How will the shutdown change 2014 election results?
There are basically two ways a national swing can happen in Congressional races.
One is direct: voters shift from one party to the other. That one almost always happens against an incumbent party, generally against the party of the president. It's of course technically possible for it to go the other way, but it's highly unlikely. And the shutdown is especially unlikely to produce any such direct electoral action -- because even if voters really do care, and even if swing voters blame Republicans, it's unlikely that they're going to still be thinking about it by next November. So I wouldn't pay much attention at all to current polling for its predictive value (and I think I've already mentioned that I wouldn't pay any attention at all to the recent PPP poll in competitive Republican-held House districts; I think Sam Wang is totally wrong to believe that there's anything predictive there at all).
So a direct effect of voters punishing Republicans is highly unlikely (it's actually probably more likely that voters would punish Democrats if there are long-lasting economic effects, although it's probably true that elite opinion placing the blame squarely on the GOP probably would neutralize that).
However, there's also a potential indirect effect. Conventional wisdom in House races (and to a lesser extent Senate elections) can be self-fulfilling. If party actors on both sides believe that it's going to be a good cycle for one party, then that party will recruit better candidates, suffer fewer retirements in tough-to-defend districts, and have plenty of resources available. And since candidate quality is extremely important in House elections, that's going to swing seats in the favored party's direction -- even if voters don't have any connection to this "trend" at all.
There's a real chance that this indirect effect will really show up this time around, and now a bit of evidence -- reported in an excellent item from Greg Sargent -- that there are already some real candidate recruitment effects on the Democratic side. To be sure, DCCC claims should be taken with a grain of salt, especially with no actual candidate names attached. But then again the polls showing Democrats "winning" the shutdown are really only a couple of days old.
I'll note one other thing. The almost-universal interpretation of the 1995-1996 shutdowns also should work for Democrats, in two ways. First, it's one of the reasons that neutral reporters are likely to interpret this one the same way (just as reporters were likely to believe that a Republican landslide was possible or even likely during the 2010 cycle). And, second, party actors are, even beyond the reporting, probably set to interpret it that way.
On the other hand: it's also a midterm election, and "everyone" knows that midterm elections are bad for the party in the White House -- which means that any effects from the shutdown will be competing against effects from that other piece of conventional wisdom. Not only that, but there's probably a more general conventional wisdom right now that all midterms are good for Republicans, and all presidential years good for Democrats (it's mostly bunk, but what matter here is what people believe). So that, too, is something pushing all those bright young district attorneys, state senators, and local celebrities towards running this time if they are Republicans, and against it if they are Democrats.
All of which is to say that it's likely that the best Democrats can realistically hope for is for indirect effects of the shutdown to cancel out the other indirect effects out there and produce a push election, or maybe small gains. Nothing is impossible, of course, and if this winds up being significantly worse than the 1995-1996 shutdowns then we will be in uncharted territory of sorts. But I'd be very surprised by a large Democratic win in 2014.
Showing posts with label congressional elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label congressional elections. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Monday, August 5, 2013
The House (Non-) Lock
My Salon column over the weekend said to ignore the conventional wisdom that Democrats have a lock on the White House -- and Republicans have a lock, at least through 2020, on the House.
Elias Isquith took issue with the House part of it, in a post called "Jonathan Bernstein is probably wrong," which is an excellent way to get my attention! More posts called that, please. Anyway, Isquith:
Year/Party Margin of Victory
1946R 9.2
1948D 6.2
1954D 5.1
1994R 7.0
2006D 6.4
2010R 6.6
So depending on what Democrats really need for a majority, it's happened once, twice, or maybe five or six times since WWII. Does that make it "likely"? I don't know! We can play with the data all sorts of ways. For example: 1946, 1954, 1994, 2006, and 2010 are all midterms during periods of unified control of government. The other cases like that? 1962, 1966, 1978...and that's it. In 2002, there was unified control of House and White House, but not Senate. So: five out of the eight times there was unified party control at a midterm, the outparty had at least a five percentage point national win.
1982 might be relevant there, too -- Democrats had the majority in the House (with Reagan in the White House and a Republican Senate), but the conservative coalition came pretty close to controlling the chamber, winning several key votes. The result? Democrats won big, by 11.9 percentage points. Now, that's not quite the same -- the incumbency advantage was with them, not against them -- but it's also far more than 7 points.
What about the other scenario -- 1948, when a Democrat won the White House and brought the House with him? The minority party in the House during divided government retained the White House in 1948, 1956, 1972, 1984, 1988, 1996, and 2012, only getting one winning surge. But several of those had at least modest surges for the president's party. A scenario in which Democrats lose only a few seats in 2014 and then win the House in 2016 isn't likely, but it's plausible -- although it would surely be a very slim margin and one that would be at serious risk in 2018.
Then there's a Republican presidential victory in 2016 and retention of the House in 2018, and then a Democratic win in 2020. A party switch in the White House to the party with the House minority yielded a new House majority in 1952, but failed to do so in 1968 and 1980. The incoming president's party did reasonably well in each of the three, although none of them were anywhere near close enough to hit that 7 point apparent GOP bias that's opened up now.
Put it all together, and I'd say: a Democratic takeover in 2014 would be absolutely unprecedented. A Democratic takeover in 2016, with Democrats retaining the White House, is fairly unlikely, but certainly not impossible. A Democratic takeover in 2018 if Republicans win the presidency in 2016 is quite plausible, perhaps even likely; if Democrats won in 2016, it's very unlikely. If a Democrat wins back the presidency after a 2016 Republican win, then it's quite plausible. Oh, one more: what if Democrats really do win four presidential elections in a row? That's pretty unlikely, by historical standards -- which makes me think that if it does happen, there's a chance that it might actually indicate a real tilt towards the Democrats, which in turn makes it more likely that either 2016 or 2020 will be enough of a landslide to push the House to them, too.
I guess the main thing here is that the combined districting and incumbency bias are not as important as the political context -- the big reason Democrats are unlikely to win the House soon is because Barack Obama is president (and therefore the conditions for a Democratic surge in the House are unlikely). And that since political context is more important, and that's unpredictable out into the future, it's also hard to predict out-year House results with any accuracy.
And while it's not really relevant to the main point, it's worth pointing out again that gerrymandering is not a major factor here; gerrymandering is part of the districting advantage, which in turn is only part (with incumbency) of the GOP advantage right now, which in turn is less important than the political context.
Elias Isquith took issue with the House part of it, in a post called "Jonathan Bernstein is probably wrong," which is an excellent way to get my attention! More posts called that, please. Anyway, Isquith:
While this is all plausible it’s sort of a longer way of acknowledging that Dems need to win the House vote by 7 percent to reclaim it, but insisting that could happen. And it could! But it’s certainly not normal, that kind of landslide election; and to point to 2006 and 2010 is to ignore the historic nature of 1. the Iraq War and 2. the greatest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression.I didn't give a lot of numbers in the original column, but since Vital Statistics is easily available now, how about the large out-party wins in percentage of national House votes, postwar, defining out-party here as the House minority party:
Again, I’m not saying developments on the order of that magnitude can’t happen — but they’re certainly not likely to happen. Barring some truly dramatic and historic convulsions, then, it’s fair to say the House is as it will be until a new census (and new state legislatures) change the parameters of the game once again.
Year/Party Margin of Victory
1946R 9.2
1948D 6.2
1954D 5.1
1994R 7.0
2006D 6.4
2010R 6.6
So depending on what Democrats really need for a majority, it's happened once, twice, or maybe five or six times since WWII. Does that make it "likely"? I don't know! We can play with the data all sorts of ways. For example: 1946, 1954, 1994, 2006, and 2010 are all midterms during periods of unified control of government. The other cases like that? 1962, 1966, 1978...and that's it. In 2002, there was unified control of House and White House, but not Senate. So: five out of the eight times there was unified party control at a midterm, the outparty had at least a five percentage point national win.
1982 might be relevant there, too -- Democrats had the majority in the House (with Reagan in the White House and a Republican Senate), but the conservative coalition came pretty close to controlling the chamber, winning several key votes. The result? Democrats won big, by 11.9 percentage points. Now, that's not quite the same -- the incumbency advantage was with them, not against them -- but it's also far more than 7 points.
What about the other scenario -- 1948, when a Democrat won the White House and brought the House with him? The minority party in the House during divided government retained the White House in 1948, 1956, 1972, 1984, 1988, 1996, and 2012, only getting one winning surge. But several of those had at least modest surges for the president's party. A scenario in which Democrats lose only a few seats in 2014 and then win the House in 2016 isn't likely, but it's plausible -- although it would surely be a very slim margin and one that would be at serious risk in 2018.
Then there's a Republican presidential victory in 2016 and retention of the House in 2018, and then a Democratic win in 2020. A party switch in the White House to the party with the House minority yielded a new House majority in 1952, but failed to do so in 1968 and 1980. The incoming president's party did reasonably well in each of the three, although none of them were anywhere near close enough to hit that 7 point apparent GOP bias that's opened up now.
Put it all together, and I'd say: a Democratic takeover in 2014 would be absolutely unprecedented. A Democratic takeover in 2016, with Democrats retaining the White House, is fairly unlikely, but certainly not impossible. A Democratic takeover in 2018 if Republicans win the presidency in 2016 is quite plausible, perhaps even likely; if Democrats won in 2016, it's very unlikely. If a Democrat wins back the presidency after a 2016 Republican win, then it's quite plausible. Oh, one more: what if Democrats really do win four presidential elections in a row? That's pretty unlikely, by historical standards -- which makes me think that if it does happen, there's a chance that it might actually indicate a real tilt towards the Democrats, which in turn makes it more likely that either 2016 or 2020 will be enough of a landslide to push the House to them, too.
