun Owners of America and FOX News for what they consider fair and unbiased election information. They count upon Rush and Phyllis to keep them up to date.
All of these alternative forms of communication arose because conservative views were effectively barred from the mainstream media for decades. As the song goes, "conservatives have to get their praise from National Review." Conservatives had to work to be even heard.
Meanwhile too many liberals have spent the last 50 years learning how to impose their views by judicial fiat and quash any dissent as politically incorrect. Liberals address a mirror while conservatives learned how to actually persuade other people. (Granted, President George W. Bush should do less deciding and more persuading.) Guess which party is a more effective advocate for its views?
My predictions:
Republicans hold the Senate, at least for now. Rhode Island RINO Chaffee is rumored to be considering repaying the RNC's near million-dollar investment in his reelection campaign by becoming a Democrat. Surprise: Steele wins in Maryland.
Democrats net 10 House seats, allowing the GOP to barely keep control. Surprise: Randy Graf wins AZ-8
English First, 8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
You can support the work of English First via secure server here.
If this e-mail alert was forwarded to you and you wish to receive future alerts directly (there is no charge), please sign up here.