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2016 House

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Now Available: The Surge, the Center for Politics’ New Book Analyzing the 2014 and 2016 Elections

The Surge, the University of Virginia Center for Politics’ postmortem of the 2014 midterms and preview of the 2016 presidential election, is now available. Edited by Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato and Sabato’s Crystal Ball editors Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley and published by Rowman and Littlefield, The Surge: 2014’s Big GOP Win and What It Means for the Next Presidential Election brings together some of the nation’s top political journalists and analysts to explain why and how the Republicans took the Senate and where American politics stands as the country’s polarized political parties gear up for 2016. The Surge can be purchased via Rowman and Littlefield, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other major booksellers. The contributors and their chapters are: Larry J. Sabato provides an overview of the 2014 election, including a look at historical election patterns and demographic voting trends. Long-time political expert and Crystal Ball Senior Columnist Rhodes Cook explores the 2014 primary season and how those nominating contests influenced the November results. Politico’s James Hohmann and the Crystal Ball’s Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley provide in-depth analysis of, respectively, the Senate, House, and gubernatorial races. Former Federal Election Commission chairman Michael Toner and former

UVA Center for Politics

House 2016: Patriots & One-Term Wonders on the Frontline

Over the past few weeks the two parties’ House campaign arms, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, have begun to roll out their lists of vulnerable seats and of the opposing seats they are targeting. The primary purpose for these lists is, of course, fundraising. They are a flashing billboard to loyal donors, alerting them as to which candidates they should support and incumbents they should oppose. Beyond that, the lists serve as a signal to certain incumbents, hinting broadly to the ones who should be working hard early in the cycle because they are vulnerable. The parties are also reassuring preferred challengers that they will have national financial support if willing to run in a targeted district. So far, the NRCC has named 19 Democratic incumbents it has identified as vulnerable, as well as 12 potentially vulnerable Republican incumbents who are in its Patriot Program. Meanwhile, the DCCC’s Frontline program names 14 most vulnerable members, and its One-Term Wonders feature 16 mostly first-term Republicans that the party is targeting. (The comparable Republican list does not at this point have a snazzy name.) The DCCC says that there are more GOP targets to come, which

Kyle Kondik

Religion in Politics: A Look at Data from the New American Values Atlas

On Wednesday, the Public Religion Research Institute released its new American Values Atlas. It is full of information regarding the American public’s religious identity, political views on hot-button issues such as abortion and immigration, and demographic information for regions, states, and major metropolitan areas. This atlas should prove to be a highly useful resource, especially because of the incomplete state-by-state data in recent exit polls. Using this treasure trove of new data, the Crystal Ball took a look at three major religious groups in the American public: white evangelicals, the unaffiliated, and Catholics. White evangelicals and Romney It’s no secret that white evangelical Christians voted heavily for Mitt Romney in 2012, a notable fact given his Mormon faith. Many commentators had wondered if Romney’s performance among voters in this crucial GOP base group would suffer. But according to the exit poll, 78% of them backed the Republican nominee, a four-point improvement over John McCain’s performance in 2008. This is a testament to the partisan polarization that has taken deep root in the United States, almost across the board. Let’s see just how consequential this mode of identity seemed to be for the election outcomes in many states. Table 1: Percentage

Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

The Surge: Our Book on 2014 & 2016 Is Available for Pre-Order

The Surge, the University of Virginia Center for Politics’ postmortem of the 2014 midterms and preview of the 2016 presidential election, is now available for pre–order. Edited by Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato and Sabato’s Crystal Ball editors Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley and published by Rowman and Littlefield, The Surge: 2014’s Big GOP Win and What It Means for the Next Presidential Election brings together some of the nation’s top political journalists and analysts to explain why and how the Republicans took the Senate and where American politics stands as the country’s polarized political parties gear up for 2016. The contributors and their chapters are: Larry J. Sabato provides an overview of the 2014 election, including a look at historical election patterns and demographic voting trends. Long-time political expert and Crystal Ball Senior Columnist Rhodes Cook explores the 2014 primary season and how those nominating contests influenced the November results. Politico’s James Hohmann and the Crystal Ball’s Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley provide in-depth analysis of, respectively, the Senate, House, and gubernatorial races. Former Federal Election Commission chairman Michael Toner and former FEC staffer Karen Trainer examine the ever-growing pot of money involved in American elections and