I guess the main thing here is that the combined districting and incumbency bias are not as important as the political context -- the big reason Democrats are unlikely to win the House soon is because Barack Obama is president (and therefore the conditions for a Democratic surge in the House are unlikely). And that since political context is more important, and that's unpredictable out into the future, it's also hard to predict out-year House results with any accuracy.
And while it's not really relevant to the main point, it's worth pointing out again that gerrymandering is not a major factor here; gerrymandering is part of the districting advantage, which in turn is only part (with incumbency) of the GOP advantage right now, which in turn is less important than the political context.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
When Counterfactuals Go Bad
Larry Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley started off with a good idea: illustrate the regularities of Congressional and down-ballot elections with a counterfactual.
But, oh, it just goes so horribly wrong.
Imagine, for a moment, if Sen. John McCain (R) had somehow won the presidency in 2008. How might the country be different?See, there's the thing. John McCain was clobbered in 2008. We're not talking Bush/Gore, where we can easily imagine the outcome of the presidential race changing on its own; McCain lost by seven percentage points, and a 365-173 electoral college margin.
So Sabato (et al.) go on to spin this out as a "what happens next" thing, where Democrats do well in 2010 because there's a Republican in the White House...and wind up with a nonsense close:
But winning the presidency has its downsides, too — if not directly for the person who holds the office, then certainly for his or her party.Okay, everyone -- spot the flaw? Yup: Sabato is excluding the initial election from his analysis of the overall effects of winning the presidency. That is: Democrats going into 2008 had a 51-49 majority in the Senate. They're now at 54-46. Yes, they lost several seats in 2010, going from 59 to 53 -- but that was smaller than the landslide they had in 2008, going from 51 all the way up to 59! (Plus Specter switching parties to make it 60, which doesn't happen if McCain is in the White House; minus Scott Brown, which also doesn't happen under President McCain).
Now, explain to us again why so many senators, members of the House, governors and state legislators work hard to elect their party’s presidential nominee?
If John McCain wins in 2008, it almost certainly means that Republicans win a whole bunch of Congressional seats they in fact lost. Yes, they would then have taken a hit in 2010 instead of winning a landslide...but we don't really know, overall, which would be better for them.
A few things...
You can imagine McCain doing seven points better and Republicans otherwise not benefiting, but that's not the world we live in; Democrats don't have a downballot landslide coupled with a Republican victory. Nor is "imagine McCain doing seven points better" really plausible if other events are held constant -- McCain and the Republicans lost badly in 2008 because of the economy (and other things that made George W. Bush and the GOP very unpopular). It's possible to imagine the close ones changing -- 1960, 1968, 1976, 2000 -- but 2008 wasn't going to be a good Republican year unless there was a very different 2008.
And again, if there's a 2008 that's different enough that McCain wins, then we're also talking about a very different 2010. Sure, if all you know is "Republican in the White House," it's safe to predict that, all things equal, Democrats gain seats.
But it's not safe to predict which side wins Congress if all you know is the presidential party in a midterm. After all, Democrats held both Houses of Congress in 1962, 1966, and 1978; Republicans did the same in 2002, and retained the Senate in 1982. Nor is it safe to assume that the president's party is the loser over the whole cycle, including the election in which the president wins. For example: Republicans lost control of the House in 1954, the first Eisenhower midterm...which gave them 2003 seats, or four more than they had before Ike was first elected.
And while some of this is about blame being given to the party in the White House when things to wrong, another significant part of it is just opportunity. Presidents who bring fewer Members of Congress in with them (JFK, for example) tend to have relatively good midterms; one of the reasons that Obama's midterm losses were so severe, in terms of number of seats lost, was that 2008 (and 2006) had been so good for the Democrats, leaving lots of easy targets for the out-party.
Again: the main point here, which is that midterm elections are bad for the party of the president, is perfectly fine. But this counterfactual example of it is more likely to misinform than to illustrate it.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Catherine Mary Stewart, 54.
And here's some good stuff:
1. The number one justified conservative complaint about the press: how "conservative" and "right-wing" are used interchangably for both folks like Ronald Reagan and Mitt Romney, on the one hand, and Hitler, on the other. During the tail end of the Soviet Union, the faction which wanted to keep communism as it was regularly was referred to as, yes, conservative. Philip Klein was annoyed by it on Friday.
2. Emily Bazelon on Miranda.
3. Good journalism: excellent look at House and Senate recruiting, from Shane Goldmacher.
4. If you want to know why gun measures keep losing despite polling that shows their popularity, you definitely want to read David Karol.
5. And I was hoping to get to this on Friday, but I'll just link instead: Travis Waldron is correct about baseball salaries. The proper liberal response to the rise in baseball salaries after 1975 should be, it seems to me, that business can thrive when the workers thrive (while the proper conservative response should be: hey, markets are really powerful and in many circumstances do an excellent job).
And here's some good stuff:
1. The number one justified conservative complaint about the press: how "conservative" and "right-wing" are used interchangably for both folks like Ronald Reagan and Mitt Romney, on the one hand, and Hitler, on the other. During the tail end of the Soviet Union, the faction which wanted to keep communism as it was regularly was referred to as, yes, conservative. Philip Klein was annoyed by it on Friday.
2. Emily Bazelon on Miranda.
3. Good journalism: excellent look at House and Senate recruiting, from Shane Goldmacher.
4. If you want to know why gun measures keep losing despite polling that shows their popularity, you definitely want to read David Karol.
5. And I was hoping to get to this on Friday, but I'll just link instead: Travis Waldron is correct about baseball salaries. The proper liberal response to the rise in baseball salaries after 1975 should be, it seems to me, that business can thrive when the workers thrive (while the proper conservative response should be: hey, markets are really powerful and in many circumstances do an excellent job).
Monday, February 25, 2013
2012 and GOP Candidates
Dave Weigel on Friday argued that there's been too much emphasis on disastrous GOP Senate candidates, especially the Tea Party ones; Ramesh Ponnuru follows up on that today by pointing out (again) that Mitt Romney ran ahead of most GOP Senate candidates. I think I agree with the main point each of them makes...but there's a lot going on here. I'll go bullet-point style:
* As I've said many times, the out-party candidate challenging an incumbent president just isn't very important.
* The big thing that the out-party candidate can get wrong is being perceived as an ideological outlier; in my view, Romney probably did about as well on that as any Republican could have done in 2012.
* That still leaves open the possibility that Romney lost a point or two on ideology; if so, it was certainly because of the GOP, not him.
* I agree with Weigel that the direct costs of awful Tea Party candidates is probably a bit overstated, and almost certainly gets more attention that it deserves.
* However, the indirect effects are likely large -- because fringe primary winners, including those who go on to win general elections, surely deter strong candidates from entering in the first place.
* While it's impossible to prove a direct one-to-one connection, that recruitment failure was the actual big story of 2012, with Republicans unable to nominate strong candidates in potentially competitive states including Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
* To the extent it's true, that recruitment disincentive is a potentially huge effect (there can even be third-order effects from it, with Democrats able to deploy resources better because of dud GOP candidates).
* That said...Republicans certainly had solid-on-paper candidates in Hawaii, New Mexico, and North Dakota, and none of them did well. In Wisconsin, they just mistook former Governor Tommy Thompson for a strong general election candidate; can't blame Tea Partiers for that one.
* Although in at least some of these cases, the party may make it difficult for those candidates to run their strongest races.
* While, again, I think the general point that Romney did okay given the fundamentals is fine, one needs to be very, very, careful about comparing presidential results with any single other statewide race; candidates and campaign can make a large difference in the latter, so one can't really judge the presidential candidate by simple comparisons to state-election results.
* As I've said many times, the out-party candidate challenging an incumbent president just isn't very important.
* The big thing that the out-party candidate can get wrong is being perceived as an ideological outlier; in my view, Romney probably did about as well on that as any Republican could have done in 2012.
* That still leaves open the possibility that Romney lost a point or two on ideology; if so, it was certainly because of the GOP, not him.
* I agree with Weigel that the direct costs of awful Tea Party candidates is probably a bit overstated, and almost certainly gets more attention that it deserves.
* However, the indirect effects are likely large -- because fringe primary winners, including those who go on to win general elections, surely deter strong candidates from entering in the first place.
* While it's impossible to prove a direct one-to-one connection, that recruitment failure was the actual big story of 2012, with Republicans unable to nominate strong candidates in potentially competitive states including Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
* To the extent it's true, that recruitment disincentive is a potentially huge effect (there can even be third-order effects from it, with Democrats able to deploy resources better because of dud GOP candidates).
* That said...Republicans certainly had solid-on-paper candidates in Hawaii, New Mexico, and North Dakota, and none of them did well. In Wisconsin, they just mistook former Governor Tommy Thompson for a strong general election candidate; can't blame Tea Partiers for that one.
* Although in at least some of these cases, the party may make it difficult for those candidates to run their strongest races.
* While, again, I think the general point that Romney did okay given the fundamentals is fine, one needs to be very, very, careful about comparing presidential results with any single other statewide race; candidates and campaign can make a large difference in the latter, so one can't really judge the presidential candidate by simple comparisons to state-election results.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Wallace Shawn, 69. I sometimes wonder about the overlap between his fans. I mean, presumably the fans of his plays are in a whole different category, but I sort of suspect that if you ask a dozen people, not only will you get several different favorite Shawn roles, but you might get a totally different top five. Me? Vizzini, which I have to assume is the most popular answer, but also his roles in Radio Days, DS9, Clueless, and...oh, I don't know, Shadows and Fog? The Moderns? Toy Story? Himself, in My Dinner with Andre? That's a lot of good choices, but again I'm guessing there are people with a totally different list.
