Is It Freak Out Time for The Democrats???!!!

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past several weeks. With the end of the semester, holiday season, etc. its been a bit hectic. I'll try to get some new things up over the next few days.

The big news over the past forty eight hours or so has been the announced retirements of several Democratic big hitters: Senators Chris Dodd (CT) and Byron Dorgan (ND), plus Colorado Governor Bill Ritter. As we might expect, there's been tons of speculation within the mainstream press about what this says about the Democrats' chances in this year's midterms (see here, here, and here). Most of it, in my opinion, tries to create a "sky is falling" sense of hysteria.

We need to remember that so far, more Republicans have announced their retirement than Democrats. Despite the GOP's attempt to play up their chances of capturing Congress, most members realize that the math is too difficult (a point even conceded by RNC head Michael Steele). For House members, being a member of the minority is not much fun. The procedural advantages that the majority possesses gives minority members little role to play in the day to day crafting of policy. Thus, for a lot of members, this anemic position is enough to tip them toward getting out.

Back in September I did a post about congressional retirements, trying to add a little perspective to what's been transpiring. In short, I argued that in order for the Democrats to be in any real danger of losing control of Congress-- a la 1994--we'd need to see a much larger wave of defections than what we've seen to this point. Despite Dodd and Dorgan announcements, plus the recent announced retirments of Tennessee Blue Dogs John Tanner and Bart Gordon (see this earlier post about them), we're still a long ways from bed wetting time for Democrats.

The more interesting aspect of these announcements, for my money, is what their replacements will mean for the next Congress. I'm particularly interested in what will happen in the districts being vacated by House Blue Dogs like Tanner, Gordon, and KS Rep. Dennis Moore. Rather than conservative Democrats being replaced by moderate Republicans--which one might expect given the underlying ideologies of the districts--what may happen instead is that these Blue Dogs will be replaced by more conservative Republicans. Even though the districts aren't changing, we may see considerable change in who represents them. In short, many of these retirements may produce a more polarized 112th Congress.

Part of the reason for this may spring from some of the debates taking place within Republican circles these days--the "purity" vs. "big tent" conversation. To get a sense of the intra-GOP dynamic taking place across the country, check out some of these recent stories (here, here, here, and here) on the primary (or potential) races heating up on the Republican side. While the Florida contest between popular Governor (and more moderate) Charlie Crist and the more conservative Marco Rubio has been getting the most press coverage, there are other races that may complicate Republicans' efforts to have a bloodless attempt at capturing Capitol Hill. If the GOP goes through months of fractous primaries that not only produces nominees less palatable to moderate districts but also turns off voters from the losing side (and maybe even swing them to the Democratic nominee), the Democrats' fortunes may turn out much better than a lot of Washington reporters are now predicting.

Vulnerable Democrats in 2010--Where Should We Look???

Yesterday, John and I attended a CQ-Roll Call hosted event on the 2010 elections. Billed as a preview of what might lie ahead, the event featured three pollsters (representing Quinnipiac, Public Policy Polling, and Rasmussen) plus CQ Roll Call's Greg Giroux. Given that you had three pollsters present, the analysis was derived heavily from recent polling both nationwide and in a number of key states. In this sense, I would have liked to seen some analysis that took a broader, more demographic and historical perspective rather than one dominated by the snap shots of polls, but given the panel's composition the numbers presented were very much geared toward the present landscape. Nonetheless, there were some interesting insights.

The main takeaway from all the presentations is that the current environment is quite perilous for Democrats. With independents showing a greater predilection to support Republicans (not out of an underlying movement ideologically to the right but out of dissatisfaction with the status quo) and Democrats displaying complacency (despite giving President Obama consistently high marks), you not only get the results that we saw a few weeks back in New Jersey and Virginia, you also have the recipe for large GOP gains next fall.

On the congressional side, one caveat stressed by Giroux, and one that I hinted at a few months back, is that the Democrats don't appear as if they'll have to defend a large number of open seats. Unlike in 1994 where Republicans picked up the vast majority of seats created by Democratic retirements, only a small handfull of Democratic seats, to this point, are being vacated (and even fewer of those are in truly competitive districts). Thus, Republicans appear headed into an election year in which they must hope (against longstanding historical norms) to knock off a significant number of incumbents.

