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2014 Governor

Sabato's Crystal Ball

Republicans Certain to Retain Control of Virginia House of Delegates

The Crystal Ball typically focuses on national or statewide politics, but given our base at the University of Virginia Center for Politics and our substantial readership in the Old Dominion, we decided to take a comprehensive look at the race for the state’s House of Delegates. All 100 seats are on the ballot this November. (The Virginia Senate is not up for election again until 2015, though there will be special elections for one or two of its 40 seats depending on the outcomes in statewide races — and these contests will be decisive in a body currently split 20-20.) While there are plenty of interesting House races across the Commonwealth, the overall outcome — continued Republican control by a clear margin — is not privately disputed by either side. — The Editors While the gubernatorial contest between former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe (D) and state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) remains a toss-up for now, the battle for control of the House of Delegates is decidedly not: Republicans will retain control of the Virginia House. To regain a majority in the chamber, Democrats must make a net gain of 19 seats in 2013. As the analysis below

Geoffrey Skelley

The presidency’s political price

Is politics a zero-sum game? Imagine, for a moment, if Sen. John McCain (R) had somehow won the presidency in 2008. How might the country be different? We would not have the Affordable Care Act. Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan would not be on the Supreme Court. And the stimulus passed at the outset of McCain’s presidency would probably have been considerably different from the one passed under President Obama. Oh, and there’s this: Democrats would probably still control the House, and they’d certainly still control the Senate. That’s because the president’s party almost invariably pays a price for holding the White House, a price that can be measured in the loss of House representatives, senators, governors and state legislators. Take a look at Chart 1, which examines the electoral history of the 12 presidents who served after World War II. Generally speaking, presidents left office with their parties having smaller House and Senate caucuses than when they arrived, and also fewer governors and state legislative chambers — often dramatically fewer. All in all, these 12 postwar presidents lost an average of 30 U.S. House seats; six senators; eight governors; total control of six state legislatures; and about 360 state

Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley

Take two

Last week, we highlighted 10 classic or notable political ads that we thought 2014 candidates might consider studying (or “borrowing,” to use a euphemism for copying) for their upcoming campaigns. We then asked readers to respond with their own ideas. Five of the best suggestions follow, along with some words of wisdom from a seasoned political pro about the limits of political advertising. “Spelling bee” Description: Missing from our initial list were ads that dealt with the spelling of a candidate’s name, which can sometimes lead to creative ads. For instance, former U.S. Rep. Ed Mezvinsky (D-IA) cut an amusing spot saying that while voters might not be able to pronounce his name, they’d know where he stood on the issues (credit to @johndeeth on Twitter). Former Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-MA) also cut some good ads on his last name, among others. But here’s our favorite suggested “name” ad — Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) won an improbable write-in campaign victory in 2010 after losing the Republican primary, and she ran a delightful ad featuring kids at a spelling bee. Who could use it: Any write-in candidate would do well to copy the Murkowski spelling bee ad, and someone with a

Larry J. Sabato and Kyle Kondik

GOVERNORS 2014: THE INCUMBENT AVALANCHE

If you’re looking for a major difference between the last midterm election in 2010 and the one coming up in 2014, we’ve got one for you: gubernatorial incumbency — the lack of it in ’10 and the abundance of it in ’14. Back in ’10, just a baker’s dozen of the 37 incumbent state governors were running for reelection. That cornucopia of open statehouses (24) produced lots of turnover. Republicans added a net six governorships, including the plums of Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.* The GOP’s new total of 29 governorships was the most the party had held in a decade (Republicans hold 30 of 50 now). It was the flipping of statehouses that was most impressive in 2010. Republicans grabbed 11 governorships that had been in Democratic hands, and despite a bad environment nationally, Democrats seized five from the GOP, including the big prize of California. That’s close to half of the available statehouses shifting parties all at once. In this polarized, hyper-partisan era, where Red is Red and Blue is Blue and never the twain shall meet, that’s an impressive degree of change on one Election Day. The situation for 2014 couldn’t be more different. Instead of 24 governorships

Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley

COURSE CORRECTIONS: A MIDTERM THEORY

Over the next several weeks, we’ll run full updates on 2014’s House, Senate and gubernatorial races. But as an introduction we wanted to offer a little history about the ebb and flow of American politics from Ronald Reagan’s last midterm in 1986, a seemingly odd election that saw Democrats make big gains in the Senate while Republicans picked up many governor’s mansions. In the absence of major national forces that year, the map (in the case of the Senate) and incumbency or lack thereof (in the case of the governors) seemed to play outsized roles in the outcome. What might that mean for 2014? Read on. — The Editors On Nov. 3, 1986 — one day before the U.S. midterm elections — a Lebanese magazine first reported on what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. By the morning after the election, the scandal involving the sale of weapons to Iran in order to secure the release of American hostages held by Iranian terrorists in Lebanon hit newspapers in the United States. Iran-Contra did damage to President Reagan’s reputation, although from a strictly electoral standpoint, it’s hard to argue it had much of an effect: The story broke in the United

Kyle Kondik

So what just happened in Virginia?

