Starting To Dig Into The Results

You already know what happened.  Some first thoughts as we start to dig in.

Here's the list of House and Senate seats that changed hands, including defeated incumbents.  What's striking is how broad the geography of these losses were for the Democrats.  Republicans gained seats in 33 states across the country.  This was not an election that was regionalized although some stretches of land were a killing field for the Democrats--namely Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.  Essentially if I were to drive from my house to visit my parents, I'd traverse the land that gave the Republicans their majority.  I-70 stretches across this part of the country.  This sets up the battleground for Obama's re-election.  Expect him to spend a lot of time here over the next 2 years.  Not surprisingly, the Rust Belt has hemorrhaged jobs over the last decade with many parts having higher than the national average in unemployment.

The second source of Democratic losses, including some from the above states, was among the Blue Dog Coalition which essentially saw its ranks cut in half.  These conservative, often rural and southern, Democrats were no match for yesterday's wave.  Despite the fact that many voted against health care reform, cap and trade, and other parts of the Democratic agenda, they lost in droves.  The result of this is the creation of a smaller, yet more liberal, Democratic caucus.  Progressives have always criticized Blue Dogs as being Democrat-lite and impediments to more liberal policy.  Nonetheless, without them you don't have a majority.

Seniority wasn't insulation to defeat.  Normally the most difficult campaign that a member of Congress will have will be his earliest ones.  In the first few terms members are still learning the job, learning their district, and are thus susceptible to being knocked off.  They haven't built up a record and reputation to deter serious challengers.  Yesterday's losses were across the seniority spectrum.  26 of the incumbents knocked off were in either their first or second term--products of the 2006 and 2008 Democratic waves.  At the same time, 3 committee chairmen (Oberstar, Spratt, and Skelton) were also knocked off as were 14 term Rich Boucher (VA), 13 term Paul Kanjorski (PA), and 10 term Gene Taylor (MS) and Chet Edwards (TX).

Aside from these numbers and trends, another subject that has been discussed in the commentary today relates to the upcoming re-districting process.  With the census concluded, state legislatures will undertake the process of redrawing House district lines to correspond with population growth and shifts.  Results in governor's and statehouse races will obviously affect how this process proceeds on a state by state basis.  Something that I haven't heard discussed however, is how redistricting will have an immediate effect on the members elected for the first time last night.

All of the incoming freshmen members (with the exception of those from one district states) were elected from a constituency that is going to change over the next year.  Rather than have time to learn the contours of their district and develop the representative skills to maintain their seat, they have to assume that the people who just elected them are not necessarily going to be there to vote for them in 2012--many of them will be pushed into neighboring districts while others from surrounding areas are added.  This has to be unsettling to these members, especially those elected by small margins.  Furthermore, a number of states where Republicans made gains--Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York--are slated to lose seats in the reapportionment process.  Depending on how these states redistrict, GOP gains could be wiped out not by the 2012 elections but by the hand of mapmakers.  This is a dynamic that I would pay a lot of attention to over the next year or so.

That's it for now.  More to come.

The Geography of the House Democrats' Health Care Vote

I've created the above map to provide a visual sense of how the House Democratic caucus voted on the Health Care Reform measure. Its not quite as sharp as I'd like given the map I had to work with and Microsoft Paint's less than precise coloring, but it still works. Those districts colored green are the House Democrats who voted yes and those colored red are the 39 House Democrats who voted no. The only district that can't be seen too well is NY Rep. Mike McMahon (13th District)who hails from Staten Island. The full vote tally can be seen here.

When I first started to create the map, without looking at the vote too closely, the first instinct was that there would be some geographical correlation between support and opposition. Would the "no" votes all be from conservative, blue-doggish, southerners? The answer is pretty clearly no. Although many of what we might identify as "the usual suspects" did vote against the bill, the 39 no votes were actually quite geographically diverse. Something that is often lost in the discussion of the conservative end of the Democratic continuum is that these members are not universally from the south. While many of these non-southern members do hail from largely rural districts (see Colin Peterson--MN7, Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin--SDAt-Large, Walt Minnick--ID1), the fact that there were a smattering of northeasterners (now seen as the Democrats' geographic base) such as Congressmen McMahon (13th), Murphy (20th), and Massa (29th) from New York and John Adler (3rd) from New Jersey should be noted.

