As observers with a unique perch in American politics, we have a close-up
view of hundreds of election races and candidates. From that position,
we're able to analyze contests and outcomes in exceptional detail, and
reach conclusions based on mountains, rather than hillocks, of evidence.
That's why we were a bit mystified by the post-Nov. 5 conventional wisdom
that American voters gave Republicans a clear and convincing mandate.
On the contrary, our conclusion is that the United States remains evenly
divided and that national elections for the foreseeable future will be
just as competitive as the last one.
That said, it's clear that Republicans had a good election night last
year. After all, for only the third time since the end of the Civil War,
the party holding the White House gained House seats in a midterm election
(previous exceptions being 1934 and 1998). This election was also the
first since 1934 that the party holding the White House, still in its
first term, gained both House and Senate seats in a midterm vote. President
Bush and his party have every right to be proud. But the Republican Senate,
House, and gubernatorial victories were based on strategic, tactical,
mechanical, and financial factors, not a fundamental movement in public
attitudes. The election had very few upsets. Instead, very close races
disproportionately broke in one direction at the end. But the way it happened
in House races differed from that in Senate races. Here are two separate
looks at how Democrats lost the Congress:
The House. All the post-election hand-wringing by Democrats about
the poor House results ignored earlier signs of trouble for the party.
Long before voters went to the polls, and even before many campaign headquarters
opened, it was obvious that Democrats had an uphill climb in their quest
for control of the House.
Soon after the final congressional district lines were drawn, Democrats
boasted that they had held Republicans to a draw, denying them earlier
claims of double-digit gains through redistricting. A draw was certainly
better than the alternative, but it proved to be a double-edged sword.
While redistricting ultimately helped protect some vulnerable Democratic
incumbents, it denied Democrats the opportunity to expand the playing
field by increasing the number of marginal seats. State legislatures and
courtrooms across the country drew new congressional lines that basically
solidified the status quo, creating few new competitive districts and
leaving only a handful of endangered incumbents. This meant that Democrats
were forced to pursue a complex district-by-district strategy for victory
with almost no margin for error, instead of a national strategy to marginally
improve their odds in a large number of races.
But with no margin for error, Democrats inevitably couldn't get every
break. Get the wrong candidate out of a crowded primary (as happened in
Arizona's 1st District when party favorite Steve Udall lost), and that
seat now gets tossed into the give-away pile. Find out that your candidate
has trouble raising enough money (Joe Turnham in Alabama's 3rd District
or Stan Matsunaka in Colorado's 4th District) or has ethics troubles (Dario
Herrera in Nevada's 3rd District and Champ Walker in Georgia's 12th District),
and you lose another precious few opportunities. Then there is just plain
luck, as in Colorado's new 7th District seat in suburban Denver, where
Republican Bob Beauprez beat Democrat Mike Feeley by just 121 votes.
Beyond the sheer odds, the fund-raising domination of the National Republican
Congressional Committee and Republican candidates was another big factor.
Republicans were able to crush their competitors in highly competitive
seats, and Democrats were prohibited from expanding their reach into prohibitively
expensive media markets, such as suburban Philadelphia (Pennsylvania's
6th District) or suburban Detroit (Michigan's 11th District). Most importantly,
Democrats were forced to play defense to hold on to their most vulnerable
incumbents (such as Jim Matheson in Utah, Baron Hill in Indiana, Dennis
Moore in Kansas, and Joe Hoeffel in Pennsylvania), taking precious resources
from opportunity seats to fund their survival programs. (With the McCain-Feingold/Shays-Meehan
campaign finance law having taken effect on Nov. 6, the Republican financial
advantage is likely to become even more important. Democrats have grown
far more dependent, on a proportional basis, on so-called "soft money,"
than Republicans, who have proven to be far more successful in raising
"hard" dollars under the constraints of the Federal Election
Campaign Act.)
Throughout the cycle, The Cook Political Report showed a very
small playing field that never really expanded. Over the summer, we showed
40 seats as competitive; our final October issue showed just 45. A little
historical perspective here is instructive. Ten years ago, during the
last redistricting period, The Cook Political Report's summer issue
showed 136 seats as competitive, while the final issue before the election
listed 151. In 2002, with so few seats truly in play, Democrats' only
hope to gain control of Congress was to win a very high percentage of
the closest races. In the end, it was Republicans who won the lion's share
of the close contests, winning 10 of the 15 toss-up races.
