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Election 2010: Regional Polarization in GOP House Gains
Larry Sabato’s map above pretty much shows it all.Every red dot represents a Republican pick-up (66 in all). The three blue dots are the sum total of Democratic takeovers in GOP districts (Delaware-AL, Louisiana-2, and Hawaii-1). The net Republican gain appears to settling in at 63. Thirty-three states gave the GOP at least one additional seat.
The Election Day “wave” for the Republicans produced a bumper crop of 23 new seats in the South and Border States, where the GOP traditionally does well. This region accounted for more than a third of total Republican gains.
But the key to the Republican House takeover occurred in the North Central states through the industrial Midwest. Pennsylvania (5), Ohio (5), and most surprisingly, New York (6) and Illinois (4) joined Indiana (2), Maryland (1), Michigan (2), Minnesota (1), New Hampshire (2), and New Jersey (1) in shifting a regional total of 29 to the GOP.
A good deal of this is simply a restoration of the pre-2006 status quo. Republicans lost some previously safe seats in the Democratic years of 2006 and 2008, and what goes around, comes around.
The Democrats captured traditionally Republican Congressional seats in 2006 and 2008 because of one factor: displeasure with President George W. Bush. With Bush out of office, suddenly the GOP gains. Of course, Obama and his far left minions in the Congress helped push Democrats to the LEFT and made them vulnerable.
Has normalcy been restored with a regional polarization of political parties?
I would say yes with the national Democratic Party having become a two state (California and New York), and ethnic based party (African Americans, Jews and Latinos). -
Why the GOP Should NOT Compromise with Obama and the Democrats Over Tax Rates
Why?Because it is bad for the economy and job creation.
The Obama administration and members of Congress should study the record on how the economy reacts to changes in the tax code. The president’s economic team has launched a three-pronged attack on capital: They are attacking the income group that is the most responsible for capital formation and jobs in the private sector, and then attacking the investment returns on capital formation in the form of dividends and capital gains. The out-year projections on revenues from these tax increases will prove to be phantom.
Republicans should not be complicit in a bad “compromise” plan in order to save Obama and the Democrat’s collective ass. Rather to let the Bush tax rates expire, re-enact them in January and let Obama take responsibility in vetoing lower marginal tax rates – if he dare do so.
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California Poll Watch: One in Five California Voters Would NEVER Cast a Ballot for a Republican
No surprise here.Almost one in five California voters said they would never cast a ballot for a Republican. Among Latinos, that rose to almost one in three, according to a new Los Angeles Times-USC poll.
Only 5% of California voters were as emphatically anti-Democrat, according to the survey.
“I don’t know how any Republican thinks they can win in California after looking at this,” said GOP pollster Linda DiVall, who with Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg directed the survey for The Times and the USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences.
California voters surveyed in the poll repudiated the GOP stance on illegal immigration by endorsing a host of positions intended to make it easier for the undocumented to gain legal status. Their support for same-sex marriage outnumbered that opposing any legal recognition by more than 3 to 1. Californians also endorsed an assertive role for government in protecting minority citizens, regulating corporations and helping the poor and needy, and rejected arguments that an activist role for government had harmed the fiber of American society.
California with its ethnic and geographic segmentation has been a super Democratic state. But, on the other hand, it appears to be the only state so predisposed, along with New York. The Democratic Party has become a regional, ethnic, and two state party.
So, what will be the policy implications of these findings?
- I don’t think the national Republican Party will put too much money into California for statewide races any longer – at least for the foreseeable future.
- There will be a hardening of national GOP positions on illegal immigration, border security, and illegal alien amnesty.
- California will not be the recipient of much Congressionally generated pork or bailout monies.
- The California Republican Party will hunker down into a permanent minority roll and concentrate on winning Congressional and Legislative seats in “RED” districts while waiting for opportunities.
- California already known as business-unfriendly will be a jobs donor to other states who recruit California businesses.
California is in a deep blue hole and it may take decades to change – if ever.
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Has the Democratic Party Become a Regional or Two State Party?
Graphic Courtesy of Smart PoliticsRemember the harangue of the LEFT after President Obama’s win in 2008 that the GOP was a regional minority party?Well, as I said at the time, this is NOT true, but have the Democrats with the recent election have continued the trend of being a New York and California party – a two state party. Looking at the table above, you would have to say the evidence is clear.
Despite losing six U.S. House seats in New York on November 2nd (with defeats in NY-01 and NY-25 still tentative), the Democratic Party nonetheless continues to be ever more a party of two coasts – with a particular emphasis on the Empire and Golden States.
A Smart Politics analysis of 81 election cycles dating back to 1850 finds that the Democratic Party is now comprised of a larger percentage of Californians and New Yorkers in the U.S. House than at any point since California joined the Union.
When the 112th Congress convenes in January, 28.1 percent of the Democratic caucus will hail from California (34 members) and New York (20 members).
What will this mean for the 2012 Presidential and Congressional elections?
Well, I don’t suppose too many campaign media dollars will be spent on statewide races in New York and California. And, any Presidential activity will be fundraising trips only.