What many of these members have in common (and what has been discussed in the days since Saturday's vote) is that they come from districts carried by John McCain. Of the 39 Democratic "no" votes, 31 come from districts that voted Republican last year. What will be interesting to watch is whether any of these numbers shift when the bill comes back for final passage after Senate and conference committee action. Already brewing is an intra-party squabble over the House approved Stupak Amendment that limits abortion coverage in the reform package. While I doubt that pro-choice progressive Democrats will bolt should these limits survive the next few stages of the process, the possibility exists that pro-Stupak, pro-health care Dems might bolt should the restrictions be stripped (for some discussion of this dynamic, see here). One also has to assume that the Democratic leadership has a few votes in their back pocket--i.e. Dems who voted "no" on Saturday--that they have commitments from should their vote be needed in the end.

Also of note is that many of these "no" votes come from members early in their careers. More junior members are less secure in their districts and haven't built up a record of constituent service and trust that might allow them to go against the grain from time to time. Of these 39, 14 are currently in their first term with an additional 2 in just their second.

What the Wilderness Looks Like

For the past several posts, John and I have been spending a bit of time writing about the current state of the Conservative Movement. With the results of the past two elections showing a clear trend in the Democrats’ direction, aided not only by the failures of the Bush administration, but also by demographic and cultural shifts—see Teixeira and Judis—a lot of ink is now being spent debating how the Republicans, and conservatives more broadly, should respond. Do they move leftward and try to recapture some of the vast middle ceded to Obama (thus potentially alienating the conservative base) or do they retrench at the right flank and hope that events bring the electorate back in their direction? While many on the right argue that we are a “center-right” country by temperament, a misreading of the country’s pulse and preferences could spell disaster over the medium and long term. Hence, whether or not the right has a true leader—hence the current kerfuffle about Rush Limbaugh’s place in the conservative pantheon—they seem to be in wilderness mode.
While two election cycles don’t necessarily mean the country is on an irreversible move leftward, I thought I’d look a bit at the last time the country was moving strongly in one direction. Here, however, the move was to the right. If what is happening now is of the same magnitude and duration, Republicans are in for a long period of soul-searching and electoral defeat. My decision to look at where conservatives find themselves was spurred by today’s announcement that Al From, the founder and longtime head of the Democratic Leadership Council, is stepping down as head of the organization. The DLC was created in the midst of the Democrats’ last long period of exile. The goal of the organization, simply stated, was to make the Democrats relevant again. As liberalism reached its nadir in the 1970’s & 1980’s following the collapse of the Great Society, the “big government” solution to policy problems was thrown into disrepute. Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were able to capitalize on the excesses of the 1960’s and America’s fear and loathing of rising crime, growing welfare dependency, and affirmative action and bring about a re-ordering of the American polity. The result?? Republicans won 5 of the 6 presidential elections between 1968 and 1988.

