2010 House

All sound electoral predictions are grounded in history. Astute observers look back over the electoral landscape of the past and pick the bits and pieces of past years that match the conditions of the present. The upcoming House of Representatives elections in 2010 require the same approach. With that in mind, the Crystal Ball embarks on a short compare-and-contrast journey to examine the similarities and differences of the upcoming midterm and two of the most exciting elections of recent memory: 2006 and 1994. 2006 President George W. Bush’s second midterm election will be remembered as the beginning of a four-year electoral hegemony for Democrats. Democrats picked up 30 seats and regained control of the House of Representatives, installing liberal Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Republicans in 2010 are hungry to put a quick end to the era and turn this upcoming election into their own version of 2006. They are likely to be disappointed. First of all, Republicans must capture 40 seats to control the House, a gain that is outside the realm of reasonable probabilities, at least as this is written in September 2009. Forty is a high bar to clear, and even in the remarkably friendly year of 2006,

While the next slate of House elections does not occur until 2010, congressmen and their challengers certainly don’t take off the “off-year.” Instead, this year is a crucial one for the parties who must prove their recruiting chops, for the incumbents who seek big fundraising numbers and positive headlines, and for the challengers who have to prove their ability to take down a sitting member of Congress. And that doesn’t even include the open races, 18 so far, where incumbents have announced they will not seek reelection. In those districts, both parties are scrambling to find candidates who can quash takeover hopes or, conversely, take advantage of this rare opportunity. Generally speaking, the president’s party loses seats in midterm elections, as the Crystal Ball discussed in May. The actions of the president, even more than that of the Congress itself, shape the mood of the electorate and can help determine the magnitude of this legislative loss. The other main determinant of the potential for losses and gains is the national playing field. After picking up a net total of 54 House seats in the past four years, Democrats will be defending a lot of Republican Red turf. All told, 49

COPYRIGHT 2009 SABATO’S CRYSTAL BALL The 2010 midterm election is still 14 months away. Fourteen months is a lifetime in politics. We don’t know how many House and Senate incumbents from each party will be retiring, how many incumbents from each party will be facing serious challengers or what the national political climate will be like in the fall of 2010. Nevertheless, based on what we already know and the evidence from midterm elections over the past six decades we can make an educated guess about what is likely to happen in next year’s House and Senate elections. The results of a statistical analysis of congressional election results since World War II indicate that Republicans are almost certain to make at least modest gains in the House of Representatives and could pick up a few seats in the Senate. However, their chances of regaining control of either chamber appear to range from slim in the case of the House to none in the case of the Senate. There are two basic approaches to predicting the results of congressional elections: the seat-by-seat approach and the statistical forecasting approach. The seat-by-seat approach involves conducting district-by-district and state-by-state analyses to identify individual House

It’s a game both parties play: pretend that this will be the year you go on the offensive in places where your candidate is, in reality, as likely to win American Idol as the November general election. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) dutifully played their part on July 31, sending an e-mail to friendly political action committees outlining 70 purported U.S. House “targets” for 2010 (see table here). Last week, NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions even suggested that as many as 80 Democratic districts could be in play this cycle. Perhaps the NRCC was trying to live up to that proclamation when it released this overly optimistic (and overly lengthy) list. More likely is that the list is something of a charade; a calculated gambit which the GOP hopes will lead to two major benefits. First, it could scare the opposition into expending resources in places they have very little hope of competing. This end was pursued in the presidential race last fall when Barack Obama’s team feinted at states like Montana, North Dakota, Georgia, and Mississippi. For his part, John McCain’s camp even argued they could be competitive in California. Obviously, if these efforts had succeeded in forcing Democrats

We are barely into the two-year term for the current House of Representatives, but you can be sure that the 2010 contests have already begun. That is especially true for members of the House who are in two-party competitive districts. For them, it is a permanent campaign. Relatively few incumbents have challengers out-and-about already. So unlike our recent profiles of 2010 Senate races and Governorship battles, we will be focusing more on the districts likely to see good match-ups. 2010 is a midterm election, of course, and traditionally, voters use elections at the midpoint of a president’s term to send him a message–sometimes of approval, usually of disapproval. The degree of disapproval varies widely from election to election. In Republican President Benjamin Harrison’s one midterm election (1890), the electorate gave Democrats an additional 75 seats, so dissatisfied were they with Harrison’s stewardship. Former President Grover Cleveland (D), who had lost a close election to Harrison in 1888, roared back to defeat his nemesis in 1892. But what goes around, comes around. The economic Panic of ’93 produced an electoral disaster for Democrats in the midterm year of 1894, with Cleveland’s party losing 116 seats. Never before or since has a

The Washington Nationals aren’t the only D.C. team off to a disappointing start. House Republicans have already lost one special election contest, and the rest of the special election schedule looks bleak as well. And don’t forget the extra innings effort in NY-20, which Republicans have all but lost. In politics, as in baseball, April is too early to count a team out; but, for a GOP team in desperate need of a win, they can’t be too happy with how things have gone so far. To catch you up on the season so far and to preview the contests to come, the Crystal Ball sets off on a coast-to-coast road trip. NY-20 (Saratoga Springs) Scott Murphy (D): 79,839 (50.09 percent) Jim Tedisco (R): 79,566 (49.91 percent) (Recount litigation ongoing) Hopes were high leading up to the March 31 special election in NY-20, the first test of the GOP in its newly cast role as opposition. With the stimulus package and unpopular AIG bonuses as the backdrop, Republican Jim Tedisco, the state assembly minority leader, faced off against a little-known Democrat and venture capitalist, Scott Murphy. Early polling was positive, showing Tedisco with as much as a 21-point lead. By

If the November 2008 election was the equivalent of a Democratic tidal wave crashing on the United States, the special elections held earlier that year should have been the early warning system. Before any ballots were cast on November 4, Democrats had already captured three previously-Republican seats in 2008. These three seats (IL-14, LA-6, and MS-1) had been considered relatively safe Republican seats, with George W. Bush winning 55 percent, 59 percent, and 62 percent of the vote in each district respectively in 2004. While these special elections were not the first signs of a Democratic wave approaching, they were among the most unmistakable. Flash forward to 2009. Three more districts are already slated for special elections, but this time Democrats are defending all three seats. If the Republicans are looking for a quick rebound, this is where they should look. The GOP has so far been playing the part of the loyal opposition in Congress, hoping that economic woes and anti-stimulus sentiment would tarnish the Democratic brand and revive their own electoral hopes. Just four months removed from their catastrophic showing in 2008, Republican partisans are hungry for any good news. While the bitter taste of 2006 and 2008