Sabato's Crystal Ball

A Senate That’s Fit to Be Tied? Updating the Battle for Congress

Larry J. Sabato and Kyle Kondik, U.Va. Center for Politics May 10th, 2012

Some analysts have been making the case that 2012 is going to turn decisively one way or the other — perhaps evolving into a 2008-style margin for Democrats or Republicans.

Maybe they are right, but every objective piece of evidence so far suggests that this election will be quite close and highly competitive for the presidency, Senate and, to perhaps a lesser extent, House.

It’s not 2008 anymore. There are contradictory trade winds blowing hard, some lifting President Obama, and others Mitt Romney.

Enthusiasm seems restrained for both men in critical parts of the electorate. For Obama, what was a crusade four years ago is a mere campaign today. Governing realities and a stubbornly slow economic recovery have tempered the heady expectations that powered Obama to a decisive win. “Hope and change” has become a rote movement “Forward” without an obvious destination.

For Romney, few are under any illusions that he has a magic elixir to solve the protracted problems the nation faces. Given his breathtaking ideological evolution over the years, many in his own party base are unsure what he will actually do on many issues, should he be elected.

Perhaps we’re heading toward another 2000 or 2004-style election: A close, gritty affair where neither side will score a towering victory. In other words, while it’s easy now to see either the Democrats or Republicans doing well in November, it’s hard to see either doing great, at least right now.

Shifts in the Senate

Sen. Richard Lugar’s (R-IN) landslide defeat on Tuesday night adds yet another wrinkle to this year’s battle for the U.S. Senate. Lugar would have been a shoo-in for reelection, but now Democrats have at least a modest chance to grab the seat. Rep. Joe Donnelly, the Democratic nominee, has to be ecstatic. We still believe that Richard Mourdock, the Republican state treasurer who defeated Lugar on Tuesday, is the favorite to win this seat, but we are changing the rating from “likely Republican” to LEANS REPUBLICAN. Lugar ran a miserable campaign and was dogged by questions about his residency — it appeared that he hadn’t lived in the Hoosier State since the 1970s. Lugar’s loss is a lesson that politics, like all other sports, requires practice, and after finding himself in a real race for the first time in decades, Lugar was out of shape. It cost him. Hoosier Republicans wanted a more conservative senator, too — and they might get him.

Meanwhile, it is tempting to give the same rating to the Republican incumbent commonly thought to be most vulnerable in this cycle: Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts. That’s because Brown is a steady, cagey campaigner, and his opponent — liberal favorite and consumer protection advocate Elizabeth Warren — has had a terrible couple of weeks. After stories emerged about her being listed as a minority at Harvard (she is reportedly 1/32nd Native American), Warren made a clumsy gaffe:  “I still have a picture on my mantel and it is a picture my mother had before that — a picture of my grandfather. And my Aunt Bea has walked by that picture at least a 1,000 times remarked that he — her father, my Papaw — had high cheekbones like all of the Indians do.” If the 2012 election has a “Macaca” moment — referring to the infamous incident from ex-Sen. George Allen’s (R-VA) 2006 reelection campaign — this could very well be it.

That said, we are keeping this race a toss-up for now.

The problem for Brown is that he’s going to have to overcome a Democratic wave in November of presumably epic proportions. In 2008 Obama defeated John McCain in Massachusetts by about 62% to 36% — or a margin of 795,000 votes. Even though Massachusetts native Mitt Romney is the Republican nominee, Obama will still win comfortably. Let’s say that Obama wins by only 700,000 votes. That still means that Brown would need more than 350,000 of those voters to split their ballots for him in order to turn the tide. Assuming turnout is about the same — 3.1 million ballots cast in 2008 — he’ll need at least 11% of voters to split their tickets in his favor. That’s a lot in a partisan era, even against an imperfect candidate. However, Warren needs to get her act together.

In the wake of Warren’s gaffe, a new Rasmussen poll showed the two candidates tied at 45% apiece, not a bad result for Warren under the circumstances.

Speaking of faltering candidacies, Rep. Connie Mack (R) has been floundering in his challenge to Florida Sen. Bill Nelson (D). Mack has struggled with basic inquiries from reporters, and he faces the same questions about residency — his wife, Rep. Mary Bono Mack, lives in California — that helped sink Lugar. Mack reminds us a bit of Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the presidential contest, and we’re not being complimentary. Like Perry, who entered the White House race late and had trouble articulating why exactly he was running, Mack seemed to jump into the Florida Senate contest only when it became apparent that the existing GOP field was not very good.

However, it is not clear how that GOP field — which also includes ex-Sen. George LeMieux — will shake out. And perhaps a big Romney wave in Florida will lift Mack, too.

If the election were today, we’d probably pick Scott Brown in Massachusetts and Bill Nelson in Florida. But it isn’t, and we’re going to wait a bit longer before we move those races out of the toss-up column.

There is one toss-up we’re now comfortable moving: We now favor the Democrats in New Mexico’s Senate race. The reason has little to do with the two likely big party nominees: Rep. Martin Heinrich (D) and ex-Rep. Heather Wilson (R). It does have to do with the fact that New Mexico looks to be squarely in Barack Obama’s camp in November, and we don’t see a huge crossover vote boosting the Republican Wilson. Obviously, if Romney opens up a lead in the presidential race, and if New Mexico becomes competitive, we’ll have to revisit this rating. But, for now, this race LEANS DEMOCRATIC.

Finally, and though he had a tougher-than-expected run in 2010, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is looking strong, in part because his opponent is the lackluster businessman and perennial candidate John Raese, whom Manchin defeated in 2010. We’re moving this race to SAFE DEMOCRATIC, despite West Virginia’s Republican lean at the presidential level. Note that Manchin has declined to endorse his party’s president, Barack Obama, and he did not indicate if he, like so many other West Virginia Democrats, preferred prison inmate Keith Judd to the sitting president.

The Senate calculus is now this: If all members not up for reelection return to the Senate next January, and all the seats where we favor one party go that way in November, the Senate is 47-46 Democratic, with seven toss-ups.

Chart 1: Crystal Ball Senate rating changes



Tweaking the House

Republicans remain strongly favored to keep the House, but it looks like Democrats will be able to pick up at least some seats to cut into the GOP’s 242-190 edge (with three Democratic vacancies). That said, Republicans are not without opportunities.

Chart 2: Crystal Ball House ratings changes



On Tuesday, the National Republican Congressional Committee had a good night. In two competitive races, the GOP establishment’s preferred candidate won: first, freshman Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-IN) held off a challenge from activist Kristi Risk; and second, state Sen. David Rouzer (R) won the right to challenge vulnerable Rep. Mike McIntyre by dispatching 2010 McIntyre challenger Ilario Pantano. A Pantano candidacy would have kept this district a toss-up; with Rouzer’s win, we now give him a slight edge. Also, retiring Rep. Brad Miller’s seat appears almost certain to go to former U.S. Attorney George Holding (R); the winner of the Democratic primary for that seat announced before the primary that he would not be a candidate in the fall, forcing Democrats to find a new contender. At this point, Republicans are favored to win four Democratic-held seats in the Tar Heel State, but Democrats could possibly limit these losses to a couple.

Rep. Mark Critz (D-PA), who won a tough member-versus-member primary against Rep. Jason Altmire, will face Keith Rothfus, who almost beat Altmire in 2010 in this re-shaped Western Pennsylvania district. We previously rated this race as leans Democratic with the thought that Altmire would win the primary, because under the new Republican-drawn Keystone State House map, the district was actually a touch bluer than Altmire’s current district. However, because Critz won, this district could go either way — Critz’s current territory is several points bluer than the new PA-12, where he now must run.

We are continuing to alter and monitor developments in New York, where redistricting maps were released relatively late and where the primary is late (June 26). Still, some big names — such as Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rep. Steve Israel (D) and Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Peter King (R) — seem safe.

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), the eccentric octogenarian, is now an underdog against wealthy Democratic businessman John Delaney, who since our last update won a smashing primary upset and is well positioned to capitalize on a Democratic gerrymander and retire Bartlett.

At this point, we rate 234 House seats as safe, likely or leaning Republican and 188 as safe, likely or leaning Democratic. That leaves 13 toss-ups — if the Democrats can sweep those (hardly a given), they would have an eight-seat gain. But it will take cutting into seats where we currently favor Republicans — and holding some currently Democratic-held seats we believe at this point will flip — to really threaten John Boehner’s speakership.

With the election now less than six months away, we will be making more frequent updates to our House ratings. To see our full House ratings, click here; and our Senate ratings are available here.

Conclusion

A good early bet is for the margins of control to narrow in both houses of Congress. Republicans should win the House of Representatives again, but Democrats will pick up some seats, maybe cutting the GOP majority of 25 by a third or (only if Obama wins handily) by as much as half. The Senate appears likely to be very narrowly divided, with Democrats holding on by a seat or, more likely, Republicans gaining technical control by a seat or two. It might even come down to a tie-breaking vote by the newly elected vice president or the eventual party-choice decision of Maine’s Angus King, the Independent frontrunner for Republican Olympia Snowe’s Senate seat. We believe he’ll ultimately caucus with the Democrats, but there’s a lot that can happen between now and next January that might change that calculus.

Let’s Not Overreact to the Judd Mutiny

Kyle Kondik, Political Analyst May 10th, 2012

We would make a joke about President Obama only taking 59% of the West Virginia primary vote against a federal prison inmate named Keith Judd, but every possible one was exhausted on Twitter by Wednesday morning. Suffice it to say, it was an embarrassing performance for the president, albeit in a state he has no chance of winning in November.

And that’s just it: West Virginians don’t like Obama, they never have and they most likely never will. We could hypothesize on the reasons for that, but it’s beside the point. Obama got crushed there in his 2008 primary against Hillary Clinton (67% to 26%), and he will be crushed there in the fall.

But what does Obama’s horrible Mountain State showing say about similar regions, such as Southeast Ohio and Western Pennsylvania? Does it indicate that he’ll do poorly in these regions in November?

Yes, probably. But he did poorly in these places in 2008, too.

Of the 14 counties defined in the Ohio Politics Almanac as part of Southeast Ohio, Obama carried only four. On the other hand, Bill Clinton carried 13 of these 14 counties in 1996. Likewise, in the 26 counties of Western Pennsylvania — defined as those west of Centre County — Obama won only four in 2008. Clinton, meanwhile, won 15 of the 26 in 1996. Additionally, Obama lost every single one of these 40 counties during his 2008 primary with Hillary Clinton.

Even in these major, competitive swing states, Obama’s fortunes hinge on other areas, as evidenced by his ability to win both of these states in November 2008 despite his poor performance in these two regions. Same thing for the other states touching West Virginia: heavily Republican Western Virginia, heavily Republican Kentucky and the conservative panhandle of deeply Democratic Maryland. Those regions are united with West Virginia in their dislike of the president, but Obama doesn’t need his winning votes to come from them.

More interesting and telling for November, at least on the surface, is Obama’s performance in North Carolina. There he took about 79% of the vote, against 21% for “no preference.” But it’s important to note that until 2008‘s razor-thin Obama victory, North Carolina had gone Republican in every previous presidential election dating back to 1968 (CORRECTION: except for 1976, when it went for Jimmy Carter). That’s despite the fact that, even now, Democrats hold a roughly 760,000-voter advantage in party registration. There were many “Democrats” who voted on Tuesday who assuredly weren’t going to vote for the president in the fall. That’s reflected to at least some degree in Obama’s underwhelming primary performance there.

In last week’s Crystal Ball, Rhodes Cook looked at Obama’s primary performance and observed the following:

And what the results so far seem to show is that Obama remains strong among the basic core elements of the Democratic Party — urban voters, minorities and the college campuses — as well as showing continued appeal among an important swing element of the electorate, the suburbs. The president has tended to fare less well in this year’s primary voting in blue-collar strongholds and rural, often Republican-oriented, counties.

That observation remains true today, even after the Judd Mutiny.

Tuesday’s primaries were conducted on largely Republican turf: Obama is going to lose West Virginia in the fall, and we do not favor him at this point to hold North Carolina and Indiana, two states he very narrowly won in 2008. And, don’t forget — Mitt Romney didn’t get more than 70% of the vote in any of these three states, despite his contest being effectively over. Rhodes’ observation largely applies to Romney’s primary performance too. Indiana, North Carolina and West Virginia are not states ideally suited to Romney or Obama, but they are ones that are likelier than not to back Romney.

Meanwhile, the battle for the presidency probably will be won and lost elsewhere.

Do Independent Voters Matter?

Todd Eberly, Guest Columnist May 10th, 2012

Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, recently wrote a report for the centrist group Third Way about independent voters. Crystal Ball senior columnist Alan Abramowitz addressed that report in a recent article, and Eberly asked to respond. His point of view differs from Abramowitz’s and the inclinations of the Crystal Ball staff, but in order to present readers a full view, we agreed to give Eberly a chance to share his views.
– The Editors

Are independent voters a myth? That is certainly the conclusion of many who study political science. Research has demonstrated that, when pressed, independent voters often reveal significant partisan preferences: They lean Democratic or lean Republican. When leaners are reclassified and grouped among their partisan peers the share of pure independents in the electorate falls — by some accounts — to less than 10% of the electorate.

If the true number of independent voters is less than 10% of the electorate, then independent voters are of little concern. In an age of narrow victory margins in the national popular vote for the presidency and control of the House of Representatives, winning a majority of that 10% can be crucial, but appeals to a party’s partisans would be a more important focus.

