Election 2010 -- House Focus

So the results are largely in for Election 2010, although there are several House races and a couple of Senate and governor races that have yet to be officially called. Overall, it looks as though the GOP is going to end up with a net gain of about 64 seats in the U.S. House, for a 243 seat majority. This is a significantly larger swing than they enjoyed in the 1994 election, when the GOP only gained 52 seats, and gives them the largest majority they have had in the House since the 1940's. Their gain more than offsets the total gains Democrats made in the House in the past two elections in 2006 and 2008. In addition, the Republicans have apparently picked up 6 seats in the U.S. Senate, assuming that Washington ends up going for the Democrat and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska remains a Republican. This is a smaller haul than the 8-seat pickup the GOP enjoyed in 1994, and gives them 47 seats in the new Senate. Finally, the GOP has a net gain of at least 6 governorships, with several races that have still not been determined, which means they will hold at least 29 of the 50 governorships. Included in those governorships are some of the most important swing states in the country -- Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. And they have apparently gained more than 600 state legislative seats and taken new majorities in more than 19 legislatures, which has dramatic consequences for congressional redistricting.

The Republicans' most impressive performance on Tuesday was in the House. They took almost all of the "low-hanging fruit" -- the seats they were expected to win -- but also picked up a number of more difficult seats that they were not favored to win. They ousted a sizable number of long-time House incumbents, some of whom were powerful committee chairmen -- Rick Boucher (VA), Ike Skelton (MO), John Spratt (SC), James Oberstar (MN), Gene Taylor (MS), Chet Edwards (TX), Allen Boyd (FL), and possibly Solomon Ortiz (TX). In addition, they came up agonizingly short in a number of other races -- there were probably at least another 12-15 seats that they lost by just a couple thousand votes or less.

Looking more closely at the anatomy of the House gains, the GOP did especially well in open seate races. Of the 16 Democratic-held open seats considered competitive, the GOP won 14 of the 16. The only two they lost were Democratic-leaning seats in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. They also lost only one of their own open seats -- in heavily Democratic Delaware -- despite facing some tough challenges in several other Republican-held open seats in Illinois, Florida, Arizona, and Michigan. GOP incumbents also performed extremely well. Only 2 lost, and both of those were unusual cases. One, Anh Cao of Louisiana, won a 74% black district in a fluke runoff election in December 2008 with extremely low turnout, defeating a congressman under a huge ethical cloud. The other one was Charles Djou of Hawaii, who captured a heavily Democratic seat in a special election in May by winning 40% of the vote in a three-way race. All other GOP incumbents won by comfortable margins.

There was at least one Democratic House incumbent who lost in every region of the country, but by far the majority of those losing incumbents were in the South and the Great Lakes/Rust Belt regions. The biggest concentration of incumbent losses were in a belt stretching from Wisconsin across the Great Lakes states to Pennsylvania and New York. Four incumbents lost in New York, four in Pennsylvania, five in Ohio, one in Indiana, one in Michigan, four in Illinois, and one in Wisconsin, totaling 20 seats. The Democrats also lost four incumbents in Florida, three in Texas, and another three (possibly four, pending a recount) in Virginia, as well as a total 7 in a band of Deep South states stretching from North Carolina to Mississippi and Tennessee. In the Rocky Mountain region, they lost two incumbents each in Colorado and Arizona. On the other hand, New England was a bust, with only one incumbent losing in New Hampshire. And the Democrats may hold their incumbent losses on the West Coast to only one as well, with at least a couple of races undecided.

A large variety of Democratic incumbents lost. Voting against Obama's agenda did not protect many incumbents in heavily Republican districts -- Gene Taylor and Travis Childers of Mississippi, Jim Marshall of Georgia, Bobby Bright of Alabama, Lincoln Davis of Tennessee, and Walt Minnick of Idaho all lost, despite their conservative voting records. However, a large number of liberal Democratic incumbents lost as well -- among them Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania, Phil Hare of Illinois, Steve Kagen of Wisconsin, John Hall of New York, Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio, Tom Perriello of Virginia, Alan Grayson and Ron Klein of Florida, and Mark Schauer of Michigan. The outcome of the House races proved that a financial advantage is not enough to guarantee a member's re-election if voters are unhappy with that member's performance. The five Democratic incumbents who were the biggest recipients of spending by outside liberal groups (mostly union groups) all lost -- Tom Perriello of Virginia, Mark Schauer of Michigan, Dina Titus of Nevada, John Boccieri of Ohio, and Harry Teague of New Mexico. One clear pattern that emerged from the election was the relationship between a district's presidential voting habits and their House vote this year. My rough estimate is that about half of the Republican pickups this year came in districts that supported McCain in 2008, and a large majority came in districts that supported Bush in 2004. Republicans did win in a few Democratic-leaning districts, such as James Oberstar's seat in Minnesota, Phil Hare's seat in Illinois, and open seats in New Hampshire and suburban Philadelphia, but for the most part their wins came on Republican-friendly turf. While this explains some of the GOP disappointments in New England and the West Coast, it also may bode well for an enduring majority in the House. With so many Republican seats held in Republican-friendly districts, it will be that much harder for those incumbents to be defeated in the future.

In this post that I wrote right after the Democrats pushed ObamaCare through the House in March, I listed 47 Democrats from districts that voted for Bush in 2004 who voted for ObamaCare and said that a large majority of them had to go. Well, looking back at that list, 33 of those 47 were defeated either in the primary or the general election -- around 70% (and that is not even counting two others whose races have not yet been decided). That's a pretty high casualty rate! Also, last week I listed 35 liberal Democrats in competitive races that I especially wanted to see defeated. Of those 35, at least 22 were defeated, with three others in close races that have not yet been called. That's a 63% casualty rate -- again very high and very satisfying. Overall, I think the American people sent a pretty loud message, and it remains to be seen whether the Democrats have heard and understood that message.

This post has focused primarily on the House results. I will make another post soon discussing the Senate and governor's race results, as well as analyzing how accurate my predictions were. Stay tuned!