Looking at the historical record, 2008 isn’t a realignment sort of year. In the 20th century, there were three realignments that took place in Presidential election years — 1912, 1932, and 1980. What these elections had in common was that the President was highly unpopular, and he was running for reelection.
Having an unpopular President who is not running again just doesn’t produce the same sort of results. Maybe it doesn’t produce any result, if the last French election is any guide, where Chirac was unpopular but his party won anyway.
What about 1952, you might ask. Wasn’t that a realignment election? I suppose it may have seemed so at the time, with Eisenhower winning in a landslide and the Republicans taking both houses of Congress. However, the Republicans were closing in on majority status prior to 1952, had only modest gains in that year, and lost their majorities in 1954. Without a national hero on the top of the ticket, the Republicans didn’t make a lasting change to the electoral map.
Going back a ways, there was 1896. There weren’t any polls, of course, which saves Grover Cleveland some historical embarassment. There had been a period of exceptionally close Presidential races, which gave way to four straight Republican landslides. So, in terms of Presidential politics, it was a realignment moment. But there was a catch. The Republicans lost 48 seats in the House that year, making it a funny sort of realignment.
To see that there is no historical inevitability to a Democratic sweep in 2008, just consider for a moment what would be going on now if the Constitution didn’t require a President to be born in the US. It seems likely to me that Schwartzenegger would be the presumptive GOP nominee, and the favorite to win in November. It seems like a funny sort of realignment year that depends on the other side’s best candidate being ineligible to run.
There was a recent survey where people identified themselves as conservative, moderate, or liberal on social and economic issues. The double conservative bracket had 24% while the double liberals were only 9%. As long as Republicans go into every election with a nationwide ideological advantage of 15%, it’s not going be realignment, even if a sinking economy does bring the Democrats substantial gains.
you’re no looking at the fundamentals of the races.
There are approximately a half a dozen vulnerable Democrats in the House, but there are 80 vulnerable Republicans. There are approximately 13 vulnerable Republican senators and only one vulnerable Democrat. The Democrats are favored to pick 4-5 governorships, and party registration is up so high after the lengthy primary that state governments all over the country look to see huge Democratic gains. Moreover, true realignments happen when at least two shock elections occur in a row. So, we’re already 50% of the way to a realignment.
There are only 80 vulnerable House seats if you extrapolate from the special elections. But there are a lot of voters who pay attention to Presidential elections who don’t care nearly as much about House races. When they show up on election day, knowing little or nothing about the House candidates, they will vote by party preference. So an R+10 district is far less likely to go Democratic in a House election in a Presidential year than in an off-year or special election.
Even in an indifferent sort of year, you’d expect some Democratic gains in the Senate because the Republicans are defending more than twice as many seats as the Democrats. I also wonder if you aren’t applying different standards of vulnerability here. If you’re counting Oklahoma as vulnerable, it seems you have to count New Jersey also.
There a lot of first-term Democratic House members out there. It seems to me they have to be considered vulnerable. In Wisconsin, where I live, I don’t think there are any vulnerable GOP seats, and at least one vulnerable Democrat (Kagen). The Republicans did very well here in the April elections, even in Milwaukee county, so I’m just not seeing what you are seeing.