UVA Center for Politics

For Republicans, a 2016 tie is a win

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, elected to a third term earlier this month, often notes that the presidential cycle is harder for his party than midterms because the electorate is more diverse and Democratic. “For us to win a presidential election, we have to be just about perfect, and the Democrats have to be good,” he told Kyle Cheney of Politico. Priebus’s observation certainly squares with post-2012 commentary arguing Democrats might have an edge in the Electoral College, though like any good coach, the chairman is also trying to guard against overconfidence amongst his fellow Republicans. The coming presidential election will provide an interesting test as to whether Democrats do have a durable Electoral College advantage, particularly if political science forecasting models suggest that the Republican nominee should win the election but he or she fails to do so. That said, Republicans are not without at least one Electoral College edge in 2016. While the Democrat needs 270 electoral votes to win the presidency — a majority of the 538 available — the Republican only needs a 269-269 tie to win. That’s because, in the event of a tie, the newly elected House will pick the president. Each state

Kyle Kondik

Updated 2020 Reapportionment Projections

At the end of 2014, the Census Bureau released its 2014 population estimates. This provides new fodder for political geeks when looking ahead to the 2020 census and its major political impact: congressional reapportionment. Unfortunately, the Census Bureau doesn’t release state-level population projections anymore, just national estimates up to the year 2060, leaving it to others to extrapolate where the 50 states will be on April 1, 2020. The well-regarded firm Election Data Services — you may have seen some of their big election maps — put together a set of projections and found that, if trends continue, somewhere between 14 and 17 states may gain or lose U.S. House seats after the 2020 census, as shown below in Map 1. Map 1: Potential reapportionment change projections for 2020 Source: Election Data Services Based on EDS’s projections, California (+1), Colorado (+1), Florida (+1), North Carolina (+1), and Texas (+3) are in line to gain at least one seat. In some cases, EDS found that Arizona, Oregon, and/or Virginia may also pick up an additional seat. On the other side of the ledger, Alabama (-1), Illinois (-1), Michigan (-1), Minnesota (-1), Ohio (-1), Pennsylvania (-1), Rhode Island (-1), and West Virginia

Geoffrey Skelley

NY-11 Special: Republicans Well-Positioned to Hold One of Nation’s Most Distinctive Districts

Could the indictment of former Rep. Michael Grimm (R, NY-11) have worked out any better for national Republicans? Probably not. That may seem like an odd observation to make, but follow along. Despite winning reelection in 2012, an ethical cloud was hanging over Grimm, to the point where Democratic and Republican operatives wondered if, and when, the hammer would drop on the incumbent. The blow finally landed in late April 2014, when Grimm was indicted on federal fraud and other charges dating back to before Grimm won his seat. While no party would welcome the indictment of a sitting member, the development did allow national Republicans to cut bait on Grimm. His was a defeat they could afford, because it was clear the GOP would retain the House. Even if Grimm lost, Republicans could just find a better, non-indicted candidate and try to win the seat back in 2016. But Grimm confounded national Democrats, who spent heavily to defeat him, by waltzing to reelection in his district, which contains all of Staten Island and a small piece of Brooklyn. Then he agreed to plead guilty in his case and decided to step aside. To recap, national Republicans did not have

Kyle Kondik

House 2016: Republicans Start with a Commanding Edge

There is great symbolic importance to the lone U.S. House race where votes are being recounted. If Martha McSally (R) holds her narrow lead against Rep. Ron Barber (D, AZ-2), Republicans will have netted 13 House seats, giving them 247 in the 114th Congress and narrowly topping the 246 seats the Republicans held after the 1946 election, giving the GOP its biggest House caucus since 1928. If Barber somehow survives, the Republicans will only tie that mark with a net gain of 12. The GOP gain proved to be a bit smaller than seemed likely on Nov. 4: ABC News, for instance, projected a 14-to-18 seat Republican net on Election Night. But Democrats won nearly all the races that were called in the days following the election. Still, the Republicans did slightly better than most prognosticators expected (we pegged them for a gain of nine before the election). The outcome in AZ-2 doesn’t really change the overall outlook for the House going into 2016: Republicans have built themselves such a big advantage that it will be difficult, though not necessarily impossible, for Democrats to win back control of the chamber this cycle. Assuming McSally wins, the GOP will hold a