It also means will be easier for the GOP to maintain its majority in the House and look at taking the majority in the U.S. Senate.
Now, New York and California still command a goodly number of Electoral College votes but Obama will have to win in the Midwest or he will be denied re-election.
Funny how political demographic perceptions change but really stay the same.
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President 2012 Poll Watch: GOP Enthusiasm Could Spell Trouble for Obama
Nate Silver makes some interesting observations about GOTV, ground operations for Obama Vs. the GOP in 2012.On the surface, this looks like horrible news for Democrats: the enthusiasm gap was the largest in precisely those states that a Democrat (or a Republican for that matter) needs to win the Presidency.
But there is something else to keep in mind. Mr. Obama’s campaign had a terris ific turnout operation, and — like any good turnout operation — it was concentrated in swing states. Mr. McCain’s campaign, by contrast, de-emphasized its “ground game” (a mistake that Karl Rove and George W. Bush would never have made), hoping to nationalize the election and win on the basis of television commercials.
What we’re probably seeing, then, is the “hangover” from the Mr. Obama’s turnout efforts in 2008. In states like Ohio and New Hampshire and Indiana, where Democrats registered tons of new voters and made sure that all of them got to the polls, a lot of them didn’t participate this time around. In other states, the electorate wasn’t much different and the people who were voting this year strongly resembled those who voted in 2010 — although Republicans still did better because the preferences of independent voters shifted toward them.
This sort of phenomenon is actually quite typical. In general, the bigger a President’s coattails, the more his party tends to suffer at the next midterm.
The key question for 2012 is whether those new voters will re-enter the electorate when Mr. Obama is on the ballot again. If so, Democrats should be in reasonably good shape — and they’ll also win back quite a few of the House seats that they lost in these states.
If not, however — or if Republicans are able to build a get-out-the-vote effort that is the equal of Mr. Obama’s — we could be up very late into the evening counting votes on Nov. 6, 2012.
This is a role where The Tea Party Movement can help supply the volunteers in key battleground states.
Time to organize. The data is there.
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Day By Day November 3, 2010 – Aliens
Day By Day by Chris MuirThe Republican Party had an outstanding election night and as a referendum to the Obama Administration sent a strong, mandated political message.In my Wednesday Washington Examiner column, which had to be filed before the full returns were available, I tried to set the Republicans’ historic gains in the House of Representatives in historic perspective, keeping in mind that the exit polls suggested that Republicans would not get the full advantage of the tsunami of public opinion in their favor in Senate races. As I told an interviewer on Britain’s Sky News, if you had to choose which legislative house you would like to control in America, you would pick the House of Representatives (where the party leadership usually can determined legislative outcomes) to the Senate (which no party even with a 60-seat supermajority really controls), just as in the United Kingdom you would rather have a majority in the House of Commons than in the House of Lords.
As I write, the House results indicate that Republicans have gained a net 61 seats (64 gains minus 3 losses) and are leading in 6 races currently undecided and trailing closely in 6 other races currently undecided. So the Republican net gain will be something like 67 seats—more than any party has won in any single election since 1948 (my Examiner column actually looks at the big seat gains for the Republicans in 1946 and the Democrats in 1948).
The upshot is that Speaker-to-be John Boehner will have a workable House majority, larger than the Republicans had during the 12 years they controlled the House from 1994 to 2006, larger than Republicans have enjoyed since the 80th Congress elected in 1946 which enacted laws which resulted in enduring public policies in 1947 and 1948. The sweet spot in the House, I would argue, is around 250 seats, enough so that you can let a fair number of your member dissent on a particular vote but not so many that dozens of members feel free to ignore party discipline because the party’s majority is so large. A 67-seat Republican gain would mean a House with 246 Republicans and 189 Democrats—a smaller number of Democrats than in any House since the one elected in 1946. The popular vote for the House is not yet available. California takes five weeks to count all its votes, a vivid contrast with Brazil, which voted on Sunday, where all the votes were counted within five hours (what is wrong with this picture?). But the popular vote appears to be a near-reversal from the Democrats’ popular vote 2008 majority in the popular vote for the House which was 54%-43%; the Republicans’ majority is likely to be greater than in 1994 and the largest since 1946 (54%-44%) and perhaps since 1928 (57%-42%). We are, as I wrote in the first sentence of my Examiner column, in uncharted territory.
Of course, I am disappointed with California where the Republican Party continued to take a drubbing at the hands of the Democrats, especially the Carly Fiorina vs. Barbara Boxer U.S. Senate race. But, I will have more on this race later.
America will be stronger and the political direction different for the Congress and President alike.
The American people have spoken.
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The Day By Day Archive -
Election 2010: Record Voter Enthusiasm Favors GOP
And, how!Americans’ enthusiasm about voting exceeds the recent midterm election high set four years ago, with 50% of Americans and 53% of registered voters saying they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting in 2010.
These results are based on the USA Today/Gallup final 2010 pre-election poll, conducted Oct. 28-31.
