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CHARLOTTE
Posts: 217 |
FIREDOGLAKE
By: David Dayen
In 2006 and 2008, Democrats “ran the table” in the Senate. No Republican challengers to Democratic incumbents won. And that’s actually a bit unusual. In many other years, Democrats and Republicans both flip seats in the Senate, and in an anti-incumbent year such as this one, that dynamic is particularly possible. Nate Silver noted this the other day, and now there’s some hard data to back him up.
Certainly, it’s not unprecedented for a party to completely shut out its opponent out when it has a sufficiently strong wind at its back. This happened, for instance (see chart below) in 1946, 1948, 1958, 1980, 1994, and both 2006 and 2008. On the other hand, you also have cycles like 1950, 1962, 1968, 1978 and 1986 in which one party clearly got the better of it, but the other party managed to pick up one or perhaps even several seats. And there are other cycles like 1952 and 1976 that were more anti-incumbent than anything else, and in which both major parties lost a substantial number of seats.
Clearly, 2010 will be to some greater or lesser extent an anti-Democratic year. The question is to what extent it might also be an anti-incumbent year, in which case Republicans could lose in Missouri or Ohio (where they’ll nominate card-carrying members of the GOP establishment) or perhaps a state like North Carolina, where they have an incumbent proper. Unlike in 1994, the GOP remains quite strongly unpopular. Also as compared with 1994, the Republicans are less cohesive, and that could result in their nominating a sub-optimal candidate in Kentucky, New Hampshire, Florida or Arizona.
We’re starting to see the first indications of this in the data. First, in Illinois, which is part of any Republican strategy to win a majority in Congress, Alexi Giannoulias released a poll showing him leading Republican Mark Kirk 49-45. More importantly, the internals of the poll show President Obama with a 59% approval rating in Illinois, including 51% among indepdenents. Given the House effect of all the polls in this race, you can see it as somewhat even, with a lean on the fundamentals to Giannoulias.
More striking is the poll for the NC-Sen seat held by Republican non-entity Sen. Richard Burr. Secretary of State Elaine Marshall outpolls Burr substantially among those who have heard of her:
1) Most of the voters with no opinion about Burr are Democrats, which could mean that his approval numbers are even worse than they look. This month Burr’s approval came down as a 35/35 split. Among those ambivalent toward him 50% are Democrats and just 32% are Republicans. The group voted for Barack Obama by a 51-43 margin in 2008. So once the DSCC helps those voters to get to know Burr a little better his disapproval could see a hike.
2) Among voters who actually have an opinion of Cal Cunningham or Elaine Marshall- whether it’s positive or not- they lead Burr. Cunningham is up 46-44 and Marshall is up 49-40. There’s a caveat with those numbers- people with an opinion of Cunningham voted Obama 49-47 and folks with ones of Marshall supported the President 52-45. So these people are a little more Democratic than the population at large- but not overwhelmingly so. The numbers are an indication that this race could get a whole lot closer once the eventual nominee starts catching up in name recognition.
That puts Marshall well ahead of Burr at this stage; it’s just a matter of name ID. Marshall is following the same formula that put Kay Hagan in the Senate over Elizabeth Dole. And Marshall is preferable to Cal Cunningham, a candidate the DSCC pushed into the race, who likes to hold Third Way fundraisers in DC:
Cal just had a fundraiser in DC hosted by a couple of lobbyists one of whom proclaims being a founder of Third Way and involvement with the DLC. The other co-host was Blanche Lincoln’s former Chief of Staff. The lobbying firm that held the event, their client roster reads like a who’s who of the usual suspects that worked to torpedo HCR (AHIP, Pharma, etc).
Marshall has a big lead in primary polls thanks to her statewide profile.
The point is that Republicans would not only have to find 10 victories on the map, but would have to run the table on all the open seat and incumbent races where they face a significant challenge – and that will
be a costly, and not automatically successful, enterprise.
Michael A Lawson
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