The problem is that such analysis largely ignores or at best pays lip service to the structural and historic reasons for the Democrats' unruliness. In an evenly-divided nation with our political structure, it is harder to elect a center-left coalition than a center-right coalition. Because of this, and because of the way the parties developed, progressives/liberals tend to...]]> Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0500 While the outcome of the election may not be terribly important in terms of which member eventually gets to vote in Congress, there may be some more general observations we can make. Does the election tell us anything about the state of the GOP and the upcoming midterm elections?

To the extent that we can read any tea leaves from a special election result, it probably doesn't really matter whether the result is a 65-vote win for the Republican or for the Democrat. It matters for the roll call vote, but not for assessing the present strength of the parties, so we can probably make these observations now. And the tea leaves we can see from either a narrow Republican win or a...]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0500 Factors Favoring Republicans

There are some parallels with 1994 that are favorable for Republicans. The first is the tendency of voters to turn out members of the President's party during midterm elections. This has been the general rule in American politics since Andrew Jackson's Presidency (interestingly, before that there had been a weak tendency for the out-party to gain seats in the Presidential election, and lose seats in the midterm).

There are several hypotheses in the political science literature about why this phenomenon occurs, and this column does not set about to explore them fully. For our purposes, we can just note that two of the proposed...]]> Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0600 It also will provide an early metric for the GOP's performance in 2010. The party controlling the White House has lost the Virginia gubernatorial race every four years since 1977. This is because new Administrations typically suffer from a lull in approval toward the end of the first year - call it a honeymoon hangover. If this trend is broken it could indicate that the Obama Administration has avoided such a lull. A loss could also indicate that the GOP's national problems were deeper than simply problems with Bush. To the extent there is a broader problem, the GOP may find it difficult to bounce back from 2006 and 2008. And either way, the race will be touted by the national...]]> Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600 For the GOP, it is fairly easy to see why the vote went the way that it did. Assume that Republicans had largely voted "yes." There is a serious downside to such a vote. There is a strong sense among the Republican rank-and-file that the party's defeats are in part tied to its abandonment of fiscal responsibility over the past eight years. Voting for $900 billion in deficit spending would have done little to assuage these concerns. To illustrate the potential dangers, one need only examine the trajectory of Saxby Chambliss' Senate race after his "yes" vote on TARP. And...]]> Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600 While it is dangerous to read too much into special election results of any kind, these "normal" looking results gave some hope to Republicans that their long nightmare was over, and that dissatisfaction with Republicans was dissipating. Now, David Paterson has given Republicans a golden opportunity to lend further credence to this interpretation. By appointing sophomore Representative Kirsten Gillibrand to the Senate seat vacated by now-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Governor Paterson has given three gifts to the New York GOP: He has opened up a district that is likely to flip back to them, he has made a much more competitive race for the Senate seat than there otherwise would have...]]> Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600 When we turn to the Midwest, the differences appear to be less pronounced. In 1996 Bill Clinton won 100 electoral votes in the Midwest. This cycle, Obama won 97. They won the same states - except Obama swapped Missouri for Indiana. And, as far as share of the two-party vote goes, there were very few differences. Let's start with the East North Central.

We find very little change between 1996 and 2008. Overall, Obama improved upon Clinton by about 1.4%. Once again, he did a bit worse in the rural and small town areas - and a bit...]]> Sun, 18 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600 What we see overall in the Pacific West is that Obama performed a few points better than Bill Clinton's share of the two party vote, reflecting the region's gradual swing toward the Democrats over the past several decades, as this chart makes clear:

As was the case in the South and the Midwest, much of this improvement is due to Obama's improvement in the larger urban areas. Obama did about as well as Clinton in the small towns, and a bit worse in the rural areas. Relative to Kerry, Obama improved in all...]]> Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600 As we shall see, this division was characterized by some important interstate differences. Accordingly, we'll be best served by dividing it into sections: West Virginia; Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia; Virginia and North Carolina; South Carolina and Georgia; and Florida. Before breaking this division down by section, it is worth noting one consistent effect: the African American vote shifted toward Obama.

The first thing we notice is that, with the exception of...]]> Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600 As Barone explains, these examples do not fall neatly into the "every thirty years" rubric - or indeed any rubric. The most glaring problem not discussed by Barone is that no clear-cut realigning election occurs after 1932. Some would argue that 1968 was a realigning election, with Nixon's "Silent Majority" signaling the rise of a new coalition. But given that Republicans failed to take Congress for another 25 years, that Democrats won an enormous popular vote majority in the House in 1974, and that Nixon governed as a relatively liberal Republican, this argument is problematic. Some would argue that 1980 was the realigning election, but again, Republicans failed to capture the House...]]> Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600 We'll spend two essays covering the South. The next installment will cover the South Atlantic.² Today's focus will be on the East and West South Central divisions.

The area is historically the heartland of the Democratic party. Between 1880 and 1952 Republican candidates fared quite poorly: in seventy-two years, they carried Kentucky three times, Oklahoma and Tennessee twice, Texas once, and they were shut out in the remaining states. Eisenhower was the first to carry a majority of them in 1956. Nixon won every one in his 1972 landslide. Yet as recently as 1976, Jimmy Carter won every state in these divisions, while Bill Clinton won half of...]]>