House Handicapping Is Getting Very Silly, Very Quickly

By Stuart Rothenberg

I have already written that the 2006 election cycle offers Democrats an excellent opportunity to make serious gains in the House, possibly even the 15 seats they need to win a House majority. A Democratic wave seems likely to develop.

That said, some of the early assertions being thrown around about how many competitive House races there will be this cycle are foolish, indicating a misunderstanding of the 2006 landscape and how it compares to what happened in 1994.

It may make great copy to write that 100 GOP seats could be in play, or that recent Republican troubles could double the number of contested House races from 40 to 80 seats. But those numbers are no more credible than the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s hyperbolic assertion in an Oct. 21 press release that the party has "45 strong candidates for change."

Let’s take a serious look at where the fight for the House stands and where it might be headed.

Democrats have a number of strong candidates running in GOP open seats, including two each in Iowa’s 1st district and Colorado’s 7th, plus one in the Minnesota 6th. They also have good candidates in their own open seats - Maryland’s 3rd, Ohio’s 6th and Vermont’s at-large seat.

But recruiting strong hopefuls to seek a party’s own open seats isn’t news, and the Iowa and Colorado races are in tossup districts, in which both parties are expected to field strong candidates.

The test for the Democrats will be in open seats that lean Republican and in districts where Republican incumbents are seeking re-election - and in those districts, the Democrats’ achievements so far are mixed.

The DCCC can rightly boast about recruits such as Diane Farrell (Connecticut 4th), Lois Murphy (Pennsylvania 6th), Ron Klein (Florida 22nd), Patricia Madrid (New Mexico 1st), and former Reps. Nick Lampson (Texas 22nd) and Baron Hill (Indiana 9th). Each has demonstrated an ability to run a strong campaign, and each has significant personal accomplishments.

But some of those the DCCC is promoting as "strong candidates" have far fewer assets, and much more to prove, before they merit the strong candidate label.

For instance, I met businessman Tim Mahoney, who is challenging Rep. Mark Foley (R) in Florida’s 16th. He’s on the DCCC’s list, but if he’s a top-tier candidate, then I’m Thomas Jefferson. I found Mahoney to be an unpolished second- or third-tier House candidate who is not yet prepared for a U.S. House race. He may have some personal money to put into his race, and he may ultimately become a good candidate. Time will tell. But he isn’t one now.

Other candidates whom I have not yet interviewed don’t seem, on paper at least, to be top-tier recruits. John Pavich, a 29-year-old lawyer and former CIA employee who’s challenging Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.), has never run for office before. The same goes for Tony Trupiano, a former radio talk show host and weight-loss advocate who is challenging Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.).

The DCCC’s list also includes Francine Busby (California 50th), who drew 37 percent in a House bid in 2004, and Paul Hodes (New Hampshire 2nd), who drew 38 percent last year. Their showings are hardly proof that they are inherently strong challengers.

Many of the DCCC’s allegedly strong recruits have also raised no cash. Larry Grant (Idaho 1st) showed $11,453 on hand through Sept. 30, while Tim Walz (Minnesota 1st) had $41,150 in the bank and Jack Jackson (Arizona 1st) had $44,244 on hand. Yes, it’s early, but these and other mediocre fundraisers have plenty to prove.

About half of the names on the DCCC’s list of 45 strong candidates are warm bodies who actually may be able to take advantage of an electoral wave. After all, the GOP tsunami of 1994 swept in such lesser lights as Steve Stockman (Texas), Jon Christensen (Neb.), Dan Frisa (N.Y.), Wes Cooley (Ore.) and Enid Greene Waldholtz (Utah), none of whom survived more than two terms before being washed away again. But these Democratic recruits will have to demonstrate that they can win a race on their own.

As for the suggestions of 80 or 100 districts being in play next year, you probably can cut those numbers almost in half.

In the Nov. 2, 1994, issue of my newsletter, the Rothenberg Political Report, I identified 81 Democratic and 34 Republican House seats at real risk. Last year, at the end of the cycle, I classified only 30 total seats in the same way. The differences between 1994 and 2004 were dramatic, and even with a wave, 2006 will look much more like last year than 1994. No more than 50 or maybe 60 seats are likely to be in play a year from now.

A dozen years ago, Democrats held 252 seats - 20 seats more than the Republicans now hold. That meant Democrats were representing a considerable number of conservative and Republican-leaning districts that were vulnerable to a Republican wave.

Of the 34 Democratic incumbents defeated in 1994, only five represented districts that gave former President Bill Clinton more than 45 percent of the vote in 1992. By contrast, only 12 GOP Representatives currently hold districts carried by Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry (Mass.).