By the way, posting may be a bit erratic this week; I'm helping to fill for Greg while he's taking a much-deserved break, so swing by the Plum Line (plus you'll get Jamelle too, and that's always nice). For that matter, it'll probably be erratic Thanksgiving week, too, because I'll be traveling.
And now, the good stuff:
1. Really smart post by Matt Yglesias about the real incentives for cooperation and obstruction for the (presidentially) out-part in Congress.
2. Good catch from Suzy Khimm: Bill Kristol's much-noticed comments yesterday that the GOP should compromise on taxes wasn't the first time he's said that. This is all pretty predictable, by the way; all that seems to be happening so far in this portion of the GOP blamathon is that each faction is blaming some other faction for causing the defeat by insisting on unpopular policy positions. See also Ed Kilgore.
3. Cuban-Americans probably didn't shift suddenly to Obama; Ben Bishin explains. General important point: exit polls are useful, but a lot of caution is advised, especially when dealing with small groups.
4. Outside money in House races, by Lee Drutman (via Monkey Cage). I recommend the data here, but I'd be very cautious about the analysis; the relationship between campaign spending and outcomes is notoriously difficult to get a handle on, and note that even the data here are not final totals, so I'd be extra careful. We'll know more in a bit.
5. Today's theme seems to be: read it, but with skepticism. Post-election spin? It's really hard to tell what's right and what's wrong. Alexander Burns hears Republicans blaming their pollsters...it could be true that GOP pollsters were unusually off, and it's very much knowing that Republicans are telling reporters that it was the pollsters who did them in, but remember (1) that doesn't mean that's what they really think, and (2) even if they do really think it, that doesn't mean it's true. For what it's worth, Josh Marshall buys the case for believing it.
6. Garry Wills is cruel, but probably fair, to Mitt Romney. Key point in Romney's future reputation: who exactly is going to defend him?
By the way, posting may be a bit erratic this week; I'm helping to fill for Greg while he's taking a much-deserved break, so swing by the Plum Line (plus you'll get Jamelle too, and that's always nice). For that matter, it'll probably be erratic Thanksgiving week, too, because I'll be traveling.
And now, the good stuff:
1. Really smart post by Matt Yglesias about the real incentives for cooperation and obstruction for the (presidentially) out-part in Congress.
2. Good catch from Suzy Khimm: Bill Kristol's much-noticed comments yesterday that the GOP should compromise on taxes wasn't the first time he's said that. This is all pretty predictable, by the way; all that seems to be happening so far in this portion of the GOP blamathon is that each faction is blaming some other faction for causing the defeat by insisting on unpopular policy positions. See also Ed Kilgore.
3. Cuban-Americans probably didn't shift suddenly to Obama; Ben Bishin explains. General important point: exit polls are useful, but a lot of caution is advised, especially when dealing with small groups.
4. Outside money in House races, by Lee Drutman (via Monkey Cage). I recommend the data here, but I'd be very cautious about the analysis; the relationship between campaign spending and outcomes is notoriously difficult to get a handle on, and note that even the data here are not final totals, so I'd be extra careful. We'll know more in a bit.
5. Today's theme seems to be: read it, but with skepticism. Post-election spin? It's really hard to tell what's right and what's wrong. Alexander Burns hears Republicans blaming their pollsters...it could be true that GOP pollsters were unusually off, and it's very much knowing that Republicans are telling reporters that it was the pollsters who did them in, but remember (1) that doesn't mean that's what they really think, and (2) even if they do really think it, that doesn't mean it's true. For what it's worth, Josh Marshall buys the case for believing it.
6. Garry Wills is cruel, but probably fair, to Mitt Romney. Key point in Romney's future reputation: who exactly is going to defend him?
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Sophia Loren, 78.
The good stuff:
1. Hey, a local House race is getting national press! A new poll has challenger Pete Gallego leading first-term Republican incumbent Quico Canseco by five points in TX 23. Reported by Scott Bland, who does an excellent job with House elections.
2. Speaking of which: a House seat prediction from Eric McGhee, John Sides, and Ben Highton. See also Eric on the uncertainty in the forecast...and what it's good for, anyway.
3. Also, Republican chances in the Senate are weakening; Nate Silver has the numbers.
4. Ooooh, shiny. Congress.gov, preparing to replace Thomas, which will not be missed. Explanation by Emi Kolawole. Have at it, reporters and Congress scholars (and lobbyists, and Hill staffers, and...).
5. And Amy Fried's point about "47%" -- it's all in the context of those focus group people who just wouldn't believe that any politician would support policies that horrible.
The good stuff:
1. Hey, a local House race is getting national press! A new poll has challenger Pete Gallego leading first-term Republican incumbent Quico Canseco by five points in TX 23. Reported by Scott Bland, who does an excellent job with House elections.
2. Speaking of which: a House seat prediction from Eric McGhee, John Sides, and Ben Highton. See also Eric on the uncertainty in the forecast...and what it's good for, anyway.
3. Also, Republican chances in the Senate are weakening; Nate Silver has the numbers.
4. Ooooh, shiny. Congress.gov, preparing to replace Thomas, which will not be missed. Explanation by Emi Kolawole. Have at it, reporters and Congress scholars (and lobbyists, and Hill staffers, and...).
5. And Amy Fried's point about "47%" -- it's all in the context of those focus group people who just wouldn't believe that any politician would support policies that horrible.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
What Still Matters
John Sides beat me to this one, but I might as well take a crack at it. The question, from Ezra Klein, is:
About the presidential campaign, the first point I'd make is that things will happen that have nothing to do with electoral outcomes but are still important, especially for whichever side wins. Both candidates have already made a number of policy commitments. They'll make more. They'll also make choices about which ones to emphasize, and the more visible a commitment is, the more it tends to constrain the winner after the election. Think Barack Obama's threshold for tax increases -- or his choice to push for health care. Politicians can break those types of promises, but there are costs, and so what happens in the campaign tends to set up what they actually do in office.
That's not all. Representation also includes non-policy promises: politicians promise how they'll behave, and even in a way who they will be. Those promises, too, constrain candidates once they get elected. For example, Bill Clinton promised a style very different from what he claimed was an out-of-touch George H.W. Bush, and he spend a fair amount of time and energy after the election attempting to keep that promise. A lot of those sorts of promises have already been made, but again the more visible during the fall campaign, the more it will be remembered afterwards.
But I suppose what the question was really about was the outcome of the election, so I'll get to that too, although John covered most of it. Here's how I'd break it down:
Potentially major effects: those would be things that would change the fundamentals of the race. Most likely that would mean either a major surge or a major disaster in the economy. It's also possible, however, that a national security event or even some wildcard event could change things.
Potentially minor but real effects: see, this is where it gets tricky, because there are lots of them. John mentioned ad campaigns and organized mobilization. I'd add that a good VP pick could help Romney a point or two in his or her home state; a disastrous pick could cost a couple of points nationwide. Aggressive voter purges, voter ID laws, and other such measures may or may not be enforced harshly (and some of these are still in the courts or otherwise still contested), and that could mean a chunk of voters, which might be significant in very close states. If the election winds up very close, it's possible that one of the parties will open up an electoral college advantage, although I wouldn't even think about that until the last few weeks -- Nate Silver is great at tracking that sort of thing. Late-breaking campaign events might make a small difference, just the way that TV ads might make a difference; a good example was the late-breaking campaign finance scandal in 1996, which may have cost Bill Clinton a couple of percentage points.
Less likely to have even marginal importance on election outcomes: convention speeches; the debates; gaffes, ads, and campaign events before the last few weeks of the campaign.
I'll toss in one wildcard. Ideological extremism hurts candidates. Perceptions of extremism seem to be showing up in polling of the Republican Party, and as expected hurting them. However, so far Mitt Romney seems to have created a perception of moderation that is, I would say, fairly removed from his issue positions. If that was to really change, that could be make a real difference, it seems to me. However, I think it's unlikely that it will change; Romney has every incentive to portray himself as a non-ideological technocrat, and it's unlikely that his issue positions would be sufficient to change general perceptions. Still, it's something worth keeping an eye on, I suppose.
[W]e’ve still got four months until the election. Four months in which we’re going to be covering the campaign also nonstop. So help me out here: What’s going to matter between now and then?To begin with: what John said about House and Senate and some downballot campaigns. The outcomes are important, the campaigns are meaningful, and as a bonus they're often excellent fun. We're going to get events that change things -- within the last few days, the Nevada Senate contest tipped, perhaps decisively, against the Democrats, while in Arkansas a Democratic House candidate dropped out with scandal whirling around him.
About the presidential campaign, the first point I'd make is that things will happen that have nothing to do with electoral outcomes but are still important, especially for whichever side wins. Both candidates have already made a number of policy commitments. They'll make more. They'll also make choices about which ones to emphasize, and the more visible a commitment is, the more it tends to constrain the winner after the election. Think Barack Obama's threshold for tax increases -- or his choice to push for health care. Politicians can break those types of promises, but there are costs, and so what happens in the campaign tends to set up what they actually do in office.
That's not all. Representation also includes non-policy promises: politicians promise how they'll behave, and even in a way who they will be. Those promises, too, constrain candidates once they get elected. For example, Bill Clinton promised a style very different from what he claimed was an out-of-touch George H.W. Bush, and he spend a fair amount of time and energy after the election attempting to keep that promise. A lot of those sorts of promises have already been made, but again the more visible during the fall campaign, the more it will be remembered afterwards.
