Is Control Of Congress Really Up For Grabs?
By Doug Mataconis | Related entries in 2008 Election, Congress, Democrats, RepublicansSeveral of my fellow bloggers — D.J. McGuire at The Right-Wing Liberal, Riley at Virginia Virtucon, and Jason Pye — are pointing to a new Gallup poll which seems to suggest that control of Congress, or at least the House of Representatives, may be up for grabs after all:
PRINCETON, NJ — A potential shift in fortunes for the Republicans in Congress is seen in the latest USA Today/Gallup survey, with the Democrats now leading the Republicans by just 3 percentage points, 48% to 45%, in voters’ “generic ballot” preferences for Congress. This is down from consistent double-digit Democratic leads seen on this measure over the past year.
As is true for the current structure of voting preferences for president, Democratic voters are nearly uniform in their support for the Democratic candidate in their congressional districts (92%), Republican voters are nearly uniform in their support for the Republican candidate (94%), and independents are closely split, with 44% backing the Democrat and 40% the Republican.
The new results come from a Sept. 5-7 survey conducted immediately after the Republican National Convention and mirror the resulting enhanced position of the Republican Party seen in several other indicators. These range from John McCain’s improved standing against Barack Obama in the presidential race to improved favorability ratings of the Republicans, to Republican gains in party identification. The sustainability of all of these findings is an open question that polling will answer over the next few weeks.
A good part of the reason for this development, it seems, is that Republicans are more enthusiastic about the 2008 election than they have been at any time this year, most likely due to the selection of Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidential running mate, enthusiasm which may be reflected in the fact that Republicans seem to hold an advantage among likely voters at the moment:
Republicans are also likely benefiting from the fact that Congress as an institution has some of the lowest approval ratings it has ever received:
Take note that the only time that Congressional disapproval numbers have been higher than they are right now was in 1992 — and, in that year’s election, Republicans picked up nine seats in the House and no seats in the Senate, lost the White House, and failed to gain control of either body of Congress.
This year, in order to regain congtrol of the Senate, Republicans would need to not only win all 23 of the races for seats currently held or controlled by Republicans, including states like Virginia where the Democratic candidate leads the polls by a seemingly insurmountable margin, but they would also need to pick up at least two seats from the Democrats — preferably three or four to offset independents Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman, both of whom caucus with the Democrats. The problem the Republicans face in that regard is that, with the exception of Mary Landrieu in Louisiana, there isn’t a single Democratic incumbent or Democrat controlled Senate seat up for grabs right now where Republicans have a realistic chance of winning and, in some cases like Mark Pryor of Arkansas, the GOP doesn’t even have a candidate on the ballot.
Realistically, the best the GOP can hope for in the Senate is that they lose no more than one seat (Virginia seems a lost cause at this point), pick up Louisiana, convince Joe Lieberman to caucus with Republicans, and win the White House so that Vice-President Palin could break ties. The odds of this happening, though, seem slim indeed.
In the House, Republicans would need to pick up at least 16 seats to regain the majority that they lost in 2006. Possible ? Maybe. Likely ? Until we actually start seeing poll numbers from individual races that show Republicans winning, I’d have to say not likely at all.
For example, the guys at Election Projection currently are predicting a net gain of 11 seats for the Democrats. Given numbers like that, it doesn’t look promising for the GOP.
Finally, the results of this Gallup Poll should probably be taken with a grain of salt given that a similar “generic” Congressional poll released yesterday by Rasmussen shows the Democrats ahead by eight points.
Cross-Posted at Below The Beltway
This entry was posted on Friday, September 12th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Congress, Democrats, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 12th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
The Dems deserve to lose congress. Voters sent a clear mesage 19 months ago and the Dems took a calculated gamble and sat on their hands with the notion that as long as things got worse, they could win the presidency, too.
Well, the voters saw through it and they have decided it’s not just the Republican bums who need to be thrown out, but all the bums.
It is a good time to be a challenger.
September 12th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
I’m not sure if they intentionally sat on their hands so much as simply didn’t know how to effectively leverage their majority. A bunch of non-binding anti-Iraq resolutions is pretty weak considering issues like education, the economy, energy policy, and illegal immigration didn’t just spring up yesterday.
September 12th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Let’s not forget that Bush didn’t Veto a single bill until the Dem’s took control. They must have done something.
September 12th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Two things this post doesn’t mention (although I admit I read it rather lazily):
1. Incumbents. They’re historically hard to beat.
2. Most people — even if they disapprove of Congress on the whole — they tend to say, when true, “my congressman does a good job for me” on Election Day.
September 12th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Rob,
Excellent points both, but a GOP takeover could still happen even given historically high incumbent re-election rates. In 2006, the Democrats had a net gain of about 30 seats but, still, 94% of incumbents were re-elected
Theoretically, all the GOP needs to do this year is a net-pick of about 14-16 seats. That would be well-within historic incumbency re-election numbers.
I just don’t think its politically possible.
And that’s just the House where a GOP takeover is improbable, the odds that the GOP could take back the Senate are next-to-impossible.
September 12th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
@John,
Maybe I should have said, “Accomplished something meaningful.” They crafted some legislation that they knew would be vetoed, again, as the stage dressings of political theater.
I’m not saying a Republican takeover would be any better, unless those who are newly elected genuinely learned their lesson from 2006.
September 12th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
The most vulnerable seats will be Blue-Dog Dems who took their seats from GOP cnetrists in 2006. And there’s a fair number of them.
The nastier the left gets trying to prop up Obama, the more likely those seats switch back.
Not rocket science.
September 13th, 2008 at 12:09 am
I agree with Doug that it is extremely unlikely for the GOP to retake a majority in either house. In fact, I still think the Dems will extend their majority, although they may not get to the large majority (100ish seats) I was expecting a few weeks ago.
The Reps retaking the House in this election would be flying in the face of history. In the 100 years since we have been electing Senators directly, the house has never flipped majorities unless the Senate did first. Never. Not even once. It takes a partisan tidal wave to flip majorities in the House, and that wave always flips the Senate first. As Doug points out, the Dems have a huge structural advantage in this cycle in the Senate. It would take a a “Foley-gate” level of scandal to keep them from increasing their majority in the Senate.
September 14th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
[...] There is a lot of campaigning left. Is it possible that events over the next few months might change my vote? Certainly. I don’t expect it, but it could happen. The single biggest factor would be if the Republicans look like they might retake Congress. Doug discussed this possibility in a recent post. [...]