The political repercussions of redistricting are likely to be seen over
the next few elections. In the absence of any sort of national tide (say
an economic or international debacle), we will once again have few seats
in play -- perhaps fewer than during the 2002 cycle. In fact, it is
interesting to note that there were no real upsets in 2002. Republicans
netted six seats, but only because they won 67 percent of the toss-up
races. Republicans didn't pick off any seat in the Lean or Likely Democratic
column, and only one seat rated as Lean Republican (the 5th District of
Louisiana) went to Democrats, in the Dec. 7 runoff. To give you a sense
of just how few seats may be in play next year, take a look at the number
of candidates who won with 55 percent or less of the vote (the gold standard
for vulnerability). Only 51 incumbents (27 Democrats and 24 Republicans),
and even more daunting for Democrats, only 25 freshmen (12 Democrats and
13 Republicans) were at that threshold.
The Democratic donkey needs to get ready for another tough climb up the
Hill.
The Senate. Days before Nov. 5, a conventional wisdom developed
inside the Washington Beltway that Democrats would hold the Senate and
that they might even pick up a seat or two. It's hard to pinpoint where
it started, but by the weekend, this thinking hit the pages of The
Washington Post and The New York Times, as well as the Sunday
morning news shows, with full force. The problem, though, was that there
was very little hard evidence to back it up. Perhaps the conventional
wisdom was the product of admirably good spin, or just wishful thinking,
but it was certainly not based on the available facts.
Going into Election Day, The Cook Political Report had 10 Senate
races in our "Toss-Up" column, five Democratic seats and five
Republican ones. These were races that were within the margin of error,
and with no overarching set of national issues or evidence of an electoral
"wave" driving the election, we felt that it was impossible
to predict which side would pick up seats. In fact, it marked the first
time in The Cook Political Report's 18-year history that we did
not make a prediction of net gains or losses in the Senate. It was just
as likely that Democrats would hold their majority as it was that Republicans
would regain control. The one thing that did seem certain was that these
toss-up races would not break evenly between the parties; they never do.
In 1998, there were nine toss-up seats, and Democrats picked up six of
them. In 2000, Democrats picked up eight of the 10 seats in the Toss-Up
column. In 2002, as it turned out, the races broke in Republicans' favor;
they won seven of the 10 closest contests.
There is plenty of bewilderment and finger-pointing on the Democratic
side of the aisle about what went wrong. And as is often the case, there
is no shortage of misinterpretation. The first is the claim that there
was a big Republican "wave." If that were the case, then Democrats
would have lost a seat or two that was not considered especially vulnerable.
The second claim is that Republicans ran better candidates. In fact, three
of the five Democratic challengers in the five Republican-held toss-up
seats had run statewide before, and the other two (Erskine Bowles in North
Carolina and Ron Kirk in Texas) were nothing short of first-tier. There
was no shortage of talent on the Democratic side. A third claim is that
Democrats didn't raise enough money to get the job done. While some Democratic
candidates, notably Bill Bradbury in Oregon, Chellie Pingree in Maine
and Bob Clement in Tennessee, can point to a lack of meaningful financial
assistance from the party, the fact is that Democrats had the resources
they needed in all the races that were close enough to matter.
Democrats did appear to take some things for granted -- most importantly,
the accuracy of their polling in a truly tough year for pollsters. As
usual, there were plenty of questionable polls out there from "independent"
academic and media sources. But there were also many races where Republican
and Democratic polls differed persistently and substantially. This seems
to have raised red flags for Republicans, who spent a lot of time analyzing
and reanalyzing their data, but less for Democrats, who took their numbers
at face value.
Democrats also appeared to doubt Republicans' ability to motivate their
base and get out their vote. Republicans did a masterful job of motivating
their base without alienating swing voters. In some races, they ran ads
on carefully selected niche issues, such as the "morning-after"
abortion pill and taxpayer funded needle-exchange programs, which pushed
traditional conservative hot buttons while polling well enough among other
voters.
Republicans had not been very successful at getting their voters to the
polls in recent elections and were well aware that it cost them dearly
in 1998 and 2000. The GOP put enormous resources into get-out-the-vote
(GOTV) efforts this year, and it paid off. Many Democrats seemed to feel
that their own GOTV programs could withstand the challenge and missed
the success Republicans were having in many states with early voting and
absentee ballot programs.
Finally, President Bush deserves his share of credit. He was willing
to raise money early for incumbents and challengers alike and expend as
much of his political capital as necessary. But it would be a mistake
to give more credit to Bush than to the message he was able to deliver.
Unlike Ronald Reagan, who in 1986 campaigned as much as Bush did, only
to lose control of the Senate that year, Bush had a message that broke
through the clutter to engage an electorate that was only giving this
election half its attention.
In the end, Democrats lost control of the Senate by a mere 35,353 votes
nationally. Even though this knowledge probably only adds to the sting
of defeat, it shows how close Democrats were to laughter rather than tears.