But I suppose what the question was really about was the outcome of the election, so I'll get to that too, although John covered most of it. Here's how I'd break it down:
Potentially major effects: those would be things that would change the fundamentals of the race. Most likely that would mean either a major surge or a major disaster in the economy. It's also possible, however, that a national security event or even some wildcard event could change things.
Potentially minor but real effects: see, this is where it gets tricky, because there are lots of them. John mentioned ad campaigns and organized mobilization. I'd add that a good VP pick could help Romney a point or two in his or her home state; a disastrous pick could cost a couple of points nationwide. Aggressive voter purges, voter ID laws, and other such measures may or may not be enforced harshly (and some of these are still in the courts or otherwise still contested), and that could mean a chunk of voters, which might be significant in very close states. If the election winds up very close, it's possible that one of the parties will open up an electoral college advantage, although I wouldn't even think about that until the last few weeks -- Nate Silver is great at tracking that sort of thing. Late-breaking campaign events might make a small difference, just the way that TV ads might make a difference; a good example was the late-breaking campaign finance scandal in 1996, which may have cost Bill Clinton a couple of percentage points.
Less likely to have even marginal importance on election outcomes: convention speeches; the debates; gaffes, ads, and campaign events before the last few weeks of the campaign.
I'll toss in one wildcard. Ideological extremism hurts candidates. Perceptions of extremism seem to be showing up in polling of the Republican Party, and as expected hurting them. However, so far Mitt Romney seems to have created a perception of moderation that is, I would say, fairly removed from his issue positions. If that was to really change, that could be make a real difference, it seems to me. However, I think it's unlikely that it will change; Romney has every incentive to portray himself as a non-ideological technocrat, and it's unlikely that his issue positions would be sufficient to change general perceptions. Still, it's something worth keeping an eye on, I suppose.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Q Day 6: Do Congress's Record Low Approval Rates Matter?
Another question:
[P]residential approval ratings have a lot of predictive power for election results. Seeing as Congress just hit an all-time low in approval (according to Gallup), I have to ask if Congressional approval has similar predictive powers?Hey, that's an easy one -- John Sides posted about this back in June. Take it away, John:
Here’s the rub: when people dislike Congress, they punish members of the House majority and reward members of the minority. Opinions about Congress are important even when controlling for other things that affect congressional elections, such as approval of the president or economic conditions in the country. In the article, Jones finds that a ten-point decrease in approval would cost majority-party incumbents about 4 points at the polls. It would also help minority-party incumbents by a smaller amount (just over 1 point). Even more consequential for elections, these effects are larger in swing districts.That's from research by David Jones and Monika McDermott (book here; article by Jones here). Now, I'm only relying on John's summary (go ahead and read the whole thing), and there are as always important caveats: this time might be different for all sorts of reasons. But that's what we have, and it appears to be bad news for Republicans.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Assessing the Effects of Votes in Congress
I don't think I've blogged yet about the new paper by Seth Masket and Steve Greene showing the costs to individual Democratic Members of Congress for voting for health care reform during the 111th Congress. It's an excellent paper, and a useful corrective to the general conventional wisdom (among scholars of elections and Congress, at least) that voters are too inattentive to have their vote affected by actions taken by their representatives.
That said, the one caveat I have about this kind of research is that they only study two of the possible outcomes Members were faced with when casting their votes: legislation becomes law, and the Member votes either aye or nay. As I said way back early in the health care debate (can't find it right now, alas), it was likely that a lot of Democrats believed that their best course of action was to vote no while the bill passed. However, alas for the party, if too many did that, then they would wind up with no bill at all. Not only might they prefer having the bill pass even if it put some Members in electoral jeopardy, but it's also possible that a failed bill might have had severe electoral consequences of its own.
Now, we have no idea whether such an effect was possible, let alone whether that hypothetical effect was larger than the direct effect Seth and Steve estimate for voting for the bill. We also don't know whether passing the bill will ultimately help Barack Obama win reelection (which might incidentally help Democrats lower on the ballot in 2012 -- although it could then hurt the Dems in 2014! Hey, this stuff can get complicated!). So I'm not criticizing, at all, the Masket and Greene study. Just pointing out that it's also worth keeping in mind the larger context.
That said, the one caveat I have about this kind of research is that they only study two of the possible outcomes Members were faced with when casting their votes: legislation becomes law, and the Member votes either aye or nay. As I said way back early in the health care debate (can't find it right now, alas), it was likely that a lot of Democrats believed that their best course of action was to vote no while the bill passed. However, alas for the party, if too many did that, then they would wind up with no bill at all. Not only might they prefer having the bill pass even if it put some Members in electoral jeopardy, but it's also possible that a failed bill might have had severe electoral consequences of its own.
Now, we have no idea whether such an effect was possible, let alone whether that hypothetical effect was larger than the direct effect Seth and Steve estimate for voting for the bill. We also don't know whether passing the bill will ultimately help Barack Obama win reelection (which might incidentally help Democrats lower on the ballot in 2012 -- although it could then hurt the Dems in 2014! Hey, this stuff can get complicated!). So I'm not criticizing, at all, the Masket and Greene study. Just pointing out that it's also worth keeping in mind the larger context.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Webb
Going into the 2012 cycle, the Republicans had an excellent opportunity to gain in the Senate, with far more Democrats up than Republicans -- and several Democrats who probably won last time thanks mainly to the national tide for the Dems in 2006.
Since then, it's only getting better for Republicans, with the latest today's announcement by Jim Webb of Virginia that he won't seek a second term. Virginia now joins North Dakota, with Kent Conrad retiring, as prime GOP pickup opportunities; Republicans will also have a chance in Connecticut to win Joe Lieberman's seat, while the only GOP retirement to date, Kay Baily Hutchison, is from relatively safe (for Republicans) Texas. Of course, it's still early, and it's very possible that Tim Kaine (if he runs) could do better than Webb, but still, the early days of the cycle have been good for the GOP.
Larry Sabato tweets "If Obama wins VA again, a credible D will win Senate. If R POTUS nominee carries VA, G Allen will win (assuming he gets R nod, as is likely)." I suppose that's the way to bet, all else equal, but if he'd like to give me odds, I'd be happy to take the other side -- in other words, he gets Obama/Dem and GOP/Allen, while I get Obama/Allen and GOP/Dem. Or, to put it another way, I'd be willing to bet that there will be at least a five point difference between Obama's vote in Virginia and the vote for the Senate Democratic nominee. For what it's worth, Mark Warner ran a dozen points ahead of Barack Obama in 2008, although George Allen and George W. Bush had almost identical wins in 2000.
Hmmm...actually, I'd love to know the answer to this: what's the average difference between presidential vote and open seat Senate/governor vote, and how has it changed over the years? You would want to separate out the south, at least from 1948 through 1992 or so. I feel as if I should know this, but I'm blanking on it just now...anyone?
Since then, it's only getting better for Republicans, with the latest today's announcement by Jim Webb of Virginia that he won't seek a second term. Virginia now joins North Dakota, with Kent Conrad retiring, as prime GOP pickup opportunities; Republicans will also have a chance in Connecticut to win Joe Lieberman's seat, while the only GOP retirement to date, Kay Baily Hutchison, is from relatively safe (for Republicans) Texas. Of course, it's still early, and it's very possible that Tim Kaine (if he runs) could do better than Webb, but still, the early days of the cycle have been good for the GOP.
Larry Sabato tweets "If Obama wins VA again, a credible D will win Senate. If R POTUS nominee carries VA, G Allen will win (assuming he gets R nod, as is likely)." I suppose that's the way to bet, all else equal, but if he'd like to give me odds, I'd be happy to take the other side -- in other words, he gets Obama/Dem and GOP/Allen, while I get Obama/Allen and GOP/Dem. Or, to put it another way, I'd be willing to bet that there will be at least a five point difference between Obama's vote in Virginia and the vote for the Senate Democratic nominee. For what it's worth, Mark Warner ran a dozen points ahead of Barack Obama in 2008, although George Allen and George W. Bush had almost identical wins in 2000.
Hmmm...actually, I'd love to know the answer to this: what's the average difference between presidential vote and open seat Senate/governor vote, and how has it changed over the years? You would want to separate out the south, at least from 1948 through 1992 or so. I feel as if I should know this, but I'm blanking on it just now...anyone?
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Incumbents
(Updated below)
John Sides has a nice post up demonstrating that, contrary to some earlier speculation, incumbents still won most (86%) of the House elections in which they competed. If this is his main point, I agree:
The most important factor, however, has nothing at all to do with candidates; it has to do with party. Party is the most important factor in House voting, and since most House districts have lopsided advantages for one party, most House elections are essentially determined long before specific candidates are chosen.
That's easiest to see in the two districts in which GOP incumbents lost this year, one in Louisiana and one in Hawaii. In both cases, Republican victories had been flukes (a crook on the ballot for the Dems in one, and a split Democratic party running two candidates in a special election in the other), and once the Dems got themselves a (single) acceptable candidate, that was the end of the story.
So, yes, ignore the polling that says that Congress is unpopular, or that people want incumbents to lose. But when John says "Incumbents still dominate congressional elections," I'm going to disagree with his wording. Parties dominate congressional elections. Incumbency is an advantage -- yes, even in 2010 -- but party is the biggest story.
UPDATE: See Andrew Gelman's post at the Monkey Cage, in which he estimates the current size of the incumbent advantages at about 6% in House general elections, and notes that it doesn't seem to have moved much this year. I fully agree with his final thought: "Once you're in, you generally get to run again and represent your party in the general election. This is the most important way in which incumbents "dominate": they don't need to compete for the nomination on a level playing field each time."
