MyDD :: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008

Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008

by Todd Beeton, Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 09:48:05 PM EST

As Jonathan wrote yesterday, Republicans jumped on Niki Tsongas's 6-point victory over Republican Jim Ogonowski in Tuesday's MA-05 special election as an opportunity to tout the supposed vulnerability of Democrats nationwide in 2008, claiming a moral victory for their candidate despite the fact that a 6 point win for a Democrat in one of the more conservative districts in Massachusetts -- in fact one that Mitt Romney won with 55% of the vote -- is actually a decent showing.

One example of this post-election spin came in the form of a memo sent out by the NRCC. From The Politico:

Republicans hailed the close race as a moral victory, arguing that Ogonowski "sent a message to the Washington establishment and Democratic Party that will reverberate throughout next year's election.

"He proved that a Republican challenger, who centers their campaign on the core issues of lower taxes, less government spending, respect for the rule of law and, most importantly, the issue of bringing change to Washington, can effectively garner votes from independents and swing voters," the NRCC wrote in a post-election memo.

This last point is key to their 2008 strategy to try to knock off some of the Democratic freshmen in conservative districts and hold that growing list of open GOP seats, a necessity if they hope to retake...er keep losses to a minimum. As Rep. Tom Cole, Chair of the NRCC, said:

"I tell candidates all the time that you ought to be running against all of Washington, D.C., and that includes us," Cole said. "Because we have not ourselves, in every case, lived up to the things that we wanted to accomplish as a party."

Not that this should make us quake in our boots or anything, especially considering the difficulty Republicans are having recruiting top tier challengers, but the Tsongas v. Ogonowski offers a strategy for Democrats to emulate as well.

Ogonowski, of course, ran as an "independent" "outsider" "devoted to fixing a broken congress" but he also, when Tsongas challenged him directly, never answered how he would have voted on SCHIP or the veto override. This should, and I'm sure will, be central to the Democrats' counter strategy for holding back Republican challenges, especially in moderate districts. For if there was a teachable moment for the Democrats out of Tuesday's special election, this was it.

From The Politico:

Republicans privately acknowledge that Ogonowski was hurt by not taking a position on whether he would have voted to override the president's veto. During the campaign, he said he supported the intent of the legislation but that the bill that passed the House was flawed.

In the campaign's final weeks, Tsongas relentlessly tried to pin Ogonowski down on his position, to no avail.

The SCHIP fight will be an effective tool, to be sure, both against members who voted against the expansion as well as against challengers who will be challenged to say how they would have voted had they been in congress. But it will also serve as an effective counter to any Republican who wishes to push the "broken congress" meme for the defeat of this extremely popular bi-partisan SCHIP expansion bill makes more clear than any other congressional fight this year that the biggest problem with congress is the Republicans in it.

Tags: 2008 congressional election, tom cole, jim ogonowski, niki tsongas (all tags)

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Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (2.00 / 2)

This result is actually consistent with the pattern of voting shifts seen in the 2004 and 2006 elections. Wealthy suburbs, like most of this district, have been the Republicans' strongest areas (relatively, of course) in the country. There are several lines of evidence for this:

Bush's greatest percentage improvement from 2000 to 2004 was in the suburbs of the northeast corridor from northern Delaware to southwestern Connecticut.
Maryland Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich improved his vote percentage in 2006 over 2002, even as he was losing votes statewide, in the upscale suburbs of Anne Arundel County and the wealthiest sections of Montgomery County.
In the 2006 election, the seats where Democrats thought they had the best chances but failed to win were upscale suburban (Darcy Burner, Tammy Duckworth, Lois Murphy, Diane Farrell) while the surprise pickups were rural seats (eg Heath Shuler).

I've written about this earlier this year:
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/? article=763

The most obvious explanation is that the country is increasingly economically polarized between rich and poor, and voting patterns are reflecting that polarization.

by BRoss on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 10:18:59 PM EST

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

Burner and Lois Murphy were very winnable. Murphy ran an absolutely crappy campaign(I should know, I live in the district). If we get a good candidate here, Gerlach is toast in 2008.

John McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion

by Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 12:16:55 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

I'm not sure that's the best explanation. Here in Massachusetts there was a late and unanticipated increase in voter participation of about 5%, from 67%ish in the last couple of Presidential elections to 72% of registered voters. At the same time Kerry's expected vote percentage dropped about 5-8%.

In short, long term nonvoters making up 5% of the registered electorate decided in late October 2004 to show up to vote, and pretty much all of them voted for Bush.

I tally it to the Republican mobilization and GOTV operation, which probably knew very well that a lot of nonvoters were older people in areas dominated by one party, mostly in suburbia, were insecure or disgusted with politics and lack of attention given them, and did lean conservative and reactive to what was going on around them. They were targetted, reached individually by mass mailings and telephone calls with the message that their vote was precious and Republicans cared about their opinion. (And the perfidious Liberals were out to create a Revolution and take away their Bibles, et cetera.) They were also targetted via clubs, friends, family, and churches.

Their ignorance and resentments were tapped and exploited. For a while before and quite a few months after the 2004 election the number of Undecideds in polling was pretty small. The number that sided with Bush/Republicans was always a few points high for a while. But when things began to fall apart for Republicans in mid/late 2005 and a lot of latent conservatism was aired out and began to dry up, a lot of them gave up on Bush too. I'd guess about a third have stuck by him, are Republicans now. The rest feel burned to various degrees.

Massachusetts has a pretty high voting rate, and so do places like the Pacific Northwest. The big voter percentage and vote number gains- almost 10% and 15 million more than in '00- were where the numbers were relatively low to begin with. Which is to say, the South and Midwest, in the poorer regions of the country overall.

But yes, the nonvoters showing up for Bush was a pretty bad surprise all over. Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington State each just 53% for Kerry, rather than around 60%...that was the really depressing aspect of the 2004 vote map. The Republicans found all the persuadable idiots who weren't voting and got them to vote their way. And they seem to be still tallying themselves as fairly likely voters, they haven't fallen back to calling themselves Undecided or not going to vote.

The good news is that it was evidently a peak-out. I don't see how they can find and get any substantial number of the remaining inactive voters now. Nor are they doing will with those they got active. It was a one night stand that ended in bad disappointment for most. That particular well is now dry.

by killjoy on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 04:31:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

Actually, MD was 56%.

I agree with Benjamin's assessment, at least as far as MD is concerned. I would not describe the voters in the wealthier precincts of Montgomery County (Dem overall) as persuadable idiots -- rather, Republican policies have worked well for them financially.

by dblhelix on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 06:19:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

" ... Bush's greatest percentage improvement from 2000 to 2004 was in the suburbs of the northeast corridor from northern Delaware to southwestern Connecticut.

Maryland Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich improved his vote percentage in 2006 over 2002, even as he was losing votes statewide, in the upscale suburbs of Anne Arundel County and the wealthiest sections of Montgomery County ..."

I couldn't disagree more with this analysis.

1.) The Bush improvement in the "greater New York" area (metro NY, most of NJ & CT) had everything to do with 9-11, and nothing with voting based on economic polarization. If you look at non-southern suburbs outside this "greater NY" area, support for Democrats increased. (BTW, Bush had even greater gains in parts of the south -- places like Alabama -- but that's mostly because of "cultural" issues).

2.) Ehrlich's percentage in Montgomery and Anne Arundel Cos., MD, DECREASED between 2002 and 2006 (in AA Co. rather significantly from 65% for Ehrlich in 2002 to 57 in 2006). The Repug decrease in Montg. Co. was even greater specifically IN the wealthiest areas of the county ... (I live in Montg., btw, and also own a home in Anne Arundel, where I grew up and where my mom still lives.)

3.) Even though we lost WA-8, IL-6, PA-6 & CT-4, we picked up CT-5, PA-8, PA-7, FL-22 and other relatively wealthy/suburban areas (our win in CA-11 was fueled by McNerney winning big in the wealthy East Bay suburban areas).

Furthermore, looking at the results of the special the other day in MA-5, Ogonowski did best in the relatively less wealthy, northern part of this district -- around his home town of Dracut and along the NH border. In the more up-scale southern part of MA-5, Tsongas performed very well, MATCHING even Meehan's percentages, from when he ran last time, in towns like Concord and Wayland.

In the 2006 election, the seats where Democrats thought they had the best chances but failed to win were upscale suburban (Darcy Burner, Tammy Duckworth, Lois Murphy, Diane Farrell) while the surprise pickups were rural seats (eg Heath Shuler).

by silver spring on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 09:34:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

i was copying and pasting from orig. comment, & forgot to delete the last parag. above, so please ignore ...

by silver spring on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 09:36:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

" ... Bush's greatest percentage improvement from 2000 to 2004 was in the suburbs of the northeast corridor from northern Delaware to southwestern Connecticut.

I couldn't disagree more with this analysis.

by silver spring on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 09:36:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

I should have included some stats. for Montg. Co ....

Ehrlich received 38.3% of vote in 2002 in Montgomery (vs. 60.9 for Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend); in 2006, Ehrlich got 36.7% vs. 62.4 for O'Malley. In the wealthiest areas, the Repug decrease was even more significant.

In the town of Chevy Chase, for example (median household income in 1999 [last date avail.] - $160,331 - compared to $71,551 for Montg. Co) Ehrlich got 34.7% in 2002 (w/ 65.0 for KKT) while in 2006 he received 31.7% while O'Malley received 68.1 -- the Dem. increase thus being approx. 3 pts. in this very wealthy area, compared to a little over 1 pt. in the county overall.

by silver spring on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 10:51:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

Well, I do recall reading that the only gains made by Ehrlich/Cox were in $$$ areas.

I just looked at results by precinct for MoCo and have pulled precincts in Potomac, etc where Ehrlich did very well (double-digit leads). Unfortunately, the '02 results page is down right now for comparison.

by dblhelix on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 11:42:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

I have my notes on this at home and will have to dig them out - but a few quick comments.

Town of Chevy Chase (a single precinct) is an exception for several reasons. First, O'Malley grew up about six blocks away. Second, and more important, this precinct was home to the original organizers of the O'Malley campaign in the county, when he was running in the primary against the local county exec. He made, I think, three campaign appearances before large audiences in this one precinct.

If you look at the really wealthy precincts in west Bethesda and Potomac, outside the more heavily Jewish areas, you'll see perceptible pickups by Ehrlich.

Note that you can't directly compare precinct returns from 2002 and 2006, because they don't include absentee ballots and the Republicans pushed their supporters to vote absentee in 2006. The absentee returns are only reported as district-wide and county-wide totals. The precinct returns understate the Republican vote in 2006; if you look at them without making corrections you'll see the same relative pattern but as I recall there are many fewer precincts where Ehrlich actually gains votes.

As for Anne Arundel County, there is an absentee effect there, but you can get the correct numbers county-wide. You need to be sure to look at the final official returns that include absentees and not the numbers that were published in the newspapers right after election day.

by BRoss on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 12:31:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

In response to you and dblhelix, here are the precinct-by-precinct results for Potomac, MD (including all precincts in 21054 zip code, except 2 which are part of city of Rockville and are normally not considered part of Potomac -- those would be much more Democratic anyhow. Also note that precinct borders changed between 2002 and 2006, but this is accounted for in the totals, as precinct 10-8 was absorbed by adjoining precincts):

Potomac, MD :

    Ehrl. KKT    Ehrl.    MO'M
Prec.    Rep.    Dem.    Rep.    Dem.
10-1    449    334    402    291
10-2    821    570    689    548
10-4    335    570    324    547
10-5    620    856    547    793
10-6    536    844    530    731
10-7    734    832    674    810
10-8    235    391    -    -
10-9    811    652    777    633
10-10    812    827    715    778
10-11    265    623    223    560
10-12    447    750    498    876
10-13    348    631    386    553
4-12    685 1232    650 1127
4-23    694    968    673    909
4-32    268    400    260    351
6-2 1016    844    846    799

TOT: 9076 11324 8194 10306
44.5% 55.5% 44.3% 55.7%

(sorry, but couldn't get the no#s to line up above)

From these totals, you can see that even in super-super rich Potomac, the Republican percentage DECREASED from 2002 to 2006.

It should be noted that, in both 2002 & 2006, only 4 out of 16 precinct voted Republican here.

If you look at other wealthy areas of Montgomery, the shift towards the Dem. was even greater than in Potomac. The Montg. Co. Bd. Elections website is great & you can get results by precinct as well as by state legislative district: http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/eletmp l.asp?url=/content/elections/index.asp
If you look at results in Dist. 16 -- which corresponds almost exactly to Bethesda, you will see that Ehrlich percentage went from 35.9% in 2002 to 34.1% in 2006, a shift of almost 2 points for the Democrats. In Dist. 18, which includes not just the Town of Chevy Chase, but pretty much the whole 20815 Chevy Chase zip code, the Repug decrease was 2.6 points between 2002 and 2006. (btw, it looks like in every legisl. district you look at in Montg., Ehrlich dropped between the 2 elections).

BRoss -- not sure about your theory re. absentees, but even if true, you can't look at those by geographic area, so really can't determine where they're coming from, so it's pure conjecture.

All of the raw data we have indicates that Ehrlich did worse in Montg. Co. and in all parts of the county (incl. the wealthiest areas of Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Potomac) in 2006 than he did in 2002.

by silver spring on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 02:12:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

Your totals precisely support my point. County-wide in Montgomery County, O'Malley's margin of victory was 26.9%, while Townsend's was 22.6%; the margin increased by 4.3%. In Potomac the margin grew from 11% to 11.4%, or only 0.4%. Another way of looking at it is that county-wide 5.9% of 2002 Ehrlich voters switched to O'Malley in 2006; in Potomac less than 0.5% switched.

Furthermore, it's likely that the vote in precinct 6-2 was affected by Ehrlich's proposal to build an interstate highway nearby. (We're really talking estates here, for the outsiders.) If you remove that precinct from the totals, you find that in the rest of Potomac, Ehrlich's vote increased slightly from 43.47% to 43.60%.

And again, the Republican campaign to get absentee votes in 2006 means that the real numbers were even better for Ehrlich. Look at the State Senate results from District 15. In 2002, the Republican ran 5% better among absentees than overall; in 2006 he ran 10% better. And the total number of absentee ballots cast in that race went from 1800 to 4000.

As for District 16, it's the more affluent parts of the district that resisted the trend away from Ehrlich, not all of it. Generally, the precincts with half acre lots, where the houses are well above a million dollars.

Only a quarter of District 18 is in Chevy Chase. It also includes Wheaton where incomes are much lower and there was a significant increase in minority turnout.

by BRoss on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 05:01:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

BRoss: in response to your comment above --

First of all, you should always double check your numbers ....O'Malley's margin of victory was 25.7 pts., not 26.9, so the Montg. Co. shift you discuss is 3.1, NOT 4.3. (2002: 60.9-38.3=22.6; 2006: 62.4-36.7=25.7; 25.7-22.6=3.1)

Potomac is the exception to the rule that wealthier areas in Montg. shifted more to the Dems. than the county overall. In Bethesda (ALL of which should be considered upscale for this purpose; otherwise we're getting into intricacies of which part of Bethesda has a bigger acre lot, etc.), the comparable Ehrlich loss was akin to 3.6 pts., higher than the county-wide 3.1. I did a little more research on Chevy Chase (the wealthiest area of the three discussed here - considerably more so than Potomac these days) and here's all the precincts in 20815 zip (you're right that the inclusion of Wheaton in Dist. 18 would skew those results, and yes I realize that there's some overlap between boundaries of Dist. 16/18 and zip code 20815 - Chevy Chase. On the same note, part of Potomac is also in Dist. 16, btw, so in the part of Dist 16 OUTSIDE of Potomac, the 3.6 shift discussed above likely becomes closer to 4.0 pts. as in Potomac itself it hovers closer to the 0.4):

Chevy Chase:

    Ehrl.    KKT    Ehrl.    MO'M
Prec.    Rep.    Dem.    Rep.    Dem.
7-2    515    852    461    716
7-5    414    990    356    912
7-6    501    937    435    933
7-11    508    1380    451    1257
7-16    451    745    405    686
7-21    283    489    268    457
7-26    595    1351    453    1308
7-30    300    317    268    286
7-32    407    415    324    410
13-39    260    779    290    915

TOT: 4234 8255 3711 7880
33.9% 66.1% 32.0% 68.0%

So, while in 2002, Ehrlich had a 32.2 deficit, in 2006 the deficit grew to 36.0, meaning a shift of 3.8 ... again higher than the county average of 3.1. (This also means that Ehrlich therefore did RELATIVELY better in the less wealthy parts of Dist. 18, like Wheaton, where his loss between 2002 and 2006 was considerably less, since the dist avg. was 2.6 pts. -- Dist. 18: Ehrlich 33.1% in 2002 & 30.5% in 2006).

Still not sure re. the absentee results & their effect. I think you're correct in that the absentees went more Republican in MD in 2006, but don't think it had that great effect on the final numbers here - at worst, the absentees MAY have "evened" out Ehrlich's performance between 2002 and 2006 - but even that I don't believe precisely because the final numbers I'm looking at for Montg. include absentees for 2002 and 2006, and Ehrlich STILL lost ground. (I don't think there's enough hard evidence re. precincts as absentees are not counted that way).

The bottom line is, though, that the main point of the original comment - that there was a big shift to Ehrlich in Montg. & AA Cos., MD is factually incorrect. Whether you include absentees or not, Montg. Co. either stayed the same or shifted slightly to the Democrats. AA shifted considerably towards the Dems. AND bottom line - there was no shift in the wealthiest areas toward Ehrlich; those areas, like the rest of Montg., shifted AWAY from Ehrlich - slightly so in upscale areas like Potomac, and more so in upscale areas like Bethesda and Chevy Chase.

PS. I nevertheless appreciate your analysis. It's nice to see someone familiar with and interested in the intricacies of Montg. Co. politics.

by silver spring on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 06:44:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

I have to correct myself re. part in parentheses above re. Wheaton part of Dist. 18 -- it looks like that area also experienced a significant Ehrlich decline from 2002 to 2006 -- apparently the whole county did -- so please ignore those numbers, it's late and I'm tired.

The rest of my last comment stands:

Ehrlich doing worse in county by 3.1
... Doing worse in Bethesda by 3.6 to 4.0
... Doing worse in Chevy Chase (whole zip) by 3.8
... Doing worse in Potomac by 0.4

by silver spring on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 06:53:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

that there was a big shift to Ehrlich in Montg

Talk about a strawman ... that's not what he said.

1. You refuse to consider the absentees, despite the abnormally high absentees last year, where requests ran almost 1:1 Dem/GOP despite the 2-1 Dem registration advantage in MD. You only talk about it in context of countywide totals which is irrelevant if lower-income regions of the county were polarized toward Dems (which would be consistent with the original statement).

2. It's not "intricacies" to split out the wealthier real estate -- the precinct level is still too coarse. For example, there is federally subsidized housing even in Potomac (which is zip 20854, btw) where townhouses are available for under $250K.

What you're forgetting is that the area is hospitable to moderate Republicans -- Connie Morella served for sixteen yrs and Dems had to redistrict to pull in lower-income precincts from northern Prince George's to unseat her. The only reason MoCo is Republican-free right now is because of Bush and his radical conservatives, who, not coincidentally, have moved into the wealthier areas of MoCo over the course of the Bush admin.

by dblhelix on Sat Oct 20, 2007 at 07:02:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

Should have added also, that the last Repug member of the state legislature to represent Montg. (out of 32 legislators representing the co.) was moderate-to-liberal Rep. Jean Cryor from Potomac. It was a close race, but she went down to defeat nevertheless in 2006 (Ehrlich's negative coattails ??) ...

(Also, was going to ask you what difference does it make if parts of Bethesda are "heavily Jewish" ... I realize that Jewish areas would normally be more Democratic, but I don't think there's a difference in Bethesda voting patterns based on this (there are many Jewish families in Potomac also) ... Bethesda is almost uniformly Democratic now -- everywhere; as far as West Bethesda, if you recall, even Connie Morella couldn't carry her own home precinct in her losing 2002 race to Van Hollen. Btw, housing prices in a good part of Bethesda and all of Chevy Chase have surpassed Potomac as of late, & those areas are considered just as "upscale" if not more so by many) ....

by silver spring on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 02:26:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

None of this matters. (none / 0)

The bottom line is that, in today's political climate, in a state like Massachusetts, when anyone with an "R" by their name is toxic no matter how far they run from Bush, NOBODY should have gotten within that range of Tsongsas.

Niki Tsongas is boring, milquetoast, does not stand for anything that excites the base and isn't progressive enough to excite the base and ran a boring, ineffective lackluster campaign.

She's such a bad candidate that in any other year where Rs are not as toxic as they are now, I'd bet she would have lost. The good news is that she now can run as an incumbent with all those advantages and hopefully learn from her mistakes and run a better race next time. Also, being more of a "movement progressive" may help with turnout.

McCain is defining Obama, and Obama is neither defining himself, nor McCain. This is awful.

by jgarcia on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 12:18:49 AM EST

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

I don't think so. Ogonowski and Tsongas ran as generic representatives of their parties and toned down the Party ideology. The end result was pretty much the district's generic partisan split, which is 56-44ish. Ogonowski had Republican unity. Tsongas had local Democratic fraying to deal with, and so she got a bit lesser than expected turnout and the Independent candidates took some votes that under better circumstances would have gone to her.

For the 2008 general election, Republicans can do a lot of things to distract. But Democrats really should not have a difficult time getting them to stand for standard bottom line Republican positions, because those are undeniable. (If they deny too many of them, their hardline supporters revolt against them as traitors.) These are: more tax cuts, conservative social positions and judge appointments (which are all about denying of 14th Amendment civil rights to due process and equal protection for all), Texas oilman political "ethics", fighting until victory in Iraq, a continued 'international coalition' with colonial behavior in Iraq, and killing of all major Al Qaeda figures without proper trial (preferably torturing them first).

That's sort of the downside of being the Party of "ideas" and dogmas. Everyone knows what the true dogmas are and just how far the individual is permitted to stray from them.

by killjoy on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 04:49:26 AM EST

Re: Lessons From Tsongas v. Ogonowski For 2008 (none / 0)

The comment above by BRoss misses the signal event of the Bush presidency: 9/11. Bush ran 9% better in NY State and 7% better in NJ and CT, the areas hit hardest on that day. He did it without much in the way of ads or campaigns by either party.

That of course was a one shot. And that leads us back to the normal behavior of special elections.

1. The party holding the seat is likely to maintain it. In 87 of the 100 special elections since Ronald Reagan became President, parties held on to their seats. This has also been true of 19 of 22 specials since George W. Bush became President. The rule worked as the Democrats held the seat.

2. The party "in power" is likely to lose ground. Usually, that is the party that controls the White House. In 9 of the last 10 special elections where a seat changed hands the "White House party" lost (Republicans under the Bushes, Democrats under Clinton). I would argue that Massachussetts is so mono=party that the Democrats are the de facto party in power, aka the White House party. Thus a Republiocan "gain" is normal.

by David Kowalski on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 11:23:19 AM EST

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