Almost all states consistently use primaries to nominate their candidates for statewide office (U.S. Senate, governor, lower statewide elected officials), although there are some exceptions. Utah, for instance, uses a hybrid convention/runoff system, which readers will remember led to an incumbent U.S. senator, Robert Bennett (R), failing to even advance to a two-person primary in 2010. Another state, Connecticut, has a convention that helps set the primary ballot. And South Carolina Republicans recently decided against switching from a primary to a convention for next year’s races.** Then there’s Virginia: In many contests in recent decades in both parties, nominees for statewide office have been picked at conventions without a primary depending on the preference of the party in that given election. The Old Dominion gives complete latitude to each party in choosing its nomination method every year. The commonwealth’s curious nomination rules are in the news this week, thanks to last weekend’s Republican Party of Virginia convention in Richmond, where Republican delegates made the highly risky decision to nominate E.W. Jackson (R) for their party’s nomination for lieutenant governor. We’ll let others describe the noxious comments Jackson has made over the years; needless to say, Republican leaders in the state

Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley

YEARNING FOR THE GOLDEN AGE OF CRISIS COVERAGE…THAT NEVER EXISTED

There were real victims in the Boston bombings last week — the dead, the wounded, the grieving families, the terrorized communities — but there was substantial collateral damage done to news media credibility. We’ll leave to others the listing of specific winners and losers. Goodness knows, there have been enough scathing reviews published already. Innocent “bag men” were plastered onto front pages, arrests that had not occurred were ballyhooed by several news organizations, and widespread media speculation about the groups behind the terrorism was dead wrong. Critics say it is just another example of the decline of journalistic ethics in our anything-goes era of live, continuous broadcasting, blogging and tweeting. Why can’t today’s reporters meet the same high standards achieved by their illustrious predecessors in the golden age of journalism? Well, the answer may be that the golden age never existed. If you doubt this, take a look back to the start of live TV reporting of national tragedy, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on Friday, Nov. 22, 1963. The coverage of this watershed event has often been hailed as the epitome of sober, cautious treatment of a big breaking story. Yet this is partly

Larry J. Sabato

Three’s a crowd: Bolling passes on Virginia gubernatorial run

There’s apparently nothing like a Bahamas vacation to remind someone that there’s more to life than politics. After flirting with an independent bid for governor — and getting away to the Caribbean for a few days to clear his head — Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R) announced that he will not run, leaving the two major-party candidates, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) and former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe (D), in a duel for the Virginia governorship. After suspending his campaign for the Republican nomination in November — he had no chance to win his party’s nomination after it opted to select its nominee through a convention, rather than a primary — Bolling seriously examined the possibility of running for the state’s chief executive office as an independent. But as he made clear in his statement, while it was possible to run a competitive campaign as an independent, it was much more difficult to actually win. Foremost among the challenges for an independent candidacy is money. Bolling said that he needed to raise at least $10 million to $15 million to have a shot at victory. But to manage this feat outside the party structure would have been

Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley

Red Alert, Part 2 – The governors

UPDATE: The Crystal Ball‘s Kyle Kondik spoke with Paul Brandus of West Wing Report about this article. To hear the audio, click here. A Star Trek fan quibbled (Tribbled?) with our piece last week, noting that the character James T. Kirk was actually an admiral, not a captain, during the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Our response is that Kirk, in a later film, was demoted to captain, and most Trekkies/Trekkers refer to the character as “Captain Kirk.” So our referring to him as such was correct, “from a certain point of view” (to borrow a line from another famous sci-fi universe). Anyway, we digress. After applying Star Trek’s “red alert” designation to several Senate seats last week, we’re now looking at the most competitive gubernatorial races. Unlike the Senate races — where at least the seven most competitive seats are all currently held by Democrats — the competitive gubernatorial picture offers a mixed set of races, with a number of Democrats and Republicans listed among the hottest races. As a reminder, we’re dividing these competitive races into three categories: red alert seats are ones in which the incumbent party is, at best, a tiny favorite to

Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley

Democrats Dread 2014 Drop-Off

At first blush, Saxby Chambliss and the Michigan right-to-work episode seem completely unrelated. Most Republicans approve of both, of course, but there is a deeper connection. The Georgia senator and Michigan’s effort to restrict organized labor’s power are both byproducts of a phenomenon that, despite the electoral problems currently facing Republicans, continues to favor the GOP: severe ballot turnout drop-off in non-presidential elections. On Nov. 4, 2008, Chambliss received 49.8% of the 3.75 million votes cast statewide in Georgia; Democrat Jim Martin finished second with 46.8%, three points behind. Because Chambliss fell two-tenths of a percent shy of the absolute majority required, however, Georgia law required a run-off. Four weeks later on Dec. 2, Chambliss crushed Martin by 14.8% — nearly five times his November margin. Only 2.14 million votes were cast in the run-off, 43% fewer. High turnout in November — driven, no doubt, by African-American voter enthusiasm, given Obama’s presence on the ballot — kept Martin competitive; far lower turnout in December doomed the Democrat’s chances in the run-off. Two years later, Republican Rick Snyder easily won the Michigan governor’s race with 58.1% of 3.23 million votes cast statewide. His victory was sandwiched between the 2008 and 2012