John Sides has a nice post up demonstrating that, contrary to some earlier speculation, incumbents still won most (86%) of the House elections in which they competed. If this is his main point, I agree:
What is the bottom line? Don't read too much into a few isolated early primaries (see: Robert Bennett) or into polls where vast majorities of Americans disapprove of Congress or even indicate their willingness to vote for the challenger.I would throw in a little perspective, however. It's absolutely correct that in House elections, the bottom line is that incumbents win. Why they win, however, is another story. There are two major factors that determine House elections. One is, in fact, the evaluations votes have of the candidates, and for that incumbents do have an advantage, and from all accounts maintained that this year.
The most important factor, however, has nothing at all to do with candidates; it has to do with party. Party is the most important factor in House voting, and since most House districts have lopsided advantages for one party, most House elections are essentially determined long before specific candidates are chosen.
That's easiest to see in the two districts in which GOP incumbents lost this year, one in Louisiana and one in Hawaii. In both cases, Republican victories had been flukes (a crook on the ballot for the Dems in one, and a split Democratic party running two candidates in a special election in the other), and once the Dems got themselves a (single) acceptable candidate, that was the end of the story.
So, yes, ignore the polling that says that Congress is unpopular, or that people want incumbents to lose. But when John says "Incumbents still dominate congressional elections," I'm going to disagree with his wording. Parties dominate congressional elections. Incumbency is an advantage -- yes, even in 2010 -- but party is the biggest story.
UPDATE: See Andrew Gelman's post at the Monkey Cage, in which he estimates the current size of the incumbent advantages at about 6% in House general elections, and notes that it doesn't seem to have moved much this year. I fully agree with his final thought: "Once you're in, you generally get to run again and represent your party in the general election. This is the most important way in which incumbents "dominate": they don't need to compete for the nomination on a level playing field each time."
Thursday, November 4, 2010
New Day Rising (The Case For Democratic Optimism -- Real or Fake)
I recommend to all Democrats a manifesto from Ed Kilgore, James Vega, and J.P. Green, which recognizes how likely it is that Democratic factions will turn on each other in a self-destructive frenzy and urges them not to. It's an excellent piece, although I'm tempted to add a little "good luck with that" sarcasm. Will Rogers, and all that.
Speaking of the Democrats, one positive impression I have of their reaction for far this week is that there's a lot less despair than there was in 1994 (this Jonathan Chait post notwithstanding). I remember arguing with a Democratic pollster in December 1994 who was convinced that the Democratic Party was entirely doomed, and it would probably be replaced by a new third party. Perhaps that was a bit extreme of an example, but there was a lot of hopelessness going around that winter -- it sure seemed to me that very few Democratic activists or campaign professionals thought Clinton would be reelected, for example.
Why should anyone care about a little pessimism? Because Democrats wound up with a relatively lousy crop of candidates in 1996 who were unable to take advantage of Clinton's popularity and Newt's disasters.
The one thing that the political science literature tells us that matters in Congressional elections and is to a large extent within the control of the parties is the quality of candidates. Very soon, politicians will be making decisions about 2012. Incumbent Democrats who now find themselves lost in the Siberia of House Minority status, and who in many cases will be faced with the chore of learning and appealing to a significantly different constituency thanks to redistricting, will have to decide whether to retire. Ambitious pols -- state legislators, local prosecutors, former Members of the House who just lost their reelection bids -- will have to decide whether 2012 will be promising.
What political scientists have learned is that this is a case in which party prophesies are to a large extent self-fulfilling. Believe that the party is going over a cliff, and you'll wind up with third-rate candidates, who will then lose -- not because of the general environment, but because bad candidates lose Congressional elections. Believe that your party is about to benefit from the wave, and you'll wind up with excellent candidates who will win regardless of whether such a "wave" actually existed.
It seems to me that the GOP did a great job of selling their own potential candidates that 2010 would be like 1994. That's behind the data that Brendan Nyhan reported last week about the large spike in quality GOP candidates, especially challengers. I strongly suspect that when all is said and done, that's going to be the controllable variable that made the most difference, much more than choices about pushing the agenda for the Democrats or opposing it for the Republicans (with the possible exception of economic policy, but it's always hard to know the effects of any potential changes, there).
Now, it's the Democrats' turn to react to adversity with confidence. First up: keeping what they have. They lost 20 House Members to retirement in the 1996 cycle, and that was without redistricting; that's a terrible number for what turned out to be a good year for the party. Can they do better this time around? To do so, they'll have to persuade not only wavering Members of the House and Senators that Democratic chances are good in 2012, but also persuade the people who those Members talk to -- including fundraisers and donors, including activists within the district, and especially including the Democratic establishment in Washington.
What's on their side, this time around, is that the election was much less of a shock than 1994 was. Moreover, the example of the Clinton years, which has worked so well for the GOP for the last couple of years, now flips: while activists may not remember 1996, surely much of the Washington establishment does.
The rest is up to Democratic elites. There are a lot of things that opinion leaders cannot do -- a good speech from a president cannot make out-party rank-and-file, or even independents, change their minds about policy. This, however, is one that a strong effort by party leaders should be able to affect, because the target audience here -- other active Democrats -- is ready and willing to listen to what party elites have to say.
So, whatever they actually believe, Democrats should pound the 1996-2012 analogies, remind themselves that reversals are not only possible but happen all the time (I bet there are all sorts of other historical examples easy to dig up: liberal bloggers, consider that a challenge!), and convince themselves and anyone who will listen to them that good times for Dems are, once again, right around the corner.
At least until candidate recruitment season is over. If they want a time to bemoan their prospects, I'd recommend saving it for late spring/early summer 2012, after the last Congressional filing dates but before the presidential conventions. As long as they snap out of it by mid-summer, I would think that talking down their chances at that point will have absolutely no effect on anything.
Speaking of the Democrats, one positive impression I have of their reaction for far this week is that there's a lot less despair than there was in 1994 (this Jonathan Chait post notwithstanding). I remember arguing with a Democratic pollster in December 1994 who was convinced that the Democratic Party was entirely doomed, and it would probably be replaced by a new third party. Perhaps that was a bit extreme of an example, but there was a lot of hopelessness going around that winter -- it sure seemed to me that very few Democratic activists or campaign professionals thought Clinton would be reelected, for example.
Why should anyone care about a little pessimism? Because Democrats wound up with a relatively lousy crop of candidates in 1996 who were unable to take advantage of Clinton's popularity and Newt's disasters.
The one thing that the political science literature tells us that matters in Congressional elections and is to a large extent within the control of the parties is the quality of candidates. Very soon, politicians will be making decisions about 2012. Incumbent Democrats who now find themselves lost in the Siberia of House Minority status, and who in many cases will be faced with the chore of learning and appealing to a significantly different constituency thanks to redistricting, will have to decide whether to retire. Ambitious pols -- state legislators, local prosecutors, former Members of the House who just lost their reelection bids -- will have to decide whether 2012 will be promising.
What political scientists have learned is that this is a case in which party prophesies are to a large extent self-fulfilling. Believe that the party is going over a cliff, and you'll wind up with third-rate candidates, who will then lose -- not because of the general environment, but because bad candidates lose Congressional elections. Believe that your party is about to benefit from the wave, and you'll wind up with excellent candidates who will win regardless of whether such a "wave" actually existed.
It seems to me that the GOP did a great job of selling their own potential candidates that 2010 would be like 1994. That's behind the data that Brendan Nyhan reported last week about the large spike in quality GOP candidates, especially challengers. I strongly suspect that when all is said and done, that's going to be the controllable variable that made the most difference, much more than choices about pushing the agenda for the Democrats or opposing it for the Republicans (with the possible exception of economic policy, but it's always hard to know the effects of any potential changes, there).
Now, it's the Democrats' turn to react to adversity with confidence. First up: keeping what they have. They lost 20 House Members to retirement in the 1996 cycle, and that was without redistricting; that's a terrible number for what turned out to be a good year for the party. Can they do better this time around? To do so, they'll have to persuade not only wavering Members of the House and Senators that Democratic chances are good in 2012, but also persuade the people who those Members talk to -- including fundraisers and donors, including activists within the district, and especially including the Democratic establishment in Washington.
What's on their side, this time around, is that the election was much less of a shock than 1994 was. Moreover, the example of the Clinton years, which has worked so well for the GOP for the last couple of years, now flips: while activists may not remember 1996, surely much of the Washington establishment does.
The rest is up to Democratic elites. There are a lot of things that opinion leaders cannot do -- a good speech from a president cannot make out-party rank-and-file, or even independents, change their minds about policy. This, however, is one that a strong effort by party leaders should be able to affect, because the target audience here -- other active Democrats -- is ready and willing to listen to what party elites have to say.
So, whatever they actually believe, Democrats should pound the 1996-2012 analogies, remind themselves that reversals are not only possible but happen all the time (I bet there are all sorts of other historical examples easy to dig up: liberal bloggers, consider that a challenge!), and convince themselves and anyone who will listen to them that good times for Dems are, once again, right around the corner.
At least until candidate recruitment season is over. If they want a time to bemoan their prospects, I'd recommend saving it for late spring/early summer 2012, after the last Congressional filing dates but before the presidential conventions. As long as they snap out of it by mid-summer, I would think that talking down their chances at that point will have absolutely no effect on anything.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Republican Nomination Process Notes
I've been whining for months now about reporters failing to let us know about whether Republicans were hurting their chances in House elections by nominating fringe, inexperienced, or extreme candidates. Brendan Nyhan's not a reporter, but he took a different path than I did: instead of whining, he did the work and compiled the data.
