I hate to admit it but Karl Rove is right about one thing. The Democrats’ electoral victory was surprisingly shallow. In a year where I got most things right, including the outcome of the presidential and Senate races, I was simply wrong about the House and state/local races. Down-ticket Republicans showed remarkable resiliency.
In a sign Mr. Obama’s victory may have been more personal than partisan or philosophical, Democrats picked up just 10 state senate seats (out of 1,971) and 94 state house seats (out of 5,411). By comparison, when Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in 1980, Republicans picked up 112 state senate seats (out of 1,981) and 190 state house seats (out of 5,501).
In the states this year, five chambers shifted from Republican to Democrats, while four shifted from either tied or Democratic control to Republican control. In the South, Mr. Obama had “reverse coattails.” Republicans gained legislative seats across the region. In Tennessee both the house and senate now have GOP majorities for the first time since the Civil War.
I was anticipating down-ticket results more in line (if not as big) as Ronald Reagan enjoyed. It didn’t happen, and I’m not sure why. Here’s what I do know.
Obama managed to shift the electorate by making the Democrats competitive in the Atlantic South, solidifying the upper Midwest, and moving the Latino-heavy Southwest into the Democratic column. But he didn’t succeed in fundamentally altering the partisan divisions in most of the country’s districts. Lots and lots of Republican leaning districts returned their Republican state and federal reps to power while simultaneously voting for Obama-Biden. Politicians that were swept away in the Obama wave, like Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut, were the exception rather than the rule. And Shays came from a blue-leaning district.
This creates an opportunity for further gains. I think the key is for the Democratic Congress to deliver something of real tangible value to the voters. If they give health insurance to the 45 million Americans that don’t have it and make it more affordable for those that do, I think the reward will be a shift of allegiance towards the Democrats that leads to the kind of down-ticket movement we did not see in the November election.
The presidential and senate races demonstrated a real backlash against Bushism, but the backlash was muted in the House races, and non-existent on the state/local level. That tells me that people haven’t become solid Democrats. They are sick of Republicans in Washington and are willing to give the Democrats a chance. But to win over the people and make them loyal Democrats up and down the ticket, they need to see a tangible improvement in their lives. Health care is the key.
Two things:
Number 2 is why Secretary of State and Governor races are going to be extra-special important here in 2010 when the next census comes. Strickland and Brunner are going to need to hold their seats if Democrats want to have a real chance at holding onto their gains or even making new ones.
To follow up on my own comment –
To understand whether this is a deep or shallow realignment, it would be better to treat the 2006 and 2008 elections as the same election cycle and see where things stand now as compared to 2004 (not as to compared to 2006). I don’t have the data handy, but if someone does they might be able to tell us if the combined 2-cycle pickups by the Dems look more like the 1-cycle pickup that Reagan got in ’80 or if it still looks like shallow gains.
Yes, I agree. There was a turnover in state houses in 06, and that shift was fairly sizable — as I recall.
http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/ac/2006/11/dont_ignore_the_moderates.php
Here’s some more:
http://www.polidata.org/party/default.htm
One more addition:
Just a quick comment — State legislatures and Governorships have always shifted on a different timetable than national legislatures. I recall noting at the time that Governorships in the 80s were out of sync with other realignment shifts. I’m not sure whether to call it a leading or lagging effect. It also gives some indications of being on a different political calculus, which could be the result of the states’ inability to run deficits like the federal government. Also, the tendency to describe parties in monolithic terms should be avoided. I’ll try to expand on this later, but the relative absence of the Southern Democratic wing of the national party created a inflated perception of past control by the Democrats. By the same token, recent Republican dominance came at the price of an artificially produced homogeneity that constrained centripetal forces within the party. Their inability to grow and include a wider coalition pointed to an eventual splintering, which could only be avoided through acts such as induced wars, vilification of Dems, etc.,
Given our proven propensity to vote against our own economic self-interest, one would have to think that a goodly number of those 45 million without health care have probably still punched their ballots the last two elections for both Bush and McCain. I agree with you that if there was ever an issue which might finally trump this weird American paradox, it would be giving people that health care benefit.
It is a chance for Democrats to potentially lock in a whole new wave of supporters, many of which would likely be reliable voters for a long time to come. The potential for a sea change in the electorate is within our grasp. Let’s hope Obama and the Democrats take advantage of this precious opportunity.
Obama has more to lose by being cautious rather than by being overzealous. Americans need to feel like something, anything, is being done to improve their lives. It’s been a while since they have seen something tangible.
while not specifically addressing the health care issue, but certainly applicable to it, krugman had an excellent op-ed piece along the line that obama’s biggest challenge is to be aggressive in monday’s nyt, Franklin Delano Obama?:
krugman ought to be in the cabinet, imo.
recommended reading.
Unfortunately, I think Obama will take a relatively cautious route at least for the first half of his first term in order to be the ‘bipartisan consensus builder’ he promised he would be to independents.
Seems to me that the incumbency effect gets stronger the more local you go. It’s probably conceivable that even I could vote Republican for a state legislator or member of the county board, say, because local issues tend not to track very closely with broad national policy. Here in Illinois state Democratic control has become a disaster, for example. If primaries can’t resolve the problem the GOP might become the only viable alternative.
Of course this is in a very blue state where Dems tend to be fairly liberal and Reps tend to be centrist on culture-war hot zones. Things may be different where the GOP has been in charge for a long time and there’s a tight connection between local and national party attitudes. Bottom line: you probably can’t generalize down to the local level.
I live in Miami County, Ohio, part of the Minority Leader’s CD. Obama got 35% of the vote, a lady running for a state rep seat got 37% of the vote and a lady running for county commissioner got 39%.
Certainly no coat tails here.
accounts for the ’08 “shallowness.” When considering what happened in ’06 and ’08 in the House as well as state legislatures nationwide, realistically Dems exceeded what should have been expected given how many distracts are drawn. The 2010 census will change much though. My home state of NY is now completely in Democratic party hands and our districts will be drawn accordingly.
“Health care is the key”. … Jobs would be nice too.
Karl Rove always sees the truth of things, he’ll never speak it. He knows that to control every word spoken to shape the propaganda is important and precious to advance his agenda. He knows the truth but would never speak it.