Kyle Kondik

What a Drag

U.Va. Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato is contributing a regular column to Politico Magazine. This week, he examines the presidential party’s penalty for holding the White House: losing ground everywhere else. This article originally appeared in Politico Magazine on Dec. 1, 2014. Think of the billions the parties must raise to elect a president in 2016. Consider the millions of paid and volunteer man-hours that will be devoted to this enterprise. The White House is the center of the partisan political universe, and Democrats and Republicans alike measure success or failure by their ability to win and hold the presidency. Instead, maybe they ought to hope they lose. The surest price the winning party will pay is defeat of hundreds of their most promising candidates and officeholders for Senate, House, governorships, and state legislative posts. Every eight-year presidency has emptied the benches for the triumphant party, and recently it has gotten even worse. (By the way, the two recent one-term presidents, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, also cost their parties many lower-level offices, but in both cases this didn’t happen until they were defeated for reelection.) Since World War II there have been eight two-term presidencies: Dwight

Larry J. Sabato

University of Virginia Center for Politics to Host 16th Annual American Democracy Conference

Today, Nov. 20, the University of Virginia Center for Politics will host the 16th annual American Democracy Conference. The conference, which will be held at Alumni Hall on the Grounds of the University of Virginia, will feature panels of leading journalists and political experts focused on the results of the recent midterm elections and the upcoming presidential race. The event, which will begin at 10:30 a.m., is free and open to the public with advance registration, and the press is invited to attend. For more information or to register, please visit http://www.centerforpolitics.org/adc.html. The conference will be livestreamed online at the following link: http://new.livestream.com/tavco/UVA-CenterforPolitics. The panels are: 10:30 a.m. to noon: Panel I: The 2014 midterm Moderator: Larry J. Sabato, director of the U.Va. Center for Politics Panelists: Alan Abramowitz, Sabato’s Crystal Ball senior columnist and Emory University professor Fred Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard Chris LaCivita, Republican political consultant who worked on Sen. Pat Roberts’ (R-KS) successful reelection bid Ali Lapp, executive director of House Majority PAC, a Democratic Super PAC Sean Trende, RealClearPolitics senior election analyst and Sabato’s Crystal Ball senior columnist 12:45 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.: Panel II: What to expect in 2016 Moderator: Geoffrey Skelley,

UVA Center for Politics

What Goes Around Comes Around?

Since President Obama’s reelection victory in 2012, a number of Republican state legislators around the country have proposed altering the electoral vote allocation processes in their respective states. Legislative activity on this front has been most common in competitive states that Obama won but where Republicans control most or all of state government, such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Despite some claims to the contrary, a key motivation has surely been to help Republicans win electoral votes in states that have been giving 100% of their share to Democrats. The latest entry to the Electoral College change-a-thon is Michigan, where state Rep. Pete Lund (R) has introduced House Bill 5974 to alter the state’s allocation process. A Republican presidential nominee last won the Wolverine State in 1988, meaning Democrats have claimed all of its electoral votes in six straight presidential elections. Another state where this is the case is Pennsylvania, and early in 2013 the Crystal Ball performed an in-depth analysis of a proportional plan then under consideration in the Keystone State. We would do the same for Michigan, but Crystal Ball friend Josh Putnam of Appalachian State University and the invaluable Frontloading HQ blog beat us to the punch.

Geoffrey Skelley

14 from ’14: Quick Takes on the Midterm

After going over the results from last week, we had a number of bite-sized observations to offer — 14, to be exact: 1. The polls really were worse than usual This cycle featured the largest average miss by the two major poll aggregators, RealClearPolitics and HuffPost Pollster, in recent competitive Senate races. This isn’t a slight toward them — after all, they simply use the data that’s available, and it seems the data may be getting worse. While the median miss has been somewhat up and down, the average has increased relatively consistently cycle-to-cycle. Why? Prior to this cycle, neither average had missed a race by double-digits, but this time at least one average missed the Arkansas, Kansas, and Virginia races by at least 10 points. Below you’ll find the median and average miss per election cycle from 2006-2014 for both major poll averages. Table 1: Median and average miss per election cycle for RealClearPolitics and HuffPost Pollster poll averages, 2006-2014 Chart 1: Median and average miss per election cycle for RealClearPolitics and HuffPost Pollster poll averages, 2006-2014 Notes: 2014 Senate data based on margins as of Wednesday, excludes yet-to-be-determined Louisiana contest. Races included in the analysis are all contests

Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley