Big Republican victories on Election Day will shake up Washington, but they will mark a return to equilibrium rather than a dramatic electoral shift.
A majority of House Democrats losing Tuesday will be freshmen or sophomore members who won GOP-held seats in the Democratic waves of 2006 and 2008. The rest of the GOP pickups will be mostly in Republican districts (as measured by presidential votes) where Democratic congressmen have held on against the tide for years.
Liberal writer Ed Kilgore stated it well: “Republican House gains this year will represent more a reversion to the norm than some sort of electoral tsunami.”
The biggest category of GOP gains will be the “snap-backs” — seats Democrats took from Republicans in 2006 and 2008 thanks to the Democratic wave, Obama coattails, and Republican scandals and extravagance.
For instance, Republican Thomas Marino is a strong favorite to win back Pennsylvania’s 10th District. Democrat Chris Carney won this seat in 2006 after a mistress-strangling allegation took down GOP congressman Don Sherwood. Similarly, Democrat Jerry McNerney in 2006 knocked off Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), who was caught up in the Jack Abramoff mess. McNerney is now trailing in that race.
Snap-backs happen every election, especially after wave years (11 freshman Republicans lost in 1996), but usually not to this extent.
Most of the 50 Democrat-held House seats that Real Clear Politics has classified “likely Republican” or “leaning Republican” would be snap-backs — the Democrats won 19 of them in 2008 and 11 in 2006. Another 13 of the 2006-08 Democratic pickups are in the “toss up” category. So the GOP could gain 43 seats — enough for a majority — just by taking back seats that were recently theirs.
Besides recouping recent losses, Republicans are back on track with the party’s long-term realignment — winning House seats in rural and Southern districts that consistently vote Republican for president.
For example, Democrats Bart Gordon (Tenn.), John Tanner (Tenn.), and Charlie Melancon (La.) are retiring, and the GOP is poised to gain all three seats. John McCain and George W. Bush carried about 60 percent in all these districts in the last two elections.
Some Democratic incumbents will finally get caught by the realignment bulldozer, and not only in the South: Both Dakota representatives — Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.) and Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.) — look likely to lose. Counting only districts where both McCain and Bush (in 2004) got more than 50 percent, 11 of RCP’s “likely” or “leaning” GOP pickups are in such realignment seats, along with six “toss ups.”
So the GOP could easily gain 60 seats in this election without making any incursions onto Democratic turf.
This math should dampen the triumphant Republican talk, but it should also worry the Democrats.
The bad news for Republicans: This election isn’t really redrawing the map, and it doesn’t represent a fierce reaction against the Democrats. Instead, the country is returning to where it was politically before the Republicans threw away their majority in 2006 and 2008 through overspending, two wars, and rampant corruption.
The bad news for Democrats: This suggests that America really is a Republican country, with 2006 and 2008 as aberrations. It appears that the Democrats are a narrow regional party, contrary to the post-2008 conventional wisdom they had become the dominant national party.
The next census and redistricting could change this, but for now, it appears the House is structurally Republican, allowing for brief Democratic majorities as an anomaly.
If you’re trying to sniff out a real Republican revolution on Tuesday, look for Republican gains in districts that are neither snap-backs nor part of the long-term Southern and rural realignment.
In Massachusetts, Rep. Barney Frank could fall, but more likely, Democrats could lose the Cape Cod seat. On the heels of Republican Scott Brown’s Senate win last year, and five other potential gains among Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, 2010 could signal that the New England Republican is not going extinct.
West of the Appalachians and above the Mason-Dixon line there are other opportunities for true GOP expansion. Democrats Phil Hare (Ill.) and Mark Critz (Pa.) are very vulnerable, and Republicans have the edge in the districts of retiring veterans David Obey (Wis.) and Bart Stupak (Mich.). McCain lost all four of these districts.
America probably won’t wake up Wednesday to a new political reality. More likely we’ll realize that the last four years didn’t quite reflect reality, and we’ve been living in a Republican country all along.
Timothy P.Carney, The Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Monday and Thursday, and his stories and blog posts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.
