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May 03, 2006

Numbers and Politics

Thomas Riehle & Lance Tarrance of the Cook Political Report/RT Strategies have an interesting article discussing the GOP's position in the November Congressional elections. Their poll, conducted 27-30 April, shows the Democrats with an 17 point advantage among likely voters for who they want to control Congress. That is a substantial edge, and the GOP can't be happy about it, as it shows just how thoroughly this Congress has soured people on Republican policies and competence. (Certainly I'll be voting for Democrats in November for precisely that reason.) I'm not sure that this edge will necessarily mean disaster for the Republicans, despite the size of the edge.

The House race is actually 435 separate races, as every Congressman will be up for reelection in November. And while the country as a whole may favor Democrats in the abstract, the Republicans have two significant advantages they can still cling to: incumbency and gerrymandering.

Incumbents almost always do better than generic polls indicate they should. While people may prefer a generic Democrat over a generic Republican, when they enter the polling booth they won't be casting their votes for parties, but for people. And historically, while people may be disgusted with 'those bastards in Washington' in the abstract, when push comes to shove many of them will still end up voting for the guy who's already doing the job over the unknown quantity, because while Congress in general may be full of crooks, people often convince themselves that their particular representative is still a standup guy. Since Republicans hold a lead in the House now, that means incumbency will help them in their bid to hold the House.

Combine that advantage with incumbency and the GOP's chances look a lot better. Nationwide Democrats may hold a 17-point edge, but those numbers skew based on party identification. 87% of Republicans still prefer a Republican Congress, while 92% of Democrats want to see a Democratic Congress. Since gerrymanding attempts to pack districts with members of one party, that means that while the nationwide figure may favor Democrats by 17 points, that advantage still may not be enough to overcome the numbers of the district. Let's say that a state's legislature, controlled by Republicans, has loaded the state's Democrats into the fewest possible districts. So Democrats win those seats with overwhelming margins, but that means the other districts are heavily Republican. Since a majority of Republicans still want to keep Congress in Republican hands, we could easily see Democrats win more than 50% of the popular vote for the House in November but still fail to take control.

The Senate suffers from similar issues. While Senate seats cannot be gerrymandered, they are still 33 separate races. Seats up for grabs in 2006 are:

• Daniel Akaka (D-HI)
  
• George Allen (R-VA)
  
• Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)
  
• Conrad Burns (R-MT)
  
• Robert Byrd (D-WV)
  
• Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
  
• Thomas Carper (D-DE)
  
• Lincoln Chafee (R-RI)
  
• Hilary Clinton (D-NY)
  
• Kent Conrad (D-ND)
  
• Mark Dayton (D-MN)
  
• Mike DeWine (R-OH)
  
• John Ensign (R-NV)
  
• Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
  
• William Frist (R-TN)
  
• Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
  
• Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX)
  
• James Jeffords (I-VT)
  
• Edward Kennedy (D-MA)
  
• Herb Kohl (D-WI)
  
• Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
  
• Joseph Lieberman (D-CT)
  
• Trent Lott (R-MS)
  
• Richard Lugar (R-IN)
  
• Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
  
• Bill Nelson (D-FL)
  
• Benjamin Nelson (D-NE)
  
• Rick Santorum (R-PA)
  
• Paul Sarbanes (D-MD)
  
• Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
  
• Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
  
• James Talent (R-MO)
  
• Craig Thomas (R-WY)

Fifteen Republicans, eighteen Democrats up for reelection in 2006 (counting Jeffords as a Democrat). That gives the Republicans a slight advantage, as they have fewer seats to defend. Worse, of four Senators known to be retiring, two are Democrats (Sarbanes and Dayton) and one is Jeffords, meaning the Democrats will have to defend three seats without the advantage of incumbency. The Republicans will have to defend Bill Frist's open seat, but that's a 3:1 advantage for the Republicans.

Of the 29 remaining seats, quite a few are locks to stay as they are. The Democrats don't need to worry about Ted Kennedy, Herb Kohl, Kent Conrad, Jeff Bingaman, Hilary Clinton, Daniel Akaka, Thomas Carper or Dianne Feinstein. The Republicans should hold Dick Lugar, Craig Thomas, Orrin Hatch, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Jon Kyl, Olympia Snowe, Trent Lott, Jim Talent, and John Ensign. That's a total of eight Democrats and nine Republicans, just over half the races. Since the balance is currently 55-45, the Democrats have to flip six seats in order to take control. I'm showing six Republicans as currently vulnerable, meaning the Democrats will have to run the table to take the Senate, taking all vulnerable Republican seats and defending their own vulnerable and open seats. That's a tall order.

It's possible that some of the seats I currently consider safe may move into the vulnerable category, but it's clear the Democrats face an uphill climb to retake the Senate. It may yet happen, but their odds there seem even longer than in the House. 17-point edge or not, I don't know if betting on Speaker Pelosi is a wise bet just yet.