Thomas F. Schaller

HELP US TRACK GUBERNATORIAL, SENATE CANDIDATES

With 38 gubernatorial contests and 35 Senate races to be decided during the next two years (and with perhaps more to come), there are a ton of names that get bandied about as possible candidates, particularly when there’s more than a year until the possibilities are winnowed down in primaries. The churn of potential candidates changes almost daily. For instance, in Ohio on Tuesday morning, former Gov. Ted Strickland (D) ruled out a rematch against Gov. John Kasich (R). Later that day, a former Obama administration health care official, Donald Berwick (D), floated the possibility of running for Massachusetts governor. And on it goes. Throughout the cycle, we’ll keep track of the rumored and actual candidacies on our race rating charts for the gubernatorial and Senate contests (the House, with its 435 races, is too unwieldy to track, but we’ll continue to update our listing of the most competitive contests). We freely admit that, especially in the early going, there might be some names we should add, or possible candidates that we’ve listed who don’t really belong on the list. So we welcome your comments about our running Senate and gubernatorial race charts, which are posted at www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball. Please send

UVA Center for Politics

Post-election book to be released Tuesday

The University of Virginia Center for Politics is pleased to announce that our post-election book, Barack Obama and the New America: The 2012 Election and the Changing Face of Politics, will be released next Tuesday, Jan. 15. To order the book — which is published by Rowman and Littlefield — click here. Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato has brought together top journalists and academics from across the political spectrum to examine every facet of the 2012 election, and what its outcome will mean for the nation moving forward. In frank, accessible prose, each author offers insight that goes beyond the headlines, and dives into the underlying forces and shifts that drove the election from its earliest developments to its dramatic conclusion. This book features contributions from: — Alan Abramowitz, Crystal Ball Senior Columnist — Diana Owen, Georgetown University — Geoffrey Skelley, U.Va. Center for Politics — Jamelle Bouie, The American Prospect — James Campbell, SUNY-Buffalo — Kyle Kondik, U.Va. Center for Politics — Michael Toner, former FEC chairman — Nate Cohn, The New Republic — Rhodes Cook, Crystal Ball Senior Columnist — Robert Costa, National Review — Sean Trende, RealClearPolitics — Susan MacManus, University of South Florida

UVA Center for Politics

CLOSING THE BOOK ON 2012

Now that we have official election results from nearly every state, we wanted to offer some closing thoughts on election 2012. So here are 10 bite-sized nuggets, an appetizer for your holiday feasts. As a programming note, we’re taking the next two weeks off to recharge for the next cycle. Our next issue of the Crystal Ball will hit your inboxes on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013. From all of us here at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, we wish our readers Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas. — The Editors 1. Thank God it wasn’t close One of these days we’ll have another 2000-style election, where the result will be so tight that we will not know the outcome on the election evening — or for many days thereafter. Consider New York State — which a month and a half after the fact still has not certified its election results. (We remember Superstorm Sandy, but New Jersey was hit just as hard.) Even a critical New York state Senate race remains up in the air: George Amedore (R) has a 39-vote lead on Cecilia Tkaczyk (D), who is not conceding and is likely to appeal a court decision

Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley

STATEHOUSE ROCK, 2014: CAN REPUBLICANS SUSTAIN THEIR GAINS?

One way or another, the fiscal cliff dilemma is going to produce a larger, wealthier federal government. Either going off the cliff pumps hundreds of billions in new tax revenues into the U.S. Treasury via the end of the Bush tax cuts, or avoiding the fiscal cliff pumps hundreds of billions in new tax revenues into the U.S. Treasury via additional taxes. So Washington, with this new honey pot of money, will be the place to be for the foreseeable future, right? Not a chance. If there’s an unhappier, less productive, more partisan, more gridlocked governing place than the nation’s capital, it escapes our notice. The statehouses are still where the action is. Politicians run for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House in order to talk about solving problems; as debating societies, they cannot be beat. Politicians run for governor to do something about those problems. As usual, the political community will spend endless hours calculating the ups and downs of Senate seats for 2014, and the Crystal Ball is no different. But we really ought to focus more on the statehouses. That’s what we’ll do today. A large majority of governors are now elected in the off-year midterm

Larry J. Sabato and Geoffrey Skelley