The result is a very important post that I'll urge you to read in full if you're interested in 2010 House elections. Short version: by one standard measure of candidate quality (previous elective office), Republicans have in fact nominated a strong field of candidates in competitive House seats. To some extent that's because amateur Tea Party candidates are generally running in safe Democratic seats that the GOP had no chance to win with any candidate, and to some extent it's because a fair number of candidates identified with Tea Partiers are actually experienced pols. In other words, there are a fair number of Marco Rubios, and relatively few Christine O'Donnells in most competitive House seats.
Again, I recommend the entire post.
The only caveat I'd add is that Nyhan is only looking at experience, not ideological extremism. For the most part, political scientists have found that the former is very important, while the latter matters more around the margins in most cases. However, it is certainly possible for those with previous electoral experience to be weak candidates (see Sharron Angle, who may well win but only after overcoming an unusual number of gaffes), and it's possible that ideological extremism could be a problem for some of those experienced candidates. Possible, but again, on that we don't have any evidence yet.
The other important thing to read about the 2010 cycle this week was Bradford Plumer's survey of what's happening with third party candidates who might affect election outcomes (or, in a few cases, actually win).
What joins those two topics in many cases is a common theme about the Republican Party's ability to control its own nominations. That turns out to be a tricky topic, and one that I've written about here in the past, but expect to hear more in the future. Meanwhile, I'll refer you to a couple of things...Seth Masket has been talking about the fascinating Colorado gubernatorial race for some time. And the key book about primary elections -- Hey, political scientists interested in parties and elections, it's a must-read -- is Alan Ware's The American Direct Primary. As I said, it's a tricky topic, but terribly important.
The result is a very important post that I'll urge you to read in full if you're interested in 2010 House elections. Short version: by one standard measure of candidate quality (previous elective office), Republicans have in fact nominated a strong field of candidates in competitive House seats. To some extent that's because amateur Tea Party candidates are generally running in safe Democratic seats that the GOP had no chance to win with any candidate, and to some extent it's because a fair number of candidates identified with Tea Partiers are actually experienced pols. In other words, there are a fair number of Marco Rubios, and relatively few Christine O'Donnells in most competitive House seats.
Again, I recommend the entire post.
The only caveat I'd add is that Nyhan is only looking at experience, not ideological extremism. For the most part, political scientists have found that the former is very important, while the latter matters more around the margins in most cases. However, it is certainly possible for those with previous electoral experience to be weak candidates (see Sharron Angle, who may well win but only after overcoming an unusual number of gaffes), and it's possible that ideological extremism could be a problem for some of those experienced candidates. Possible, but again, on that we don't have any evidence yet.
The other important thing to read about the 2010 cycle this week was Bradford Plumer's survey of what's happening with third party candidates who might affect election outcomes (or, in a few cases, actually win).
What joins those two topics in many cases is a common theme about the Republican Party's ability to control its own nominations. That turns out to be a tricky topic, and one that I've written about here in the past, but expect to hear more in the future. Meanwhile, I'll refer you to a couple of things...Seth Masket has been talking about the fascinating Colorado gubernatorial race for some time. And the key book about primary elections -- Hey, political scientists interested in parties and elections, it's a must-read -- is Alan Ware's The American Direct Primary. As I said, it's a tricky topic, but terribly important.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
How Money Works in Congressional Elections
You'll want to read John Sides on the David Brooks column about money in politics. As John says, Brooks is correct to say that people overrate the importance of money in elections -- but John corrects him on the current debate over spending effects: "the major debate is not over whether money matters, it's over the relative impact of incumbent and challenger spending." The people who study this (and I'll repeat John's citation of Gary Jacobson) most definitely do believe that campaign spending matters -- but not as much as some think.
Why does money have only limited importance? It turns out that there are two major factors on individual vote in Congressional elections, and then various small factors. For one of the major factors, partisanship, campaign spending doesn't matter at all: no one sees a bunch of ads and switches from being a Democrat to being a Republican. Since House districts often have overwhelming partisan majorities, party voting alone explains the outcome of most House elections. Spending also matters little to some of the small factors, such as presidential approval and the condition of the economy.
The reason campaign spending does matter is the other major factor. It turns out that if you ask people what they think about the two candidates, and note the balance of things they say that they like and dislike about each, that the combination of that is a good indication of how they'll vote. Not too surprising, right? If I can think of three things I like about the incumbent, and nothing at all about the challenger, of course I'm more likely to vote for the incumbent. In fact, that's how the incumbency advantage actually works -- over time, constituents tend to learn a couple of positive things about the local Member of Congress and (assuming no scandals) nothing negative, while they usually have barely heard of the challenger. Again, party matters: many of us will still vote for a challenger from our party even in the face of that situation. These are all tendencies, not absolutes.
Money, of course, helps candidates "teach" us to learn good things about them and lousy things about their opponents. The most obvious point, as John Sides quoted Jacobson as saying, is that a challenger who doesn't spend much money and has no other means of getting the word out will have no chance to win. It's a little different for incumbents, however. Incumbents do all sorts of things in the course of fulfilling their official duties -- casework, district projects, meeting with constituents, local media hits. A surprising number of voters will actually have had either a direct positive experience with a long-term Member of Congress, or know of someone who has had a positive experience. By the time a multi-term incumbent gets to the 2010 election, it's not clear how much a bunch of TV ads will add to all of that. More generally, campaigns and campaign spending are only one of the things that affect how we feel about the candidates, which (remember) is only one factor in determining how we vote.
So money matters. It just matters in limited ways.
Why does money have only limited importance? It turns out that there are two major factors on individual vote in Congressional elections, and then various small factors. For one of the major factors, partisanship, campaign spending doesn't matter at all: no one sees a bunch of ads and switches from being a Democrat to being a Republican. Since House districts often have overwhelming partisan majorities, party voting alone explains the outcome of most House elections. Spending also matters little to some of the small factors, such as presidential approval and the condition of the economy.
The reason campaign spending does matter is the other major factor. It turns out that if you ask people what they think about the two candidates, and note the balance of things they say that they like and dislike about each, that the combination of that is a good indication of how they'll vote. Not too surprising, right? If I can think of three things I like about the incumbent, and nothing at all about the challenger, of course I'm more likely to vote for the incumbent. In fact, that's how the incumbency advantage actually works -- over time, constituents tend to learn a couple of positive things about the local Member of Congress and (assuming no scandals) nothing negative, while they usually have barely heard of the challenger. Again, party matters: many of us will still vote for a challenger from our party even in the face of that situation. These are all tendencies, not absolutes.
Money, of course, helps candidates "teach" us to learn good things about them and lousy things about their opponents. The most obvious point, as John Sides quoted Jacobson as saying, is that a challenger who doesn't spend much money and has no other means of getting the word out will have no chance to win. It's a little different for incumbents, however. Incumbents do all sorts of things in the course of fulfilling their official duties -- casework, district projects, meeting with constituents, local media hits. A surprising number of voters will actually have had either a direct positive experience with a long-term Member of Congress, or know of someone who has had a positive experience. By the time a multi-term incumbent gets to the 2010 election, it's not clear how much a bunch of TV ads will add to all of that. More generally, campaigns and campaign spending are only one of the things that affect how we feel about the candidates, which (remember) is only one factor in determining how we vote.
So money matters. It just matters in limited ways.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Nate Silver Buries the Incumbency Effect For Good
If you're a political junkie, you probably read Nate Silver already, but be sure to look at his post in which he knocks down one piece of conventional wisdom: that incumbents who are under 50% in polls are in grave danger even if they lead their opponents. If you're not a political junkie, you may not have known about this one, but many have believed that most undecided voters generally break for the challenger in those races, so that an incumbent winning, say, 45-35 was in grave danger. Silver runs the numbers, and finds that it's just not true.
One caveat -- Silver compares final vote to polls one month out. That can answer the question of how undecided voters break at the end of a campaign, which has been the emphasis of previous similar studies (see this old Mark Blumenthal post Silver cites, and the links contained in it, if you want to know everything there is to know about studies of this effect). A somewhat different question, and one I'd be interested in knowing the answer to as well, is whether polling under 50% six months or a year out is a good indication of trouble for an incumbent. Of course, there are a lot fewer polls taken well in advance of the election, but I suspect that Silver (or Blumenthal) has the answer to this one in his database, and perhaps he'll take a look at that one, too.
One caveat -- Silver compares final vote to polls one month out. That can answer the question of how undecided voters break at the end of a campaign, which has been the emphasis of previous similar studies (see this old Mark Blumenthal post Silver cites, and the links contained in it, if you want to know everything there is to know about studies of this effect). A somewhat different question, and one I'd be interested in knowing the answer to as well, is whether polling under 50% six months or a year out is a good indication of trouble for an incumbent. Of course, there are a lot fewer polls taken well in advance of the election, but I suspect that Silver (or Blumenthal) has the answer to this one in his database, and perhaps he'll take a look at that one, too.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Want To Be Like Harry Houdini (Invisible Man)
The most potentially interesting thing I've read today is a Jonathan Martin Politico piece about what he calls "missing" candidates. The idea is that the incentives have changed for campaigning, and as a result candidates aren't doing it. Campaigning, that is. At least not in person.
It's at least plausible that it's true, and if so I think it would be a very important development. Not all on the bad side, by the way -- if Members of Congress no longer believed that personal appearances in the district were important, Congress could spend a lot more time in session. Just mentioning that, however, leads me to wonder just how true this new trend really is. After all, we know that Congress hasn't switched back to a M-F schedule with minimal recesses, so at least at that level the pressure to get back home is still driving things. So, with that in mind, I went back to Martin's article to take a closer look. I don't want to bash it...basically, I think it's an interesting start, but only that, and I hope that reporters (and eventually political scientists) follow up on this kind of reporting. As I said, if it's true, it's really important, but is it true?
As I see it, Martin is actually talking about several different things, which may or may not be related.
1. Some candidates are ducking debates. His examples, however, are Rick Perry, Jan Brewer, and David Vitter -- incumbents with leads. This is normal campaign behavior, and not new at all. Are there any challengers, behind in the polls, who don't want to debate?
2. Rand Paul and Christine O'Donnell are ducking national TV exposure beyond Fox News. Interesting about those two candidates, but given how little national TV time most candidates ever get, I'm not so sure this is meaningful.
3. Some candidates are avoiding the state and local press. More interesting, but not, so far, quantified or placed in context. The examples given are Paul, Sharron Angle and Harry Reid in Nevada, and perhaps Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. Again, I don't mean to be critical of Martin -- this is one story, and it's a good start. But how typical are these examples? How different is it from past campaigns? It's worth noting that Sarah Palin never did give an open press conference when she ran for Vice President, which was certainly highly unusual. Is that what's going on here, or are we just talking about a handful of candidates that manage press relations very carefully?
3a. Some Republicans, including Angle, appear to be open to the partisan press but not to the mainstream press. That's certainly new compared to twenty years ago, when there was much less partisan media (and when a lot more people read local newspapers, and presumably watched their local news broadcasts). How extensive is this change?
4. Some candidates are apparently holding campaign events that are more scripted and controlled than has been typical in the past. Again, the obvious example here would be George W. Bush's extraordinary efforts to screen his audiences. The context for the change (if there is one) is, Martin reports, video cameras and YouTube, with campaigns more worried about the risk of an embarrassing moment than they are with reaching out to undecided voters. Again, how extensive is this? There's talk in the story about incumbents avoiding open Town Hall meetings because they can produce ambush videos, but actually I suspect that a little solid advance work can actually prevent that...a good pol, with good advance work, should be able to learn how to look good in those situations (Martin cites Chris Christie as, according to Candy Crowly, being good at it -- recall that Al Franken also has shown the ability to shine when accosted by angry voters.
5. Some candidates -- O'Donnell, and perhaps Ken Buck in Colorado -- seem to be eschewing live campaigning entirely. Now, that would be a big deal if true, but O'Donnell is far from a typical candidate, and the evidence on Buck appears iffy. So, is it true?
Put it all together, and I really don't know, yet, what we have. Could be a nothing story, just normal behavior plus a couple of oddball candidates with underdeveloped skills who really have to avoid the press and will get beat anyway. Could be a shift to a more partisan-centered campaign style. Could be a shift away from in-person, unscripted campaigning. Hey, reporters! This is a worthwhile story; we want more data. Oh, and political scientists -- watch out for this one. We could be getting some variation in something that normally hasn't really varied much, which might allow some studies of electioneering to learn new things.
It's at least plausible that it's true, and if so I think it would be a very important development. Not all on the bad side, by the way -- if Members of Congress no longer believed that personal appearances in the district were important, Congress could spend a lot more time in session. Just mentioning that, however, leads me to wonder just how true this new trend really is. After all, we know that Congress hasn't switched back to a M-F schedule with minimal recesses, so at least at that level the pressure to get back home is still driving things. So, with that in mind, I went back to Martin's article to take a closer look. I don't want to bash it...basically, I think it's an interesting start, but only that, and I hope that reporters (and eventually political scientists) follow up on this kind of reporting. As I said, if it's true, it's really important, but is it true?
As I see it, Martin is actually talking about several different things, which may or may not be related.
1. Some candidates are ducking debates. His examples, however, are Rick Perry, Jan Brewer, and David Vitter -- incumbents with leads. This is normal campaign behavior, and not new at all. Are there any challengers, behind in the polls, who don't want to debate?
2. Rand Paul and Christine O'Donnell are ducking national TV exposure beyond Fox News. Interesting about those two candidates, but given how little national TV time most candidates ever get, I'm not so sure this is meaningful.
3. Some candidates are avoiding the state and local press. More interesting, but not, so far, quantified or placed in context. The examples given are Paul, Sharron Angle and Harry Reid in Nevada, and perhaps Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. Again, I don't mean to be critical of Martin -- this is one story, and it's a good start. But how typical are these examples? How different is it from past campaigns? It's worth noting that Sarah Palin never did give an open press conference when she ran for Vice President, which was certainly highly unusual. Is that what's going on here, or are we just talking about a handful of candidates that manage press relations very carefully?
3a. Some Republicans, including Angle, appear to be open to the partisan press but not to the mainstream press. That's certainly new compared to twenty years ago, when there was much less partisan media (and when a lot more people read local newspapers, and presumably watched their local news broadcasts). How extensive is this change?
4. Some candidates are apparently holding campaign events that are more scripted and controlled than has been typical in the past. Again, the obvious example here would be George W. Bush's extraordinary efforts to screen his audiences. The context for the change (if there is one) is, Martin reports, video cameras and YouTube, with campaigns more worried about the risk of an embarrassing moment than they are with reaching out to undecided voters. Again, how extensive is this? There's talk in the story about incumbents avoiding open Town Hall meetings because they can produce ambush videos, but actually I suspect that a little solid advance work can actually prevent that...a good pol, with good advance work, should be able to learn how to look good in those situations (Martin cites Chris Christie as, according to Candy Crowly, being good at it -- recall that Al Franken also has shown the ability to shine when accosted by angry voters.
5. Some candidates -- O'Donnell, and perhaps Ken Buck in Colorado -- seem to be eschewing live campaigning entirely. Now, that would be a big deal if true, but O'Donnell is far from a typical candidate, and the evidence on Buck appears iffy. So, is it true?
Put it all together, and I really don't know, yet, what we have. Could be a nothing story, just normal behavior plus a couple of oddball candidates with underdeveloped skills who really have to avoid the press and will get beat anyway. Could be a shift to a more partisan-centered campaign style. Could be a shift away from in-person, unscripted campaigning. Hey, reporters! This is a worthwhile story; we want more data. Oh, and political scientists -- watch out for this one. We could be getting some variation in something that normally hasn't really varied much, which might allow some studies of electioneering to learn new things.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Sometimes, Go With "I Don't Know"
Seth Masket has an excellent post up responding to Kevin Drum's question about whether there actually something going on that would mean that "the anti-Washington meme deserves to live." Seth and John Sides have both been writing about this, at different angles, with John emphasizing that almost all incumbents will win but Seth noting that incumbents may still have to work harder to get there. I tried to synthesize their views a couple of weeks ago.
I want to write a bit, however, about why we're not really answering Drum's question with a simple, usable answer, something like either "Voters are turning against Washington pols" or "Voters are not turning against Washington pols." To begin with, it turns out to be really difficult to learn from primary election data. In general elections, you can quickly add up how Democrats and incumbents did in previous elections, see how they did in one particular year, and then do a little math and you'll know if there was a general anti-Democrat or anti-incumbent vote (yes, it can still be tricky, for lots of reasons, but most of the trickiness is easy to handle statistically). Note that it's even easier in House elections than it is in Senate elections, since every election cycle presents the same set of 435 House races.
Primaries are a lot more difficult to study. What's the "normal" margin of victory for a nominee seeking re-election? Well, you can calculate that, but unlike general elections you're going to have the competitive elections swamped by a whole lot of incumbents who are unopposed. We can look at how incumbents do when they're challenged...but how many incumbents are challenged in the first place is an important part of the story we're interested in. And we might want to distinguish between serious challenges and fringe candidates who file but aren't really a threat, but in practice that's going to be tricky to execute. Indeed, it's doubly tricky if what we're interested in isn't just the incumbency advantage (or disadvantage), but "anti-Washington" or "anti-establishment" themes. Does a victory by Member of the House Joe Sestack against Arlen Specter count as an "anti-Washington" result? If we want to only count serious challengers, how can we tell that Joe Miller in Alaska is serious but Daniel Frielich, who took 11% of the vote against Pat Leahy this week, wasn't? And yet if you count anyone who files as a serious candidate, then you're going to miss an important difference between Leahy's essentially unopposed renomination and the tough challenges faced by John McCain and Blanche Lincoln.
So, to answer the question(s) that Drum wants answered, we really don't want just the number of incumbents defeated in primaries this year compared to other years. What we would want, ideally, would be three numbers, each of which could be estimated independently, holding everything else constant: the effect of incumbency per se; the effect of being an experienced pol; and the effect of being the candidate of the "establishment." (Even worse! There could be interactive effects! There might be different effects on the Democratic side than on the Republican side!). Unfortunately, there's just no way to derive those effects from primary election data (or at least I believe there's no way -- I'll be happy to hear dissents on this from those who are far more methodologically able than I am).
Barring that, we really have to fall back on just not knowing. Oh, there are things we can say; we can say (with John Sides and others) that most incumbents are gong to win, and we can say (with Seth Masket and others) that it sure seems that those incumbents have had to work harder than they do in some years. And we can of course make factual statements (three incumbent Senators losing primaries is the highest since 1980, but four incumbent Members of the House losing primaries is nothing unusual at all). But sometimes, the best thing that a reporter or a pundit (or, for that matter, a political scientist) can do is to realize which things we just don't know.
I want to write a bit, however, about why we're not really answering Drum's question with a simple, usable answer, something like either "Voters are turning against Washington pols" or "Voters are not turning against Washington pols." To begin with, it turns out to be really difficult to learn from primary election data. In general elections, you can quickly add up how Democrats and incumbents did in previous elections, see how they did in one particular year, and then do a little math and you'll know if there was a general anti-Democrat or anti-incumbent vote (yes, it can still be tricky, for lots of reasons, but most of the trickiness is easy to handle statistically). Note that it's even easier in House elections than it is in Senate elections, since every election cycle presents the same set of 435 House races.