The record level of overall enthusiasm is primarily the result of Republicans’ heightened excitement — 63% of Republicans (including Republican-leaning independents) say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting. That not only greatly exceeds Democrats’ expressed enthusiasm this year, but also is substantially higher than what Gallup has measured for either party’s supporters on the eve of a midterm election.
The GOP is looking for substantial gains when voting ends today.
The high level of Republican enthusiasm has led to the largest gap in enthusiasm by party of any recent midterm elections, 19 percentage points. The prior highs were nine points in favor of the Democrats in 2006, and nine points in favor of the Republicans in 1994.
The party with the advantage in enthusiasm has won the greater share of the national congressional vote, and gained seats in the House, each election year since Gallup began tracking voter enthusiasm in 1994.
Stay tuned as I make my way out to Orange County, California for the California Republican Party event this evening featuring U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina.
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Election 2010: Republicans Appear Poised For A Big Win Tomorrow
Good news for America tomorrow.The final USA Today/Gallup measure of Americans’ voting intentions for Congress shows Republicans continuing to hold a substantial lead over Democrats among likely voters, a lead large enough to suggest that regardless of turnout, the Republicans will win more than the 40 seats needed to give them the majority in the U.S. House.
The results are from Gallup’s Oct. 28-31 survey of 1,539 likely voters. It finds 52% to 55% of likely voters preferring the Republican candidate and 40% to 42% for the Democratic candidate on the national generic ballot — depending on turnout assumptions. Gallup’s analysis of several indicators of voter turnout from the weekend poll suggests turnout will be slightly higher than in recent years, at 45%. This would give the Republicans a 55% to 40% lead on the generic ballot, with 5% undecided.
Republicans’ 15-point lead among likely voters contrasts with their 4-point lead, 48% to 44%, among registered voters, highlighting the importance of higher GOP turnout to the election outcome. This wide difference between the GOP’s margin among registered voters and its margin among likely voters is similar to the 2002 midterms, in which Democrats led by 5 points among all registered voters in Gallup’s final pre-election poll, while Republicans led by 6 points among likely voters — an 11-point gain.
These final estimates of the vote among registered and likely voters are consistent with Gallup polling since Sept. 23. Republicans have led by an average of 4 points among registered voters and by 16 points among a low-turnout estimate of likely voters since that time. Thus, while voter preferences could change in the final two days, perhaps resulting from Democrats’ final push to motivate their base to turn out, voter preferences appear to be quite settled in this final post-Labor Day phase of the campaign.
Looks like control of the House of Representatives will change tomorrow from Democrat to Republican with the ouster of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. U.S. Senate control may or not change depending upon the GOP wave and how pervasive it becomes. We may know later in the day tomorrow about the Senate as Washington State and California returns come in.
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Election 2010 Poll Watch: GOP Holds Solid Lead in Congressional Generic Ballot
Fifteen days before the 2010 Congressional Midterm elections and the Republican Party is maintaining a solid lead on the Congressional Generic Ballot.Gallup’s tracking of the generic ballot for Congress finds Republicans leading Democrats by 5 percentage points among registered voters, 48% to 43%, and by 11- and 17-point margins among likely voters, depending on turnout. This is the third consecutive week the Republicans have led on the measure among registered voters, after two weeks in September when the parties were about tied.
The latest results are from Gallup polling conducted the past two weekends, Oct. 7-10 and Oct. 14-17, and based on interviews with more than 2,700 registered voters and more than 1,900 likely voters.
For Republicans to lead, or even be at parity with Democrats, on the generic congressional ballot indicates they are in a good position to win a majority of House seats in the upcoming elections. This is because of Republicans’ typical advantage in voter turnout, which in recent years has given that party an average five-point boost in support on Election Day.
If the elections were held today and roughly 40% of voters turned out — a rate typical in recent years — Gallup’s Oct. 7-17 polling suggests Republicans would win 56% of the vote — 8 points greater than their support from registered voters, and 17 points ahead of Democrats, at 39%. If turnout is significantly higher, Republicans would receive 53% of the vote (a 5-point improvement over their registered-voter figure), and the Democrats, 42%.
Most pundits are saying a 50 seat pick up for the GOP in the House which would give the Republicans the majority and a new Speaker of the House, John Boehner, who will replace Nancy Pelosi. On the other hand, the CW is that the Democrats will retain a majority in the Senate, but by only one or two votes.
Quite a contrast to just two years ago when Barack Obama was elected President and the Democrats won super majorities in both the House and the Senate.
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Why the Democrats Lose BIG in November – No Really!
A no brainer: 10.1% national unemployment.Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, increased to 10.1% in September — up sharply from 9.3% in August and 8.9% in July. Much of this increase came during the second half of the month — the unemployment rate was 9.4% in mid-September — and therefore is unlikely to be picked up in the government’s unemployment report on Friday.
Certain groups continue to fare worse than the national average. For example, 15.8% of Americans aged 18 to 29 and 13.9% of those with no college education were unemployed in September.
And, some areas of California are over 20 per cent.
Americans will vote for change and oust incumbent Democrat Congressional POLS.