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For Democrats, Wave Is Building
First, party divisions may have hardened so much that few voters will be open to conversion. Party-line voting is at its highest level in decades. While many GOP voters are critical of Bush and the Republicans in Congress, many may return to the fold by November. On the other hand, there are enough pure independents and weak partisans to make a significant shift in the national vote possible.
Second, polls reveal a Democratic advantage in the level of interest in the midterm elections comparable to what the Republicans enjoyed in 1994. But it's still uncertain whether Republicans' traditionally higher turnout rates, combined with the GOP's vaunted get-out-the-vote operation, will significantly reduce or eliminate that advantage.
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Third, when the president is in political peril, it is easier for the opposition party to recruit strong candidates and raise campaign money. But many analysts have noted the absence of strategic behavior on the part of the Democrats, who have failed to recruit good candidates and have allowed the Republicans to maintain a fundraising advantage.
Yet that observation was based largely on readings taken in 2005 and early 2006. More recent assessments reveal the expected patterns. Over the past year, the Cook Political Report has increased the number of Republican seats it considers highly vulnerable from two to 10, and those it considers somewhat vulnerable from 16 to 25. Eighteen others are potentially vulnerable. That's a total of 53 GOP seats at risk, double the number of a year ago. During the same period, the number of competitive Democratic seats declined from 14 to 10;, while the total number of Democratic seats at risk remained at 21.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has significantly improved its fundraising capacity, and the Campaign Finance Institute reports that Democrats in more than 50 Republican districts are on track to raise enough money to run competitive campaigns.
The fourth and final factor is the Republican decision to pursue a risky strategy: turn their greatest liability -- the war in Iraq -- into an asset by linking it to the broader fight against terrorism. The risk is that this will reinforce the public's association of the GOP with an unpopular war. The potential gain is that it will allow the Republicans to highlight alleged Democratic division and irresponsibility.
Will it work? No one doubts the Republicans' resourcefulness and discipline in castigating the "cut-and-run" Democrats while beginning to withdraw some U.S. forces before November. Less certain are the Democrats' skill in framing the election as a referendum on the Bush administration and Republican Congress.
Public unhappiness with the Bush administration and Congress might diminish over the next several months if the economy and the situation in Iraq improve. Republicans may succeed to some extent in shifting public focus from their past performance to a choice about future directions and policy. Efforts to rally and turn out the Republican base may compensate for the Democrats' advantage in the intensity of public discontent. Extraordinary efforts to protect potentially vulnerable Republican incumbents may pay off. And the limited number of GOP seats at risk may prove an insurmountable obstacle for Democrats.
But my own reading is that the odds favor a Democratic takeover of the House. The 15 seats that the party needs for a bare majority is well below the range of minority-party gains in past tidal-wave elections. The national winds blowing against the GOP are strong and have not diminished over the past nine months. Credible progress on the ground in Iraq before November is implausible. The public's harsh evaluation of the president's performance on the economy is unlikely to be reversed by Election Day. Prospects for significant legislative achievements in the remaining months of this Congress are remote. Enough seats will be in play (including some that Republicans carried in 2004 with more than 60 percent of the vote) to allow Democrats to gain majority status in the House.
Prospects for a Democratic majority in the Senate are less bright, given the limited number of Republican seats in play. But even here, a national tide could tip all of the close races in the same direction, allowing the Democrats to hold all their threatened seats and to win the six Republican seats they need to take control.
Energized voters can hold their government accountable and throw the rascals out. Chances are good that, this fall, they will avail themselves of the opportunity.
Thomas E. Mann is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author with Norman J. Ornstein of
"The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track" (Oxford University Press).
