Yesterday, I noted the apparent decision of the Obama White House to focus aggressively on mobilizing its base in advance of the midterm. I concluded that the pursuit of this strategy so late in the cycle suggests party leaders recognize that the House is slipping away. I want to expand on that here.
The issue comes down to how the Democratic base is distributed across the 435 congressional districts. The following graph tracks Obama’s share of the vote in all the districts that voted for a Democratic House candidate in 2008:
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As we can see, 49 Democratic-held congressional districts voted for John McCain last year. That is 10 more than the GOP needs for a majority. In all, about 130 Democratic-held districts gave President Obama 60% of the vote or less.
That is where the battle for control of the House will be fought. And to win in those districts, you need more than Democratic base voters. You also need independents and Republican-leaners, the kinds of voters who have been bolting the Obama coalition in the last year. A hefty portion of Democratic red meat will help in the heavily Democratic districts, but they are not enough to hold the House. Not even close.
This base motivation strategy is not designed to retain the majority, but to prevent a once-in-a-generation debacle – a massacre on the order of 1974, 1946, 1932, and 1892.
I suspect the Democratic base will come home and these R+13 numbers in the likely voter models will shrink. Yet that won’t be nearly enough to save the House, and I think the Democrats know it.
Read more Morning Jay at The Weekly Standard.
