Skip links

2004 House

Sabato's Crystal Ball

GOP Increase House Numbers

Partisan redistricting and the overwhelming power of incumbency makes it such that many of the 435 House races each year are either uncontested or finished well before they begin. Texas redistricting gave the GOP an edge in this year’s battle for control of the House. The five Texas House races in the Crystal Ball’s Dirty 30 list all featured incumbent Democrats in newly drawn districts. With only Democrat Chet Edwards surviving in the 17th district, Republicans were able to pick off four seats from Democrats in Texas alone. Only one contest in the Dirty 30 caused trouble for the Crystal Ball. In Indiana’s ninth congressional district, three-term incumbent Democrat Baron Hill was pitted in a rematch with his 2002 challenger: Republican Mike Sodrel. He was the beneficiary of fundraising help from Vice President Dick Cheney as well as strong growth for the GOP in the heavily Republican western Cincinnati suburbs. Despite partisan redistricting that benefited Hill, the GOP was able to grab this seat from the Democrats. Of the 30 races the Crystal Ball called, 29 outcomes were correctly predicted. With Republicans now controlling 231 House seats, the Democrats holding 200, one seat in the hands Independent Bernie Sanders of

Peter Jackson

The Brutal Bottom Line

President It’s all about Bush, the incumbent, especially after John Kerry’s success in the first presidential debate in shifting the focus back to the performance of the Bush administration. The people will vote “thumbs up/thumbs down” based on Bush’s handling of the twin challenges of a shaky economy and a continuing war in Iraq. Just as with his father’s presidency, “Dubya” has faced a difficult election year. Off and on, Bush has some good news to trumpet on the economy: hundreds of thousands of new jobs have been created in the past year, and most other basic economic indicators appear to be turning upwards. However, Bush’s achievements on the economy are not clear cut, and more importantly they have been overshadowed for much of the year by the somewhat unpopular Iraq war and its aftermath. The abuse of Iraqi prisoners shook the administration to its foundation, and the 9/11 Commission was a coup for the Democrats–with most of the riveting testimony and the final report used to undermine Bush’s claims to successful leadership in the war on terror. On the other hand, the handover of authority from Americans to Iraqis on June 28 appeared to have quieted the situation somewhat–though

Larry J. Sabato

Herseth Wins South Dakota

With all 798 precincts reporting, Stephanie Herseth (D) has won the statewide U.S. House seat in South Dakota. Precisely as the Crystal Ball predicted, this race got close at the end and Herseth pulled out a narrow 51percent to 49 percent victory – a margin of 2,981 votes out of over a quarter of a million votes cast. Our South Dakota analyst, who observed events leading up to the special election in the Mount Rushmore State, reports back that the victory is owed at least in part to the active Herseth field operations in Rapid City, which took a large bite out of Larry Diedrich’s West River margins. Herseth’s triumph, as minimal as it was, gives the Democratic Party bragging rights for House elections. This is the second House seat the Democrats have captured from the Republicans in 2004–the first, in January, was for the Kentucky seat of new Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher, won by Democrat Ben Chandler. In addition, this is the first time in over six decades that Democrats have controlled the entire congressional delegation in South Dakota. Incredibly, all six congressional seats from the Dakotas are now Democratic, despite the fact that North and South Dakota are

Larry J. Sabato