So where might we look for fertile GOP hunting grounds??? Here, Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling made a useful insight. He suggested that we look to parts of the country 1) in which GOP performance has increased, that are 2) currently represented by Democratic House members who 3) haven't had highly competitive races recently. These members might not be prepared for an anti-incumbent or anti-Democratic wave and might also be out of campaign fighting shape. When he mentioned this, I immediately thought of the map below, which I highlighted in the aftermath of the Obama/McCain campaign. The map chronicles change between the 2004 and 2008 election. Counties that became more Democratic in 2008 are shaded blue (with increasing darkness based on magnitude of change) while those shaded red became more Republican (also with increasing darkness based on magnitude). Thus, the vast majority of the counties in the U.S. gave Obama more support than Kerry.

In his remarks, Jensen talked quite a bit about some recently released polling from Arkansas. In it, Democratic incumbent Vic Snyder (2nd District) has seen his numbers crater as has Senator Blanche Lincoln. Snyder, especially, has had little challenge recently in his Little Rock based district. As we see from the map, Snyder (and Arkansas more broadly) fall into the band of counties that broke from the national trend and actually became more Republican last year. Similarly, if we extend our gaze northeastward we see how Tennessee counties also moved right. This brings to mind another handful of Democratic members, namely a cadre of blue dog Volunteer State Dems including Congressmen Lincoln Davis, Bart Gordon, and John Tanner who represent the 4th, 6th, and 8th districts respectively. A look at these gentlemen's recent elections show that they've been quite secure. Tanner has been the most insulated from a serious challenge. He was unopposed last year and received 73% and 74% in 2006 and 2004. Gordon's last three victories have come with 74%, 67%, and 64%. Davis has had closer races, winning with 59%, 66%, and 55%. A potential clue to their own sense of vulnerability might be gleaned from the much discussed (see previous two posts) health care vote from two weeks ago. In it, all three voted against passage.

Keep these two maps in mind as we continue through the health care debate and into next year's mid-terms.

Demographic and State Shifts: Temporary Change or Realignment???

Charles Franklin of Pollster.com has created the above visual showing the performance of Obama versus Kerry across a range of demographic groups. What we see as a broad shift across virtually every group in the direction of greater Democratic support. Thus, like we saw at the state and county level, the movement toward the Democrats was quite impressive. What is no doubt the more fundamental question, however, is the duration or permanence of this shift. In the academic discussion of "realignments," what is necessary for a fundamental re-orientation of the electorate is not just movement of numerous social groups from one party to the other, but the durability of this movement. Also, with every demographic group here moving more Democratic, save three, one must wonder the degree to which the economic downturn and not other factors was ultimately responsible for the magnitude of Obama's win. Should many of these groups move back to their previous levels of partisan support over the next few years then November 4th's results won't seem so dramatic. In other words, with one election we don't have enough evidence to conclude we've had a realignment. These can only be viewed in the rear view mirror. However, much of the analysis of the exit polling that's been done over the past few weeks suggests that Democrats should be very happy about the trend lines. John Judis, who wrote "The Emerging Democratic Majority" with Ruy Teixeira discusses the possibility of this enduring majority here.

The above image of the state by state change compared to 2004 was created by Andrew Gelman at Princeton.

The Obama Bounce Down Ballott

Yesterday's Politico has a nice article on the role of the heavy pro-Obama black turnout on a number of congressional races. Among the 20 Democratic House pickups were several propelled by the black vote. Many of these gains were in districts that have been quite Republican over the past several cycles.

What we've seen in many states' redistricting processes has been an effort to take a black population (oftentimes relatively small) and subsume it within a surrounding area that is more Republican leaning, essentially diluting the power of their votes. Under normal circumstances--i.e. black turnout significantly lower than white turnout; low levels of black mobilization; no coordinated voter registration efforts--the black vote, although heavily Democratic, isn't able to sway electoral outcomes. This year, however, was not a "normal" election year. With the Republican brand in tatters, underlying economic uncertainty, and higher black turnout, mobilization, and registration, the black vote was able to tip a number of districts. To wit:



Virginia 5. Republican incumbent Virgil Goode was defeated, by less than 1000 votes, by Democratic challenger Tom Perriello in a district that includes heavily African American "southside" Virginia. The district is 24% African American. In his past four re-elections, Goode had received 59%, 64%, 63%, and 67%.


Virginia 2. Not far from Goode, Thelma Drake got bounced by 4 points by Democratic challenger Glenn Nye. Encompassing much of the Hampton Roads area, the district is 21% African American.


Connecticut 4. Here, the last House Republican from New England, Chris Shays, was finally taken down after a series of close calls. Unlike the Virginia districts cited above, the black population in this district is only 11% (Hispanic population is 13%) and largely concentrated in the city of Bridgeport. Whereas in previous years black turnout was relatively low, this year's upturn was enough to elect challenger Jim Himes.