To get a sense of just how bad the Democrats’ period of exile was, consider the five elections between 1972 and 1988. With the exception of Jimmy Carter’s Watergate-aided win in 1976, the Republicans not only won all of these contests but won them handily. Here is the Electoral College vote in each of the contests. Overall, Republicans won 2200 electoral votes to the Democrats’ 487—82% of the total. Note how in 3 of these elections (’72, ’80, and ’84) Republicans won more electoral votes in a single contest than the Democrats won in total over all 5!!! While the Democrats managed to maintain majorities in the House and Senate (with the exception of ’81-’87) the party’s national standing was in tatters. It had no dominant spokesperson and no compelling narrative to explain how it would fix the country’s ills beyond simply rehashing liberal dogma. The question then confronting the Democrats, like the dilemma of the Republicans now, was what to do.
When the DLC was founded in 1985 the Democrats were perhaps at their lowest point nationally. In order to regain the party’s footing, the organization called for an end to the traditional “liberal” approach to policy. Rather, building on a cadre of centrist governors and members of Congress—Bill Clinton, Sam Nunn, Joe Lieberman, John Breaux, and Dave McCurdy among others—it proposed solutions that were more market based, pragmatic, and fiscally responsible. With Clinton’s election in 1992 the movement reached its ascendancy and policies such as NAFTA, welfare reform, a balanced budget, and the earned income tax credit helped reposition the Democrats as a party once again competent and identified with economic growth and prosperity.
While Bill Clinton brought the Democrats victories at the ballot box in 1992 and 1996, his centrism brought criticism from his left. Many members of Congress, still ensconced in the old liberalism (now rebranded “progressivism”) were critical of his stands on trade, welfare reform, and health care. While these intra-party squabbles were not totally responsible for the Republicans’ capture of Congress in 1994, one can argue that Clinton was more successful in dealing with the likes of Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole than he was in corralling the Democratic base. Whichever side one took in this fight for the heart of the Democratic Party, one can’t deny the fact that the debate revitalized the party and made it think hard about policy. Despite George Bush’s capture of the White House, the elections of 2000 and 2004 were fought much more closely than those of the 1970’s and ‘80’s. The Republican’s Electoral Vote margin over those two contests was a mere 40 EVs and Bush never captured 51% of the popular vote. Democrats regained their congressional losses of the mid 90’s and laid the groundwork for what we saw transpire last year.
So what can the right learn from the Democrats’ period in the wilderness?? One lesson that can be drawn is that a party needs to grapple honestly with its past excesses. Those on the left who were being honest with themselves realized that there was a reason that voters moved so definitively to the right. While events such as last weekend’s CPAC gathering isn’t going to cater to this type of reflection among today’s conservatives, other more sober venues must. What makes this introspection complicated for many on the right, though, is that they are convinced that what was repudiated in 2006 and 2008 was not conservatism, but Bush-ism. For them, Bush failed not because he was too conservative (or because conservatism more broadly was being rejected) but rather because he was too liberal. With exploding deficits and long term expansions and commitments to Medicare and other programs, “compassionate conservatism” was simply liberalism by another name. Among many congressional Republicans, the decision to now vote against spending increases—despite consistently voting for them during Bush’s reign—signals an attempt to recapture the mantle of fiscal responsibility.

Another lesson for conservatives to ponder is the need for policy debate, intra-party discussion, and diverse solutions. While not everyone on the left shared the DLC’s approach to issues, it not only helped to stop the party’s decline (perhaps it couldn’t sink any lower) but allowed it to regain a foothold in certain parts of the country where the damage of the 1970’s and 80’s was most severe—i.e. the south. Not only was the DLC a centrist organization, it was also heavily southern flavored. Whereas New Deal liberalism was strongest in the urban north, southern Democrats have always been a different breed. By giving Democrats another model, and winning elections because of it, the DLC was able to help the party begin to grow again. One can’t help but look at today’s Blue Dogs and their contribution to the Democrats’ new and expanding majority in Congress as the progeny of what Clinton and others began. If the right wants to regain not only relevancy but power, it seems obvious that they must realize that parties—should they hope to be successful nationally and over the long term—are at root coalitions. The creation and maintenance of these coalitions requires a degree of pragmatism and leadership that seems lacking on the right. It also requires a belief that many of those not currently in the coalition should be allowed under the tent. This also seems to be a point of contention among many conservatives. If the right fails to come to these realizations, they may be closer to the beginning of their time in the wilderness than to the end.

Meanwhile, On the Democratic Side of the Stimulus Vote...

