Election Watch
October 12, 2006

The Nation’s Governors and U.S. Congress

By Craig Ruff

Democrats are feeling their oats and foreseeing plenty of gains in the 2006 elections for governors and U.S. senators and representatives. Juicy pickings abound. With an asterisk and “yeah but” conjecture here and there, Democrats look headed toward winning majorities among two and possibly all three sets of officeholders.

Governors

Republicans walk into the 2006 elections holding a 28-22 majority of state governors. Of their statehouses, 22 are at stake this year, while Democrats defend 14. (Remaining gubernatorial terms either coincide with presidential elections or are held in odd-numbered years.) Odds favor the Democrats opening next year in charge of the executive branches of a majority of states.

Heading into the election, Republicans have a firm or near lock on 14 states that they currently control, and the Democrats run little risk in maintaining statehouse control in 10 now under their wing. Democrats likely will steal away from Republicans governorships in Arkansas, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio. Democrats also are putting pressure on Republican incumbents in Maryland, Minnesota, and Rhode Island. Democratic seats at some risk of falling to the GOP are Iowa, Michigan, Oregon, and Wisconsin.

Governorships not only are important for leading state and local policy change but also bring bully pulpits and fundraising and grassroots organizing benefits to a political party. They have a mighty say in how their state legislatures redistrict seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. From the ranks of governors have come four of the last five presidents.

Look for the Democrats to gain six statehouses and precisely reverse the current GOP majority: Democrats end up holding 28 governorships to the GOP’s 22.

U.S. Congress

Control of the U.S. congressional chambers will steal the day-after-election national headlines. The big news flows from outcomes in 468 separate contests. Will Bush fulfill his last two years with his party controlling both legislative chambers? (No Republican president has ever served two, full consecutive terms with his party controlling both houses of Congress throughout.) Will Bush have to contend with one (or both) chambers in which Democratic majorities and leaders demand a say in policy negotiations? In the paralytic nature of our federal government’s separation of powers, will it make a whit of difference?

 U.S. Senators

The Republican majority in the U.S. Senate (55 Republicans, 44 Democrats, and a Vermont Independent who votes with the Democrats) is shaky and, in normal times, should not be. Although in the minority, Democrats have to defend 17 seats (along with Vermont’s Independent race), while the GOP has to protect only 15 seats. Republicans are defending seats in many red states, such as Arizona, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming. Democrats are defending a number of seats in states that Bush carried: Florida, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, and West Virginia. But competing against the arithmetic advantages and state-by-state partisan leanings are various GOP incumbents’ weaknesses, strong Democratic challengers, and anti-Republican national and (in some cases, like Ohio) state trends.

Only seven of the Republican Senate seats are sure things for the party. (One is very sure. Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana does not even have an opponent.) Eight are extremely shaky: Arizona, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia. On the other hand, Democrats are sailing along toward retaining 14 of their 17 seats, leaving only Maryland, Michigan, and New Jersey ripe for takeaway.

Most frequently we see elections in which the parties divide rather evenly competitive U.S. Senate races. Sometimes (like 1980, 1986, and 1994) virtually everything breaks in favor of one party. The 2006 Senate contests quite possibly will fall into the latter category. At this writing, I foresee Democrats netting a gain of at least three and possibly six seats, the latter gain providing them a 51-49 majority. So long as the upper chamber clings to the anti-democratic, tyrannical, and obstructionist tradition of filibustering, one wonders what possible difference a change in control may make to policy setting. (I would modify the rules of the game by requiring that any senator who votes against cloture—the calling off of debate—must have won at least 60 percent of the popular vote in the last election and may retain his or her seat only by winning 60 percent of the vote in the next election. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.)

U.S. House of Representatives

Republicans hold 232 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Democrats hold 202. The remaining seat is held by Vermont’s Independent, who votes with the Democrats and is vacating his seat in an upwardly mobile bid to become U.S. senator. Democrats regain control if they steal 15 or more seats away from Republicans.

After two long stretches of Republican control of the U.S. House (1895–1911 and 1919–1933), Democrats controlled the chamber for 70 years (1933–1994), except for two two-year interregnums (1947–48 and 1953–54). The GOP’s been in majority since 1995. The Deep South’s conversion from Democrat to Republican has given the GOP its recent edge, just as it frequently provided the number of seats necessary for the Democrats to organize the U.S. House during that party’s heyday.

Scattered throughout the nation are 40 U.S. House seats that could go either way. Nearly all are now held by Republicans. Short-listing the “up for grabs” seats, you arrive at about 25 seats to which Republicans cling perilously. As with senatorial elections, it is customary for things to break fairly evenly in competitive races. As with 2006 U.S. Senate elections, it is far from clear that this will be a customary year.

Democrats have Republicans on the run—in northeastern states like Connecticut and New York; southern and southwestern states like Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina; and Midwestern and heartland states like Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, and Ohio. Republicans are running away from Bush, Hastert, Iraq War votes, trade policies, sexual predators, and you name it. Democratic challengers may not offer solutions, but offer allegiance to a different party.

Insiders, at this writing, believe that the Democrats will gain between 15 and 25 seats (up from 12–18 a few weeks ago). Even on the low side, that gain would thrust Nancy Pelosi into the Speaker of the House’s chair. With only a one-seat or few-seat majority, the Democrats (with virtually no conservatives within their caucus) will govern the chamber as efficiently and ruthlessly as the Republicans have done with slender majorities.

Michigan’s Democratic congressional members have bided their time over the past dozen years of GOP control. If nothing else, our Democratic delegation emblemizes endurance. Two of their members are the longest serving members of the U.S. House—John Dingell at nearly 51 years and John Conyers at 42 years. Dale Kildee has served 30 years, and Sander Levin, 24 years. The young’uns are Bart Stupak (12 years) and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (10 years). Respectively, they are 80, 77, 77, 75, 54, and 61 years old. If Democrats regain control of the U.S. House, Dingell likely will chair the Commerce and Labor Committee, Conyers the Judiciary Committee, and Kildee the Education and Workforce Committee.

The safe way to bet is that Democrats will be in charge of the next U.S. House of Representatives. They may gain the necessary 15 seats or a few extra. If the Democrats—with everything going for them—do not take over the House of Representatives this year, they are unlikely to do so until after redistricting in 2011.

Conclusion

I do not know who first coined the phrase “time for a change” (it must be ancient because no search engine of quotations produces anything other than “no answer to your query”). The anonymous and likely antediluvian person merits historical remembrance—maybe an international holiday. Even when times are good, the well- and not-well-off want more change. When times are so-so, yet more. When times are bad, everybody wants any and all change on which they can lay their hands.

One may argue about the relative wellbeing of America in 2006, but it’s folly to think that Americans feel that we are a contented lot. In politics, facts are negotiable and not emotions. People want change. Some people (namely, Democrat partisans) are viscerally hateful toward George Bush and his gang of Cheney, Rummy, and Condi. That over-the-top venom could disable otherwise rosy Democratic fortunes and smart strategies that hinge simply on change. It happened to Republicans in the Clinton impeachment crusade. You can be too emotional to be pragmatic.

In just a few states, like Michigan, a thirst for change helps Republicans a bit. In the vast majority of states, it helps Democrats a whole lot.

View other Michigan Policy Circle documents