Even more important, 16 of the 34 Democrats defeated in 1994 were freshmen, and they had never run in an unfavorable cycle. This time, only three of the 33 incumbent Republicans against whom the DCCC says that it has recruited “strong” challengers are freshmen, and just over half, 17, were elected in 1994 or earlier, meaning that they successfully withstood Democratic tides in 1996 and 1998.

Finally, of course, there are fewer competitive districts after the post-2000 Census redistricting than there were before it, making it much more difficult for challengers to defeat incumbents.

One month ago, I surveyed the House and found 37 districts worth watching — 26 held by Republicans and 11 held by Democrats. Retirements, additional recruiting and a developing national political environment should increase that total. But the talk of 80 to 100 seats is, at this point, embarrassingly wrong.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on oCtober 27, 2005. Copyright 2005 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Many Republicans Look Ready to Gamble on Immigration Reform

By Stuart Rothenberg

A fight on Capitol Hill over immigration reform now appears inevitable, even though it carries considerable risk for the GOP. Rank-and-file Republicans are up in arms over illegal immigration into the United States, and they are demanding legislative action.

Nothing illustrates the division within Republican ranks on the issue more clearly than the very different approaches being taken by Arizona’s two Republican Senators.

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) have introduced a bill that would allow illegal immigrants in this country to continue working in the United States, eventually earning permanent residency if they meet certain conditions.

McCain’s Senate colleague in the Grand Canyon State, Jon Kyl (R), not only hasn’t signed onto McCain’s bill, but he and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) have introduced an alternative bill that would require illegal immigrants to leave the country before they apply to return as temporary workers.

McCain’s approach is much closer to the one initially preferred by President Bush, who proposed a guest worker program that would allow aliens in this country illegally to obtain green cards to work in the United States for an extended period.

But while many GOP allies in the business community applauded the White House’s proposal, and while "establishment" Republicans generally found favor with the approach, most conservatives reacted angrily, saying the idea rewarded illegal immigrants with "amnesty."

Whatever the Senate decides, House Republicans already have their collective minds made up. They clearly are more concerned with getting illegal aliens out of the country, and keeping them out, than with finding a way to allow aliens to work in the country.

Rather than producing a comprehensive bill, House Republicans seem to prefer dealing with the issue in two separate steps. The first bill would deal with border security and enforcement, while a subsequent measure takes up the guest worker issue. But you don’t have to speak with many House Republicans to understand that many of them wouldn’t care if they ever get to the second bill.

While analysts have been talking for months about the issue and its potential to shape next year’s campaigns, immigration already has become a thorny political issue, showing up in a handful of 2004 races, mostly GOP primaries.

Last cycle, Illinois Senate candidate Jim Oberweis ran a TV spot that warned "illegal aliens are coming here to take American workers’ jobs." In Arizona’s 8th district and Utah’s 3rd district, GOP primary challengers tried to use immigration to deny renomination to Reps. Jim Kolbe and Chris Cannon. And the anti-immigration Coalition for the Future American Worker ran TV spots against Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and two Democrats, then-Sen. Tom Daschle (S.D.) and then-Rep. Martin Frost (Texas), for their immigration positions.

Rules Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) saw his winning percentage plummet after being bludgeoned for backing Bush on guest workers.

Immigration already shows signs of being a big issue in next year’s elections. This year, state Sen. John Campbell (R), the favorite to win a special election to fill former Rep. Christopher Cox’s (R) open California House seat, has aired a TV spot in which he bragged that he "is working to stop illegal immigration."

Curbing illegal immigration is the primary issue for Canyon County Commissioner Robert Vasquez in a multicandidate Republican primary in Idaho’s 1st district. "I’m not a hyphenated American," Vasquez said. "I speak Spanish, I eat enchiladas. I appreciate my culture, but I love my country."

But while the immigration issue has the potential to rally the party’s conservative base and provide the GOP with an issue that could alter the overall national debate, it could also create a civil war within the Republican Party.

McCain already has mocked the opposing Senate bill, referring to it as "report to deport," and plenty of Republicans, including those in the business community, oppose punitive legislation that doesn’t allow undocumented aliens to work in jobs that many Americans don’t see as appealing.

Some Republicans also openly worry that the party will be branded as "racist" and "anti-Hispanic" if Congress deals with the issue as most House Republicans prefer. They note the problems California Republicans have had with Hispanic voters ever since then-Gov. Pete Wilson (R) took on illegal immigrants in his 1994 re-election campaign.