Last week I wrote about the Republican caucus' universal opposition to the Stimulus Bill. Today, lets take a quick look at the 11 Democrats who broke ranks to vote against the legislation. Politico has a story about these 11, noting that 9 of them came from districts carried by John McCain last year. The 11 nays are (with those from McCain winning districts in bold):

Allen Boyd (FL-2)

Bobby Bright (AL-2)

Jim Cooper (TN-5)

Brad Ellsworth (IN-8)

Parker Griffith (AL-5)

Paul Kanjorski (PA-11)

Frank Kratovil (MD-1)

Walt Minnick (ID-1)

Collin Peterson (MN-7)

Heath Shuler (NC-11)

Gene Taylor (MS-4)

In this list, 4 members are freshmen--Bright, Griffith, Kratovil, and Minnick--so one might hypothesize about an effect similar to the one I described happening during the 1993 Budget Resolution vote (see Mezvinsky, Marjorie Margolies). Coming from normally strong Republican constituencies, these new members decided (unlike Mezvinsky) to stick with the district. To get a further sense of how red these districts are, in 2004 each gave George W. Bush at least 60% of the vote: AL-2--66%; AL-5--60%; MD-1--62%; ID-1--68%.

Perhaps the best explanations for the bulk of these defections, as the Politico story notes, is 1) the bill's cost and 2) the role afforded to Democratic skeptics in the drafting process. Of the non-freshmen no votes, all but Kanjorski are members of the Blue Dog Coalition. Led in this fight by Jim Cooper,a veteran of the budget battles of the early and mid 90's, these fiscally conservative Dems seem to have been shut out of the drafting and strategizing stages by the Pelosi leadership team. With the bill destined to pass handily, these Blue Dogs felt comfortable making a stand in favor of fiscal prudence and against the strong arm tactics of the party leadership. Indeed, this appears to be a recurring dynamic within the Democratic caucus. A more progressively minded leadership, buoyed by a large majority, seems unfazed by the defection of a small cadre of members. If the final bill is less "watered down" as a result of this more hard-line stance, then Speaker Pelosi seems quite content to live with a disgruntled--yet seemingly impotent--right flank. When the Stimulus Bill returns for final passage we'll get to see whether this dynamic repeats itself, albeit with an interesting twist--will more moderate (or threatened) Republicans vote in favor of the package at the same time that these Blue Dogs vote no??? If this indeed were to happen, is that what Obama-era bi-partisanship will come to look like??

Louisiana Special Election

Coming on the heels of the Illinois 14th special election that saw the Democrats capture a long held Republican seat, Saturday saw Act 2 of this play as Don Cazayoux won the Louisiana 6th (full election returns here). Succeeding the retired Rep. Richard Baker, the district had been in Republican hands for over thirty years. The district was John Kerry's second best in the state (after the New Orleans based 2nd) in 2004, giving him 40%.

The 6th, which revolves around Baton Rouge and encompasses eight surrounding parishes is home to both Louisiana State and Southern Universities. What makes the district quite interesting demographically, and what must have played some part in the outcome, is that it was greatly affected by Hurrican Katrina. As thousands fled the New Orleans area, Baton Rouge became a popular settlement spot for displaced families. Thus, the population of the district has grown disproportionally in the past few years. Whereas the 2000 census put the African American population at 33% in the district, one must assume that it has gone up since Katrina. See a great Brookings Institution report on the Katrina diaspora, with attention to Baton Rouge, here.

Soon to be Congressman Cazayoux joins an increasingly large and influential group of newly elected Blue Dog Democrats. As the DCCC has shown a greater willingness to recruit and fund socially moderate and fiscally conservative candidates, seats that were once seen as out of reach--especially in the solidly Republican south--are now coming into play. We'll see another example of this in next week's runoff in the open Mississippi 1st district. Vacated by Roger Wicker upon being appointed to Trent Lott's old Senate seat, the district, while largely rural, does include the Memphis suburbs in De Soto county.

While one wonders about the durability of the Democrats' prospects in these seats, victories like these seem to give credence to the "50 State Strategy" that the party leadership has been advocating recently.

*Photo courtesy of Baton Rouge Advocate