But what if the number of independent voters is greater than 10%, or even greater than 20%? Suddenly, winning a majority of independent voters becomes more important. In a recent report written for the centrist Democratic organization Third Way, I examined whether or not leaners are indeed independent. For my research, I used the 2000-2004 panel study conducted by the American National Election Studies (ANES). I selected the panel study for a simple reason:  It’s one of the few studies available that tracked the same group of voters across multiple elections. That’s important. Most studies of voting and partisanship capture only a snapshot of a point in time and allow researchers to measure partisanship only during a given election cycle.

Such snapshots would be fine if partisanship were permanent and not subject to change. That is very much the view of partisanship taken by those who consider independent voters to be a myth. In my research for Third Way, I compared the partisan voting loyalty of Democrats and Republicans by looking at their partisan vote choice across three House elections (2000, 2002 and 2004) compared to their strength of partisanship in 2000. Survey respondents were classified as being strong, weak or independent partisans (leaners). I found that weak and independent partisans are less loyal to party in the short term and especially across time. While roughly 90% of strong partisans voted the party line in 2000, approximately a quarter of weak and independent partisans crossed party lines that year. In 2002 and 2004, strong and weak partisans held steady at roughly 90% and 75% loyalty, but independent partisans were more volatile — especially independent Democrats. In 2002, 46% of those who identified as an independent Democrat in 2000 voted Republican. The share was 38% in 2004. I also found that independent partisans were far more likely to switch their partisan identification over time — so 2000’s independent Democrat could well be 2004’s independent Republican. That’s something a non-panel series could not account for.

The study suggested that during a given election period independent partisans are as loyal to party as their weak partisan peers, but that loyalty wanes over time. To me, a voter who switches his or her partisan vote choice from one election cycle to the next is not a loyal partisan — rather, that voter is an independent voter. My findings have been criticized largely based on my selection of the 2000-2004 data series. Some contend that the events of Sept. 11 and the subsequent War on Terror made that time period unique and therefore unrepresentative. Unfortunately there is no other comparable data set exploring the same respondents across multiple elections. In a recent post challenging the findings contained in the Third Way report, Alan Abramowitz examined the 2008-2009 panel study and compared the partisan loyalty and partisan vote choice of respondents in the 2008 presidential election. Abramowitz came to the same conclusion as did I in my Third Way report: that independent partisans behave much like their more partisan peers in a given election.

Unfortunately, the 2008-2009 panel survey does not allow one to follow partisanship or partisan loyalty across multiple elections. As such it is not a useful data source for the study of partisan loyalty and the presence of independent voters. Additionally, I researched partisan loyalty by examining House elections, because it allows one to study multiple elections across a relatively short timeframe.

To address concerns about the 2000-2004 data, I conducted additional analyses with that data source and with the 1992-1997 panel survey by ANES. Having already demonstrated that leaners are less loyal to party over time, I wanted to focus on estimating the number of true independent voters in the electorate. Based on my study for Third Way, I placed the number at approximately 25% of the electorate, which is a number also endorsed by Linda Killian in her book, The Swing Vote.

I compared the 1994 and 1996 as well as the 2002 and 2004 partisan vote choice to the choice made in 1992 and 2000 respectively. In other words, what share of the folks who voted Democratic in 1992 voted Republican in 1994 or 1996? What share of folks voting Republican in 2000 voted Democrat in 2002 and 2004?

As I am interested in two-party vote shares, I limited my study to only those who voted for one of the two parties in each of the elections covered. Of those who voted for a Democrat in the 1992 House elections, 25% opted to vote Republican in 1994 and 24% opted to vote Republican in 1996. Among Republicans, 12% voted for a Democrat in 1994 and 21% voted for a Democrat in 1996. Based on the two-party vote shares in each election, nearly 19% of those voting in 1992 and 1994 changed their partisan vote choice. The overall share was closer to 23% between 1992 and 1996.

When looking at the more recent era, of those who voted for a Democrat in the 2000 House elections, 16% voted Republican in 2002 and 21% voted Republican in 2004. Among Republicans, 11% voted Democrat in 2002 and 21% voted Democrat in 2004.

Both panel series show that partisan loyalty declines over time, and that Democratic voters are less loyal than Republican voters. Consistent with the findings of the Third Way report, both panel series show that partisan loyalty is weakest among weak, but especially among independent, partisans (most defections came from independent partisans). Much is made of surveys by Gallup and Pew that suggest that a plurality of voters are independents — perhaps as much as 40%. This is simply incorrect. But so too are arguments that independent voters make up less than 10% of the electorate. The stability of a partisan coalition is dependent upon sustained loyalty across elections, but roughly 20% of the voting electorate are not loyal partisans (and that share would grow if I expanded my study to include folks who opted to not vote — as non-voters could hardly be considered loyal partisans). In an era of closely matched political parties and relatively narrow two-party vote shares, winning and maintaining the support of that 20% is crucial.