Ohio 1. This Cincinnati centered district saw the defeat of Rep. Steve Chabot to challenger Steve Driehaus in a constituency that is 27% black.

Maryland 1. In this House race, just recently called in the past few days, Democrat Frank Kratovil defeated Andy Harris, who defeated incumbent Rep. Wayne Gilchrest in an ugly primary earlier this year. In a district that is 11% black and was once a hotbed of support for George Wallace in his '68 and '72 presidential runs, Kratovil won by roughly 2000 votes.

Alabama 2. The retirement of incumbent Republican Terry Everett created an open seat few would normally think competitive. A Republican has held this seat since 1965. However, the 30% of the district that is African American contributed to Democrat Bobby Bright's upset win. Despite the drubbing that Obama took statewide and the exit polling that showed only 20% of white Alabamans voting for the president elect, the black vote, ironically, seems responsible for Bright's ultimate triumph.

As the article notes, most importantly, the interesting dynamic to be watched will be how these new members act upon their swearing in come January. Owing their victory, largely, to a sizable minority in their district can create complications for a new member. Because these districts have been consistently Republican, these newly minted members will have targets on their backs from the get-go. Nonetheless, their relationship with this sliver of their constituency may prove to be the key to their fate in Congress. If they cast votes or push policy in line with the black electorate (as these voters will surely demand) they may find themselves out of step from the rest of their district. However, should they shun their black constituents, they may find themselves just short of the number of votes they need to secure re-election. Figuring out how to navigate this tricky dynamic will be the first order of business for these new members.

The Day After

Today, mostly quick hits:

Florida. As I wrote about a few weeks back, the I-4 Corridor was indeed the key. Obama vastly outperformed Kerry, winning Pinellas (54%), Hillsborough (50.1%), and Orange (59%) Counties--the three biggest in the region.

Wisconsin. Huge Obama win--13 points. As expected big margins in Milwaukee and Dane Counties, but most impressive was the broad scope. McCain only won 13 of the state's 72 counties. In contrast, despite losing the state narrowly in '05, Bush won 45 counties. Outagamie and Brown Counties (see earlier post for more prescience) go Obama--54% each. Dems. also captured the State Assembly in Wisconsin.

The Republicans have 0 members of the House of Representatives from New England. See this to see how the region, once so solidly Republican, has been completely transformed. As I get the final House results, I'll update more fully, but increasingly the Republican House caucus is southern and rural.

Paging Dr. Schaller! Paging Dr. Schaller! Exit polls in Alabama show that 8 in 10 whites voted for McCain. In Mississippi, 88% of whites went for McCain.

Wall Street Rescue--The Mother of All House Votes

Monday's House vote on the financial bailout plan was the mother of all case studies in congressional politics. I'm tempted to simply hand the roll call to the students in my Congress class as the final exam and have them explain it to me. In looking at the yeas and nays, a couple of patterns seem to emerge, many of which have been highlighted by media observers. The first, as noted by Chuck Todd, is that--as we would probably expect from House members--the fear of electoral repurcussions affected the vote of many. Those who have recently had close races, or have close races coming up in November, were likely to vote no. On the Democratic side, the examples of Nick Lampson (TX), Steve Kagen (WI), Nancy Boyda (KS), Don Cazayoux (LA), Travis Childers (MS), and Carol Shea-Porter (NH) jump out. For Republicans, Dave Reichert (WA), Robin Hayes (NC), Steve Chabot (OH), Ric Keller (FL), and Randy Kuhl (NY) are of note.

In a similar vein open seats were a good cue, especially on the Republican side. Free of electoral pressure, departing members were more likely to vote yes. Of the 29 Republicans not on the ballot this fall, 21 voted yes (with one not voting). Four of the six departing Democrats voted yes. For those leaving the House to seek another office, short term considerations seemed to compel a no vote, adding 4 to the total number of no's (2 Republican and 2 Democratic). The two nominees for New Mexico's open Senate seat, Reps. Steve Pearce (R) and Tom Udall (D) voted no; Colorado Senate candidate Rep. Mark Udall (D) voted no; as did Missouri gubernatorial candidate Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R).

Another dimension of the voting that some have discussed is the role played by the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Hispanic Caucus. By the numbers, of the 39 members of the CBC, 18 voted yes and 21 voted no. A story in today's Politico points to concerns among many African American members about the bill's failure to include enough foreclosure protection and how its addition might be enough to salvage the bill in the coming days. The Hispanic membership was more lined up against the bill than the CBC. Of the 21 Democratic members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, 14 voted no. In addition, the 3 Republican Hispanic members (not part of the CHC) voted no (Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart).

