By Greg Giroux CQ Staff
Published: 11-05-08
Democrats solidified their majority in the U.S. House in Tuesday’s balloting — the second consecutive election in which Democrats made ample gains in a chamber they will control by a convincing margin in the 111th Congress that convenes in January.
With nine races still too close to call at midday Wednesday Democrats were guaranteed of making a net gain of at least 18 seats augmenting the 30-seat gain that they made in the 2006 elections to reverse a dozen years of House Republican rule. Democrats unseated at least a dozen Republican incumbents and also captured at least 10 other districts that Republicans left open to retire or seek other office. Four Democratic incumbents were defeated.
The Democrats’ success was fueled by public disapproval of outgoing President George W. Bush and the Republican Party and by a surge in Democratic turnout spurred by Barack Obama ’s winning presidential campaign. Republican officials anticipated losing seats given the Bush administration’s unpopularity but expressed some relief that they didn’t endure greater losses.
Democrats entered Election Day with effective control of 236 districts — counting a vacant heavily Democratic district in Ohio that the party easily retained — compared to 199 seats for the Republicans.
Tuesday’s results gave House Democrats their largest caucus since 1994 when Democrats held 259 seats. In November though that was reversed when Republicans had a net gain of 52 seats.
The Democrats got off to a good start early Tuesday unseating Florida Reps. Ric Keller (winner: Alan Grayson and Tom Feeney (winner: Suzanne Kosmas and North Carolina Rep. Robin Hayes (winner: Larry Kissel. Other Republicans who lost included Republican Reps. John R. “Randy” Kuhl Jr. of New York’s 29th District (winner: Eric Massa Phil English of Pennsylvania’s 3rd District (winner: Kathy Dahlkemper Steve Chabot of Ohio’s 1st District (winner: Kurt Schrader Tim Walberg of Michigan’s 7th District (winner: Mark Schauer and Joe Knollenberg (winner: Gary Peters of Michigan’s 9th District and Thelma Drake of Virginia’s 2nd District (winner: Glenn Nye.
The ranks of defeated Republican incumbents ran the gamut of the political spectrum. In southwestern Connecticut’s 4th District Democrat Jim Himes an investment banker defeated Connecticut Rep. Christopher Shays a rare GOP centrist who was the only House Republican in the six-state New England region. In northern and eastern Colorado’s 4th District conservative Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave was defeated by Democratic challenger Betsy Markey a former Senate aide.
House Democratic officials described the election as a success pointing to the rarity of the same party making significant gains in the House in consecutive election years.
“The fact that we are picking up seats at all is history in the sense that you usually lose seats after you win a lot as we did in 2006” Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) said Tuesday night.
Democrats faced a political environment that was at least as favorable to their party as in 2006 when voters were angry with the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq and some corruption scandals involving House Republicans. Throughout this election cycle voters gave the Bush administration poor marks on handling economic policy and the GOP bore the lion’s share of the blame from voters for the recent turmoil in the financial markets.
The anti-Republican political environment allowed Democrats to thrive in the candidate recruitment process and expand the playing field of competitive districts such that Democrats provided especially vigorous challenges in many Republican-leaning districts that had voted decisively for President Bush in the 2004 election.
The Democratic House effort also was aided by a lopsided partisan disparity in the districts that incumbents didn’t seek re-election to retire or seek other office. Of these 35 open seats Republicans were the defending party in 29 and the Democrats in just six.
Democrats didn’t lose any of their open seats to the Republicans but wrested away at least 10 such districts from GOP control — two in New York two in New Mexico and one apiece in Alabama Arizona Illinois New Jersey Ohio and Virginia. In this group the most impressive Democratic win came in Alabama’s 2nd District where Democrat Bobby Bright the mayor of Montgomery defeated Republican state Rep. Jay Love in a district that had given President Bush two-thirds of the vote four years ago.
A favorable political environment for Democrats enabled them to far outpace their Republicans in campaign fundraising. Democratic freshmen in particular concentrated on amassing substantial reserves to prepare for vigorous Republican challenges that in some cases didn’t materialize.
The cash-flush DCCC spent at least $1 million on “independent expenditures” — outlays for television and radio ads that can’t be made in cooperation with candidates’ campaigns — in 38 districts most of them Republican-held. The cash-strapped National Republican Congressional Committee spent that much in just four districts according to the Campaign Finance Institute.
“The environment has been difficult for us for a considerable period of time” Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole the chairman of the NRCC told reporters on a conference call early Wednesday.
“Obviously the president has low approval ratings we’ve had a tough economy we’ve had an unpopular war and then we had a financial crisis” he said. “So that was about as difficult a situation environmentally as we could have and it was complicated by the fact that we had about 30 open seats and a pretty big financial disadvantage with our opponents.”
“Having said that” Cole continued “we sort of got through this — we think — a little bit better than some might have expected. ... We certainly didn’t lose some of the numbers that were projected in the high 20s and low 30s. We’ll come in considerably better than that in my opinion.”
Four Democratic House members were defeated for re-election — all first-term members in districts that normally vote Republican: Nancy Boyda of Kansas’s 2nd District who lost to state Treasurer Lynn Jenkins; Don Cazayoux of Louisiana’s 6th District who won a special election in May but lost on Tuesday to Republican state Sen. Bill Cassidy; Nick Lampson of Texas’ 22nd District who lost to former Senate aide Pete Olson in a district that was once the political base of former Republican leader Tom DeLay; and Tim Mahoney of Florida’s 16th who was rendered unelectable by a sex scandal that came to light in the waning weeks of the campaign. Mahoney was trounced by Republican Tom Rooney.
There were ample signs well ahead of Tuesday’s balloting that Democrats were headed for gains in the House. Throughout the election cycle public opinion surveys consistently showed that voters preferred a Democratic-run Congress to a Republican-run Congress.
The Democrats this spring won three special elections in districts Republicans vacated — including the Louisiana district in which Cazayoux was defeated on Tuesday. But Illinois Democratic Rep. Bill Foster won a full term in the suburban Chicago district of former Republican Speaker J. Dennis Hastert who resigned last November. Mississippi Democratic Rep. Travis W. Childers also won a full term.
That string of defeats stunned the Republican Party and led retiring Virginia Rep. Thomas M. Davis III a former NRCC chairman whose own district went Democratic to issue a memo to the Republican leadership warning that “the political atmosphere facing House Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than the fall of 2006 when we lost thirty seats.”
Eight races were still too close to call by midday Wednesday as election officials continue to tally ballots in contests that may be subject to recounts. They included Virginia’s 5th District where Republican Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr. was trailing Democratic challenger Tom Perriello; Idaho’s 1st District where Democrat Walt Minnick had a small lead over Republican Rep. Bill Sali ; and Maryland’s 1st District Democrat Frank Kratovil Jr. was barely ahead of Republican state Sen. Andy Harris.
The precise party division of the House in the 111th Congress won’t be known until at least Dec. 6 when two races in Louisiana will be decided. In the New Orleans-based 2nd District Rep. William J. Jefferson who is preparing to stand trial on federal corruption charges defeated television journalist Helena Moreno in a Democratic primary runoff election on Tuesday and is heavily favored to defeat Republican lawyer Joseph Cao in what is Louisiana’s most heavily Democratic district.
A more competitive election is expected in Louisiana’s northwestern @url4th@http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=district-LA-04@ District where Democrat Paul Carmouche a local district attorney and Republican physician John Fleming will square off after winning runoff elections on Tuesday. The winner will succeed Republican Rep. Jim McCrery who is retiring after more than two decades of House service.