Not all party insiders agree with that fear, however. One GOP operative told me he doubts that is a huge problem as long as Republicans emphasize the "illegal" aspect.

Adding into the political equation on the issue is that the president’s standing in public opinion polls encourages House and Senate Republicans to fight him on immigration, regardless of what position he takes. As one consultant told me, "There are a significant number of Republicans looking to split with the president, as a way of helping them survive in ’06. That’s a piece of the puzzle, too."

Even with immigration reform’s potential downside, some party strategists believe immigration could emerge as an issue that Republicans can ride from now all of the way to next November. As one Republican strategist told me recently, "Better [immigration] than the other ‘I’ word" - Iraq.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on October 24, 2005. Copyright 2005 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Democratic Strategists, Take Note: It’s Time to Think Big

By Stuart Rothenberg

For the first time in a dozen years, the political environment looks right for generic party advertising. But tight finances and the difficulty in getting party committees to agree on a single message could dampen interest in a strategy that worked well in 1980 and 1982 but poorly ever since.

If that last paragraph seems vaguely familiar, you have an extraordinary memory. It led off a column that appeared in this space on July 15, 1993. Then, as now, I was convinced that a national advertising campaign and a national message would benefit the "out" party in the next midterm election.

Republicans didn’t take my advice (so what else is new?), but they were able to nationalize the 1994 elections by making them a referendum on then-President Bill Clinton and his agenda, riding a tsunami to control of Congress.

I generally dismiss early TV political ads, finding them wasteful and ineffective. Normally, only consultants, not their clients, benefit from early ads. But this isn’t a typical election cycle.

With President Bush’s poll numbers down, Congressional job approval in the tank, Republican ethics problems making headlines and conservatives less than enthusiastic about the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, Democrats need to do everything they can to create a "national election."

A Democratic nationwide television advertising campaign can help make every race a referendum on the president, the Republican Congress and the status quo. It’s worked before.

The most effective national party advertising campaign ran in 1980, when the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee pooled their resources to fund an advertising campaign that cost $8 million - an extraordinary amount of money two decades ago.

The spots began airing in late January 1980, more than nine months before the general election. In one ad, an actor who looked like Speaker Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.) ran out of gas. The spot’s tag line was: "Vote Republican. For a Change."

That fall, Republicans picked up 34 House seats and 12 Senate seats, giving them control of the Senate for the first time in almost 40 years and yanking power away from a Democratic Party that had controlled the House, Senate and presidency for the past four years.

Two years later, with the country in recession, Democrats ran their own effective generic advertising effort - a TV ad campaign proclaiming, "It’s not fair. It’s Republican." The party picked up 26 House seats.

So far, House Democratic leaders apparently have been spending most of their time trying to create a party message for the cycle. They are concerned about offering a positive agenda to counter Republican complaints that Democrats do nothing but criticize and stand for nothing.

That’s not what I’m talking about. In fact, there is no reason for Democrats to rush out an agenda of their own this fall.

Many people assume that the "Contract with America" contributed in some way to the GOP’s election success in 1994, but it’s a conclusion disputed by some Republican operatives actively involved in the cycle. Notably, that agenda wasn’t unveiled until Sept. 27, just five weeks before the election.

In fact, the phrase "Contract with America" didn’t appear in this newspaper until an article in late July, and then it was presented simply as an initiative on which the House Republican Conference was working. Until that point, Republicans focused exclusively on the Democrats’ failings.

Democrats don’t need to offer a positive agenda until next year. For the near future, they can do just fine pointing to the Republicans’ problems.

But a couple of waves of early TV advertising - possibly using the "together, we can do better" tag that has tested so well in focus groups - could help position the Democrats as the party of change and reform.

Some Democrats not only agree with me, they believe that the ads will come.

"The issue isn’t whether we should run ads, but when," one well-placed Democrat told me recently. "How we get the dollars and what the ads are going to say will be decided later. But there is no disagreement [among Democratic decision-makers] about whether to do the ads."

Other Democrats, though, are more cautious about the inevitability of a generic Democratic advertising campaign.

As it was back in 1993, money is again an issue now that soft money is not available to the parties.

Some insiders flatly predict that the Democratic National Committee will lack the resources to fund an ad, and even Democrats who support national generic advertising admit that the party would have to raise money specially for such an advertising effort. I would counter that a successful advertising effort could create a flood of new money for the party’s candidates and committees if Democratic donors smell blood in the water.

Other Democrats wonder whether party insiders who would have a role in any decision on a national TV campaign - the chairs of the two campaign committees, the party’s House and Senate leaders and an endless list of consultants - could possibly agree on what to say and when to say it.