*Image courtesy of the New York Times

Will Demographics + High Turnout Endanger Any House Republicans???

This week’s primaries in Georgia that pitted several House Democrats against upstart African American candidates got me wondering if a similar dynamic could work against any Republican incumbents this fall. Namely, are there any House Republicans with sizable enough minority populations in their districts that, with high turnout, could be in danger of defeat?

Now, it should be noted that demographics are rarely, if ever enough, to endanger or defeat an incumbent. A number of factors must usually be at work. Incumbent House members are extremely difficult to defeat. The norm for both parties over the past decade or so has been for roughly 95% of House incumbents to be re-elected, most with large margins. Among the factors required for defeating an incumbent are 1) a high quality challenger; 2) a well funded challenger; 3) a political “mood” hostile to incumbents or the incumbent’s party; and 4) scandal and/or deficient job performance by the incumbent. In other words, challengers must hope that a number of things go right, both in and out of their control, to have a chance at victory.

A second thing I would note is that those districts with the highest minority populations are not necessarily those that the Democrats have the best chance of winning. If we look at 2006, for example, the Democrats defeated several Republican incumbents in very, very white constituencies (i.e. IA-2, IN-8, IN-9, MN-1, NY-20, NH-1, NH-2). So, looking toward the Democrats’ chances this fall, I wouldn’t make a direct correlation between the likelihood of a party switch and the minority population in a given district. Nonetheless, in a year which saw higher turnout and registration among African-Americans during the primary season and with Barack Obama on the top of the ticket (likely to increase black turnout even higher during the general), we might look at the demographic profile Republican districts for potential upsets.

Using my handy "CQ’s Politics in America 2008", I’ve tabulated the minority percentage (African-American and Hispanic) for each Republican held district. I’ve also recorded the vote total the incumbent received in 2006 to use as a baseline of expectations for 2008. Because 2006 was as bad a year as 2008 is shaping up to be for Republican congressional candidates, we would expect these Republicans’ support to be in the same neighborhood as two years ago. Using this data, we can crunch the numbers in a variety of ways in seeking to identify potentially vulnerable Republicans. So, what do we see???

Looking first at African American constituencies, we find that the Republican incumbent with the largest black constituency is Rep. Rodney Alexander of Louisiana's 5th with a district that is 34% black. In total, 5 members have districts that are roughly 1/3 black (Alexander, McCrery—LA-4, Forbes—VA-4, Pickering—MS-3, Rogers—AL-3). Of these, all are running for re-election this year with the exception of Pickering. In the next tier, 14 members have constituencies that are between 20% and 30% African American.

For these members with sizable black constituencies, is there any correlation with how easily they won in 2006? Here, there seems to be some evidence of what I’d call the “Schaller Effect,” for lack of a better term. As I’ve written about several times in the last month, Thomas Schaller argues that in those states with sizable African American electorates, namely those in the deep South, Republicans have actually increased their support over time because white voters have been drawn to the GOP in reaction to the Democratic support given by black voters and the perception that the Democrats are the “party of minorities.” Thus, states like Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina are among the most consistently Republican despite having the biggest black populations in the country. So, of the 19 House Republicans with at least 20% of their district being African American, only 3 received less than 55% of the vote in 2006. These were Steve Chabot of Ohio (District 27% black; 52% of the vote), Robin Hayes of North Carolina (District 27% black; 50% of the vote) and Thelma Drake of Virginia (District 21% black; 51% of the vote).

Overall, if we look at those Republicans that have sizable black constituencies, they are almost all southern. This shouldn’t surprise us given the distribution of the black population across the country. Of those 19 members with the “blackest” districts, only 2 are from outside the south (Steve Chabot and Pat Tiberi of Ohio). This discussion of the geographic spread of the black electorate—not to get too far off course—brings into play the whole debate about gerrymandering. In northern states, where black voters are much more concentrated in urban areas, we’ve seen the creation over the past few decades of “majority minority” districts in which overwhelmingly black seats are surrounded by overwhelmingly white seats, all thanks to the high degree of segregation in northern metropolitan areas (for a definitive study on segregation in America, see here). In the south, where the African American population is much more dispersed, and more heavily rural, one sees more “integrated” districts. Thus, a state like Alabama has 3 Republican incumbents (Rogers, Everett, and Bonner) that have large black constituencies (32%, 29%, 28% respectively). I'd note that in Alabama's 2nd, Terry Everett is retiring this year and Democrats are targeting the district as a potential pick up.

