2004 % of Vote
	House	 President
Rep	50.1	   50.7
Dem	47.5	   48.3

During my post-election travels, I have found that a lot of Democrats in Washington hold but the slimmest hopes for retaking Congress before 2012. Instead, they already have a "2012 strategy" in place, when it is hoped that new congressional maps will reverse the existing state in Congress and provide a small Democratic majority similar to the current Republican majority. Considering the rather shocking similarities between recent Presidential and Congressional popular votes, not only is such a strategy painfully complacent with remaining in the minority for another seven years when we may only need to flip around 3% of the country, it also seems that such a plan might not even really work in 2012. Like 2000 and 2004, congressional results in that year will probably be highly contingent upon the Presidential election that will take place.

I believe that the similarities between the two popular vote totals above is yet another sign of increasing polarization within our national political life. I don't think that it means ticket splitting is dead, since people like Tim Holden and Christopher Shays show that ticket splitting is still rife in some parts of the country. Obviously there is still ticket splitting, and in 2004 there was a nearly equal amount of it for both Republicans and Democrats. However, there is almost certainly less ticket splitting than there was in the past. There are many other indicators of increasing polarization nationwide, of which the similarity in the two popular votes is just one. I have written about this in the past, as has Phillip Klinkner, and many others. It is not surprising really, since it is one of the main strategies shared by the modern Washington uber-power brokers: Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist and Karl Rove. They are actively working to increase polarization the country because they believe a polarized nation holds a built-in advantage for Republicans. Considering the power these four wield, they have been able to succeed in doing just that.

Now, when it comes to the House, increasing polarization has at least the impact of powerful new gerrymandering software. Since 1984, there has been a dramatic decline in the average number of House seats that have switched from one party to the other. In the 33 Congressional elections from 1920-1984, House Democrats experienced a mean net swing of 27.8 seats, and a median net swing of 26 seats. Since that time and excluding 1994, Democrats experienced a mean net swing of 3.6 seats in the House, and a median net swing of 4 seats. Even if one were to exclude the huge pre-1956 swings, from 1956-1984, Democrats experienced a mean net swing of 13.4 seats, which is nearly four times the more recent average. Seats are far safer than they once were, and gerrymandering is not the only reason. Increasing polarization, and the increase in the number of "landslide counties", is also playing a major role.

So what is the point of this rambling article, you may ask? It is that in an increasingly polarized, gerrymandered and congressional landslide-prone environment, the best Democratic opportunity to pick up seats is going to come in a mid-term election year with an unpopular Republican President, a.k.a. 2006. In a polarized environment where there is little movement from one camp to the other, and where up-ticket races have a large impact even upon House seats, the best Democratic chance for real, positive movement is going to take place when we can run "generic, local Democrat" against unpopular, specific, national Republicans, like Bush and DeLay. Polls throughout 2003 repeatedly showed that "Democratic candidate" fared several points better against Bush in trial heats than specific Democrats, like Dean, Clark and Kerry. In other words, actually knowing who the Democratic candidate was served as a drag on the Democratic ticket. However, in the generic versus specific ballot, voters were allowed to imagine their ideal Democrat going up against Bush, thus boosting the Democratic cause several points.

In an increasingly polarized world where we can expect more close Presidential elections, this lesson can be easily applied to the House. Democrats are always going to have a better chance for movement when they remain generic and their opponents remain specific. It would work the same in reverse as well, as we saw in 1994 when Clinton was unpopular. Hopefully we will win the Presidency in 2008, thus making 2006 our last, best chance for real gains in the House until like 2014, 2018, or some other impossibly distant date. And right now, it looks like we will have just that chance. While Harry Reid (40% name ID) and Nancy Pelosi (40-50% name ID) remain national unknowns, Bush (100% name ID, 40% approval) is known by all and disapproved of by a wide majority. Thus, it looks like we are going to finally get our shot at running our best possible candidate, Generic Democrat, against Bush, only the results will be counted in the House of Representatives. If all goes well, we won't have this sort of chance again for at least a decade.

So, this may be our last chance for huge gains for a while. In fact, it might be our first chance for huge gains since 1994 as well, since we haven't been able to run Generic Local Democrat against Unpopular Specific National Republican for quite some time. The chance for a major realignment has already been made clear in generic congressional ballot polls. The generic nature of those polls needs to be emphasized more, since as long as we remain generic, we have the advantage, and can finally break their coalition. If we become specific and unpopular (all congressional leaders are unpopular), we lose that advantage, and Bush's unpopularity won't mean all that much.

Of course, another way to maintain the generic edge would be to spend $100M just running anti-DeLay ads nationwide during September and October of 2006, but I don't know anyone with $100M, so I have no idea how to get that plan off the ground.

                         Pres

                         Approval

      House    Senate    Rating

1982    +27    + 0         43%

1986    + 5    + 8         47%

1990    + 7    + 1         58%

2002    - 7    - 2         65%