My 1993 column ended by suggesting that if Clinton remained weak, a Republican generic advertising campaign might "force Democrats to defend more seats" and "help turn a small wave into a tsunami." That’s how I feel now, except that the beneficiaries this cycle would be Democrats, not the GOP.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on October 17, 2005. Copyright 2005 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Is the House GOP’s Ace in the Hole Really a Deuce?

By Stuart Rothenberg

This week’s CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll numbers aren’t startling because they weren’t different from others we’ve seen recently. The president’s job ratings are bad. Congress’ job rating is low. A majority of Americans think the country is headed off on the wrong track.

But while National Republican Congressional Committee operatives have acknowledged the national mood is sour, they gamely argue that their incumbents are in much better shape than you might think.

"While generic polls have value, polls that gauge the likelihood of voters to vote to re-elect their own Member of Congress are far more meaningful," two NRCC communications staffers wrote in a mid-October memo.

The NRCC memo noted a September Pew Research Center poll that asked, "Would you like to see your representative in Congress re-elected in the next congressional election, or not?" found 57 percent saying they favored re-election. Only 25 percent opposed their representative’s re-election.

Well, I’m not convinced, especially after doing some digging through old poll numbers. I went back to similar polling in 1993 and 1994, before the Republican wave of 1994 swept Democrats out of the majority in the House and Senate, and found two interesting points.

First, the Pew results aren’t all that different from some poll results released a dozen years ago.

In June 1993 and January 1994, Yankelovich Partners asked a similarly worded question about voters’ own House Members in Time/CNN surveys: "In your view, does the U.S. representative from your area deserve to be reelected or not?"

Both surveys found 57 percent of respondents saying that their Representative should be re-elected. In fact, the results from the January poll were identical to the recent Pew poll - 57 percent said their Representative deserved to be re-elected, while 25 percent said they did not.

Gallup polls for CNN and USA Today from July 1993 to March 1994 asked a question that was worded much like the Yankelovich and recent Pew polls, and it produced similarly high results of support for incumbent re-election.

The Gallup surveys asked respondents whether their U.S. Representative "deserves to be reelected," and found 54 percent to 62 percent answering in the affirmative.

All of that sounded good for incumbents, didn’t it? But it wasn’t.

As we know, voters in 1994 tossed out 34 House Democrats seeking to return to office (and not a single Republican), even though the Gallup and Yankelovich numbers in the fall and winter showed a solid majority of Americans thought their Representatives should be re-elected.

That’s not great news for anyone citing last month’s Pew numbers in making their case that the situation isn’t all that bad for House Republicans right now.

But there is a second reason the Pew numbers should be viewed with caution. The wording of questions appears to be crucial in explaining the Pew, Gallup and Yankelovich numbers I just cited.

The ABC/Washington Post and NBC/Wall Street Journal polls of 1993 and 1994 asked respondents whether their Representative "deserved" to be re-elected or whether they were "inclined" to vote to re-elect their Representative in Congress.

But, unlike the polls that produced good numbers for incumbents, the ABC/Post and NBC/WSJ polls attached an additional clause that asked "or are you inclined to look around for someone else to vote for?" (ABC/Washington Post) and "or do you think it is time to give a new person a chance?" (NBC/WSJ).

When the question included an explicit alternative to re-electing the incumbent House Member, those being polled were much less likely to answer that their Representative should be sent back to Washington, D.C.

Specifically, the November 1993 ABC/Post poll found only 38 percent saying that their Representative should be re-elected, while 52 percent said they were inclined to look for someone else. In January 1994, only 32 percent said they’d vote to re-elect their Representative.

The NBC/WSJ poll results from July 1993 to May 1994 were similar, with 47 percent to 55 percent saying that it was time to give a new person a chance, and only 30 percent to 37 percent saying that their House Member deserved re-election.

Note that the Yankelovich, Gallup, ABC/Post and NBC/WSJ polls all were conducted in roughly the same period, between the summer of 1993 and the spring of 1994. Given that, the differences between the polls that offer a "new person" alternative and those that did not is dramatic.

Remember, the recent Pew survey wording was much, much closer to that of the Yankelovich and Gallup polling, which produced better numbers for incumbents and did not prove very predictive of the 1994 Republican wave.

The lesson, then, is clear. When it comes to the question of whether voters believe their own House Member deserves re-election, Republicans are in no better shape now than Democrats were at the same time during the 1993-1994 election cycle. A different "re-elect" wording would produce a result that shows greater vulnerability than does the Pew poll.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on October 20, 2005. Copyright 2005 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.