House Elections

house1980-2008

Here's an interesting chart:

       GOP     Dem
1990  43.9%    52.0%
1992  44.8%    49.9%
1994  49.9%    44.0%
1996  47.8%    48.1%
1998  48.0%    47.1%
2000  47.3%    47.0%
2002  49.6%    45.0%
2004  49.2%    46.6%
2006  44.0%    52.1%
2008  44.6%    52.6%

These are the percentages of the national popular vote won by the two major parties in elections for the House of Representatives. Just some observations:

- The 1994 "Republican Revolution" did not really signify that great a swing in votes. I have heard theories that redistricting did in the Democratic majority (Democratic minority voters were packed into districts because of a liberal insistence on "majority-minority" districts).

- 2006 and 2008 look awfully similar--except that third parties drew a full percent less in 2008 than they did in 2006. I will attribute that to what was clearly a very polarizing presidential election.

- It's pretty apparent that the Democrats have a stronger national brand than the Republicans--but I don't think that's a particularly new development. Unlike at the presidential level, it has been damn near impossible for the Republicans to break through at 50% of the House vote. What do I mean when I argue that? The Democrats still have a presence in the South--a Southern Democrat like Heath Shuler has little resemblance to a Northern Democrat like Barney Frank, but they caucus in the same party.

- The Democrats managed to pick up 20 seats without significantly upgrading their popular vote total. This is not normal, I think, and signifies to me that the Rahmbo/Dean Democratic approach is strategically more sound than Republican tactics. Why? The more seats you have, the larger a percentage of votes you will need, in the aggregate, to defend them. If the Dems win a 52/44 margin in the House for the next 8 years, the overall seat balance in the House (255/174) will not change much. Hell, there would be years on a 52/44 margin that the Republicans would manage to pick up a few seats. To me, the addition of 20 more seats is a signal that the Dems managed to find strong candidates to run in competitive races. They actually lost a fraction in the overall margin (though I think the decline of third party voters may have helped them a bit as well).

- I don't think that the Dems are fated to lose a handful of House seats in 2010. The economy may show signs of recovery by late 2010, giving Obama a strong case to make in defense of those House seats. The timing of this financial crisis was utterly tragic for Republicans.

- On the Senate: the Dems still have an outside chance at a 60/40 win. Norm Coleman is looking at a recount in Minnesota. There are some abnormalities in Alaska with Mr. Stevens, who may lose anyway. And the Georgia race is going to a run-off, and the Dems will bring their newfound organizational apparatus to the fold.

In either case, the filibuster won't be THAT significant. As a Republican, you can only hope that enough Republicans (and moderate Democrats) can hold up some of Obama's more offensive judicial nominations.

The notion of America as a "center-right" country is about to be tested. We certainly live in interesting times.