Turning to heavily Hispanic districts, 24 House Republicans have districts that are over 20% Hispanic. One caveat here is the Florida Republican membership with a large Cuban (and traditionally Republican) base. The districts of the Diaz Balart brothers (FL-21 and 25) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18) are over 60% Hispanic but have been strongly Republican (although they are, interestingly, competitive this year). Below them, these mostly Hispanic districts are all in either California, Texas, or New Mexico with the exception of Rep. Doc Hasting’s central Washington district that is 26% Hispanic. In these heavily Hispanic districts, we see that Republican performance in 2006 was better than it was in the more heavily African American districts. Of these top 24 seats, only 1 incumbent received less than 55%. This was Rep. Heather Wilson (NM-1), who is this year running for the open Senate seat in the state. Not surprisingly, Democrats are heavily targeting this seat in hopes of a pick-up.

Next, I combined the African-American and Hispanic numbers for an overall “minority population” for each Republican district. Are their districts that contain large numbers of both minority groups? For the most part, the answer is no. The black and Hispanic population is largely segregated by the redistricting process. Of the 199 Republican held House seats, only 11 are more than 10% black and 10% Hispanic. Of these, 7 are in the state of Texas. What’s so special about Texas?? While it is certainly a very diverse state, it is also the home of the infamous re-districting scheme of 2003 in which Texas Republicans redrew House districts out of cycle in attempt to maximize party gains. As I was entering these districts into the data set, the sophistication of the project really jumped out at me. What the state legislature was able to do, it seems, was find the perfect ratio of white to minority voters to ensure Republican victories—across a large number of districts. The Texas Republican in this group with the slimmest re-election victory in ’06, John Carter (TX-31) still managed to get 58% of the vote. All of the others surpassed 60%.

Of the four remaining Republicans with 10% of their constituencies being black and Hispanic, only Chris Shays (CT-4) had a close race in ’06, garnering 51%. As the northeast continues to trend Democratic, the always in jeopardy Shays will have to watch out for the possibility that increased black turnout this year will finally provide the tipping point for his district. The other three members in this category had greater success in ’06. Rep. Mario Diaz Balart (FL-25) received 59% (10% black, 62% Hispanic, largely Cuban), Frank LoBiondo (NJ-2) received 62% (14% black, 10% Hispanic), and Rep. Adam Putnam (FL-12) received 69% (12% black, 13% Hispanic).

Finally, I decided to use re-election margins as my starting point—i.e. of those members who had close races last time, do any of them have large minority populations? For all the Republican members, there are 8 who have at least 20% minority composition in their district and received less than 55% of the vote in ’06. Several of these members have already appeared in this analysis, but a few are new. These members are John Porter (NV-3) who received 49% (5% black, 16% Hispanic), Heather Wilson (NM-1) who received 50% (2% black, 43% Hispanic), Robin Hayes (NC-8) who received 50% (27% black, 7% Hispanic), Thelma Drake (VA-2) who received 51% (21% black, 4% Hispanic), Chris Shays (CT-4) who received 51% (11% black, 13% Hispanic), Steve Chabot (OH-1) who received 52% (27% black, 1% Hispanic), Ric Keller (FL-8) who received 53% (7% black, 18% Hispanic), and finally Brian Bilbray (CA-50) who also received 53% (2% black, 19% Hispanic).

So, when we look at the numbers closely, what seems to emerge are some, but not many, opportunities for Democrats to make gains by relying solely on the demographic characteristics of Republican constituencies. Also, Republican districts that have large minority populations tend to be concentrated in certain parts of the county. For African Americans, these districts are overwhelmingly in the deep South, an area where the Republican party has been in ascendance for the past generation. While recent Democratic successes in Mississippi and Louisiana—districts that were 26% and 33% African American respectively—are certainly positive signs, I wouldn’t expect realignment scale change in the region. The strength of these incumbents should allow them to hold their seats, even if black turnout spikes this year. Those districts with large Hispanic populations also tend to be geographically concentrated. Here, we see incumbents also relatively insulated from Democratic challenges by having large numbers of reliably Republican whites concentrated in their constituencies. This is especially true in Texas.

What I haven’t done in this analysis, and what I’ll start turning to next, is look at how these races are shaping up this year in terms of the Democratic candidates being run in these districts. As I mentioned at the outset, one can’t expect demographics to be enough to turn a district, even with higher than normal turnout. You still need quality, skilled, and well funded challengers. Nonetheless, in a year in which demography has been one of the strongest predictors of voting—especially for the Democrats in their presidential primary—its useful to look at some of these characteristics to gauge the likelihood of certain outcomes in November.