Replies

"Comparing 2002 to 2005, the Republicans stayed home, the Democrats, if reports are true, invested millions to get 6,783 more votes. Relative to 2004, they lost 35,197 or 40% of the voters they had only 9 months ago. The backslapping that is occurring is far from reality."

FReepers need to keep that in mind before saying that this election is a harbinger of Dem gains in rural areas. Turnout is so low in special elections that one really can't assign their results much predictive value. IIRC, a pro-life conservative Republican came very close to winning a special election in 1991 for the Western Mass. 1st CD (including several ultraliberal college towns and the heavily Democrat Berkshires), and it was a harbinger of absolutely nothing, as the Democrats continued to take over socially liberal districts in New England and elsewhere.

And what did "conservative" Democrat Stephanie Herseth's and Ben Chandler's victories in low-turnout special elections in conservative, rural districts about a year ago signify for the 2004 elections? Bupkus. While Chandler was able to win reelection comfortably against a flawed Republican candidate, his district gave Bush 2% more than in 2000 (from 56% to 58%), his home state of Kentucky gave Bush 3% more in 2004 than in 2000 (from 56.5% to 59.6%), and rural areas throughout the country continued to trend Republican. And in SD, Herseth barely won reelection against a second-tier Republican in 2004, but more importantly Republican John Thune defeated Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle in the upset of the cycle. So much for the predictive value of special elections!

That being said, Republicans need to look at why GOP turnout was so low and how this can be remedied in the future. We can't just give up 12% every time there's a special election---otherwise, we'll end up losing in all but the most rock-robbed Republican districts.

With Stephanie Herseth, bear in mind that she was annointed the winner of the special election as soon as Janklow stepped down, polled well, pulled a second-tier opponent, and then won by a surprisingly narrow margin. I did consider that a harbinger of the fall elections, and was right.

It's not who won or lost that matters, it's what the outcome was after all significant personal distortions are factored out. Diedrich's strong showing in an early election showed that Republicans were pumped and ready to turn out the vote to support George W. Bush. Herseth's win showed that she was a strong candidate who did well among independents and swinging conservatives, which was not news.

We don't know who turned out, and who didn't. We don't know if the voters in this election were very disproportionately Dem. I don't see anything in the county numbers to suggest that (say high turnout in Scioto, and low turnout in Clermont), but one would have to look at the relative turnout of heavily GOP versus heavily Dem precincts to get a better flavor for that. Alas, Ohio doesn't have party registration, and there are no exit polls, so the figuring it out requires some detective work, and cannot be conclusive.

[I just noticed that Dave Wissing also used Herseth and Chandler as examples of special-election victories that were harbingers of nothing. I guess great minds think alike. : ) ]

What Did Last Night’s Election Really Mean?

Obviously the big political news is the victory by Republican Jean Schmidt over Democrat Paul Hackett last night in Ohio. Democrats are ecstatic because they only mamaged to lose by 4% in an overwhelmingly Republican district and are claiming this is a signal for the future. Republicans are just happy they survivied and managed to keep the seat in GOP hands, although some are pointing out the 0-16 record of candidates backed by Daily Kos. There is no question the Republicans did not do as well as they would have hoped for, but before everyone starts proclaiming this to be a bellweather, let us look back in history, shall we?.

This was the post Daily Kos had up after Democrat Ben Chandler won a special election in 2004 to take over the seat left by the vacating Republican Ernie Fletcher. In it, Kos links to this story from CBS/AP.

Some Democrats claimed the race in Bluegrass country, home to horse and tobacco farms, had national implications.

Robert T. Matsui, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Chandler’s victory was “a clear message to the arrogant Republican government in Washington that Americans are ready for a change” and that Republican policies “have totally failed to create jobs in Kentucky as in so many other states.”

Kos’ response to this article was the following.

Damn right it’s a signal.

Then, in the wake of Stephanie Herseth victory in a special election later in the year to replace Republican Bill Janklow, Kos had this to say.

The momentum is swinging our way. Bush won South Dakota by 22 percentage points, the Kentucky 6th by 14 points. On paper, these districts are not competitive, and should not be competitive.

I don’t think I need to tell you what happened in November. I don’t post this to say the Republicans should not take the results from last night seriously and I’m not claiming the Democrats can’t parlay this into a bigger victory next year in Ohio and nationwide, but let’s not go crazy about last night being some sort of bellweather that predicts the demise of the Republican Party. Recent history has shown that special elections are not indicative of future election results.

http://www.davidwissing.com/index.php/4474

I just thought of another House election in the Cincinnati metro area where a conservative-sounding Democrat ran much better than national Democrats, especially in rural counties, in a district that was heavily Republican in presidential elections. I'm talking about the pre-2002 4th CD of Kentucky, which, like the current OH-02, had conservative rural counties that leaned GOP in presidential elections and conservative suburban counties that were overwhelmingly Republican in presidential elections.

In 1998, when then-Representative Jim Bunning ran for the Senate instead of for reelection, there was an acrimonious GOP primary in which the winner, Gex (pronounced "Jay") Williams, had many detractors even among GOP voters, and he faced a Democrat from the Cinci suburbs who never used his party label and campaigned as a conservative, Boone County Executive Ken Lucas. Lucas won huge margins in rural counties and lost only narrowly in the Cinci suburban counties of Kenton and Boone (he did lose big in the district's one county in metro Louisville), which allowed him to pull off a 53%-47% upset victory.

So was this a harbinger of Democrat gains in conservative rural and conservative suburban areas? Not by a longshot. The election was not a special election, so it was held in November 1998 along with the rest of the congressional elections nationwide, and the rest of the results that election day saw (i) Republican Jim Bunning get elected to the Senate, running very strong in the 4th congressional district (which he represented in the House) and in other conservative rural and suburban areas, and (ii) Republicans actually pick up a couple of conservative rural and suburban districts while the Democrats did not pick up any other GOP-held conservative rural or suburban districts. Nor was it a clarion call for Democrat gains in such districts in 2000, when the GOP picked up a couple of additional Dem-held conservative rural districts while the Democrats didn't pick up any such districts.

Here's an article on the 1998 Lucas victory. Notice that the local reporter wisely refrained from calling Lucas's victory a sign of a coming realignment towards the Democrats:

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/1998/11/05/loc_lucas05.html