Primaries are a lot more difficult to study. What's the "normal" margin of victory for a nominee seeking re-election? Well, you can calculate that, but unlike general elections you're going to have the competitive elections swamped by a whole lot of incumbents who are unopposed. We can look at how incumbents do when they're challenged...but how many incumbents are challenged in the first place is an important part of the story we're interested in. And we might want to distinguish between serious challenges and fringe candidates who file but aren't really a threat, but in practice that's going to be tricky to execute. Indeed, it's doubly tricky if what we're interested in isn't just the incumbency advantage (or disadvantage), but "anti-Washington" or "anti-establishment" themes. Does a victory by Member of the House Joe Sestack against Arlen Specter count as an "anti-Washington" result? If we want to only count serious challengers, how can we tell that Joe Miller in Alaska is serious but Daniel Frielich, who took 11% of the vote against Pat Leahy this week, wasn't? And yet if you count anyone who files as a serious candidate, then you're going to miss an important difference between Leahy's essentially unopposed renomination and the tough challenges faced by John McCain and Blanche Lincoln.
So, to answer the question(s) that Drum wants answered, we really don't want just the number of incumbents defeated in primaries this year compared to other years. What we would want, ideally, would be three numbers, each of which could be estimated independently, holding everything else constant: the effect of incumbency per se; the effect of being an experienced pol; and the effect of being the candidate of the "establishment." (Even worse! There could be interactive effects! There might be different effects on the Democratic side than on the Republican side!). Unfortunately, there's just no way to derive those effects from primary election data (or at least I believe there's no way -- I'll be happy to hear dissents on this from those who are far more methodologically able than I am).
Barring that, we really have to fall back on just not knowing. Oh, there are things we can say; we can say (with John Sides and others) that most incumbents are gong to win, and we can say (with Seth Masket and others) that it sure seems that those incumbents have had to work harder than they do in some years. And we can of course make factual statements (three incumbent Senators losing primaries is the highest since 1980, but four incumbent Members of the House losing primaries is nothing unusual at all). But sometimes, the best thing that a reporter or a pundit (or, for that matter, a political scientist) can do is to realize which things we just don't know.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Read Stuff, You Should
OK, I understand Conor Friedersdorf's point that talk radio listeners aren't inherently bigots and loons; read his whole argument. But still...I think he doesn't hold them responsible enough for, you know, listening in the first place. That's a choice, and I think it's a choice that matters, even if it's also true that the same people can, in a different context, make better choices. As one of his readers said today about Levin/Rush/Hannity: "It is more entertaining for them to pretend that the Left is not motivated by a desire to make the country better, but a desire to destroy it and enslave much of the population, so that's what they say." It seems to me that if you're entertained by that kind of fantasy, well, it's not something to be proud of. (Does Olbermann promote an equivalent fantasy? I don't watch enough to know).
On to the good stuff:
1. Alan Abromowitz and Norman Ornstein debunk myths (5) about midterms.
2. Matthew Dickinson explains MMS. Essential.
3. Happy 75, Social Security! Kevin Drum explains the trust fund, and CBPP debunks myths (10).
4. Tyler Cowen takes on free parking (speaking of which: never play with goofy rules where landing on Free Parking gets you fines, or anything like that. Monopoly advice: stick to the original rules, and play quickly). Cowen leaves Matt Yglesias free to campaign against government-enforced barber cartels -- and if you think it sounds silly, you're wrong. Part two here, and especially part three here. Great series, and I hope he keeps going.
5. Jamelle Bouie joins the fight against judicial elections.
6. Ezra Klein's takedown of Matt Bai is considerably more epic and way more fun than mine. Also, on health care cost control.
7. Newt bashing? You wanted Newt bashing? I'll give you Newt bashing: here and here. Also, here.
On to the good stuff:
1. Alan Abromowitz and Norman Ornstein debunk myths (5) about midterms.
2. Matthew Dickinson explains MMS. Essential.
3. Happy 75, Social Security! Kevin Drum explains the trust fund, and CBPP debunks myths (10).
4. Tyler Cowen takes on free parking (speaking of which: never play with goofy rules where landing on Free Parking gets you fines, or anything like that. Monopoly advice: stick to the original rules, and play quickly). Cowen leaves Matt Yglesias free to campaign against government-enforced barber cartels -- and if you think it sounds silly, you're wrong. Part two here, and especially part three here. Great series, and I hope he keeps going.
5. Jamelle Bouie joins the fight against judicial elections.
6. Ezra Klein's takedown of Matt Bai is considerably more epic and way more fun than mine. Also, on health care cost control.
7. Newt bashing? You wanted Newt bashing? I'll give you Newt bashing: here and here. Also, here.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Quality
One of the more useful findings from elections research, in this case from Gary Jacobson, is that "quality" challengers, politically skilled and ambitious candidates, are far more likely to defeat House incumbents than are other challengers. In fact, it's such a big deal that it is possible to get a large partisan effect in fall elections purely from the choices of potential candidates months in advance. That is, if Republicans think it's going to be a great year for them, and all the best potential GOP candidates choose to run while the opposite dynamic works on the Democratic side, one can show that the results will be a Republican landslide even if there is no other, external reason for Republicans to do well -- that is, even if voters have no intention to reward Republicans or punish Democrats.
Now, that raises the question of what constitutes a "quality" candidate. Well, that, and Rand Paul's Big Adventure. While we know, from Jacobson's (and other) research, that candidates who have previously won elective office do quite a bit better than those who don't, it's not clear what differentiates good from bad candidates. Is it something about the person -- does one learn how to be a pol from previous (especially successful) efforts? Perhaps previously successful pols are better at giving speeches, allocating resources, and convincing people to give money; perhaps previously successful pols have built strong ties to district elites. Or is it about the system, and external to the candidate? Regardless of whether or not she knows what she's doing, the previously successful candidate probably starts with higher name recognition than a newcomer. She may raise more money not because she's good at it, but because people eager to support candidates with a good chance of winning will just assume that, say, a state senator has a better chance than a shoe salesman, and make choices accordingly. For those who want to solve that question, however, the problem is that it's hard to isolate the various things in the real world. Candidates don't conveniently come with single skills present (or missing) so that we can tease out which traits matter.
All of which brings me to Rand Paul, who surely is setting some sort of record for ugliest first week as a Senate nominee. Not that he's necessarily going to lose (or that he'll be hurt in the polls right away), but just in terms of the number and the visibility of awkward moments. He clearly has some solid candidate skills, but knowing how to talk about potentially unpopular positions in an interview doesn't seem to be one of them, at least so far. I'm afraid that Steve Benen is entirely correct; it sounds pretty lame for national Republicans to be making excuses for him based on his inexperience, although not nearly as lame as Paul's complaint that he's not getting a honeymoon (he's used that one at least twice so far. Yikes! Hey, Rand Paul: Honeymoons come after the wedding, not after the engagement!).
Of course, this is a case of living by the sword and all that. I suspect that there are plenty of candidates for the U.S. Senate who would do badly if exposed to the national press in gotcha mode; Paul has the disadvantage of holding issue positions out of the mainstream, but then again he probably has more facts at his disposal than does the average Senate candidate Granted, I haven't listened to him enough to be able to speculate how many of his facts are actually true -- could be all of them, could be only a portion -- but unless it gets to Reagan levels it's usually not a problem to confidently state facts that turn out not to be true. Unless, of course, the facts are about oneself...that gets tricky. But holding oddball positions, and having a history of holding oddball positions, is definitely a problem for a candidate, especially one that is going to receive more than his share of news coverage. Rand Paul wouldn't be a nominee for Senate without the things that have brought him all the attention this week; we'll see now how he handles it over the next several months.
Now, that raises the question of what constitutes a "quality" candidate. Well, that, and Rand Paul's Big Adventure. While we know, from Jacobson's (and other) research, that candidates who have previously won elective office do quite a bit better than those who don't, it's not clear what differentiates good from bad candidates. Is it something about the person -- does one learn how to be a pol from previous (especially successful) efforts? Perhaps previously successful pols are better at giving speeches, allocating resources, and convincing people to give money; perhaps previously successful pols have built strong ties to district elites. Or is it about the system, and external to the candidate? Regardless of whether or not she knows what she's doing, the previously successful candidate probably starts with higher name recognition than a newcomer. She may raise more money not because she's good at it, but because people eager to support candidates with a good chance of winning will just assume that, say, a state senator has a better chance than a shoe salesman, and make choices accordingly. For those who want to solve that question, however, the problem is that it's hard to isolate the various things in the real world. Candidates don't conveniently come with single skills present (or missing) so that we can tease out which traits matter.
All of which brings me to Rand Paul, who surely is setting some sort of record for ugliest first week as a Senate nominee. Not that he's necessarily going to lose (or that he'll be hurt in the polls right away), but just in terms of the number and the visibility of awkward moments. He clearly has some solid candidate skills, but knowing how to talk about potentially unpopular positions in an interview doesn't seem to be one of them, at least so far. I'm afraid that Steve Benen is entirely correct; it sounds pretty lame for national Republicans to be making excuses for him based on his inexperience, although not nearly as lame as Paul's complaint that he's not getting a honeymoon (he's used that one at least twice so far. Yikes! Hey, Rand Paul: Honeymoons come after the wedding, not after the engagement!).
Of course, this is a case of living by the sword and all that. I suspect that there are plenty of candidates for the U.S. Senate who would do badly if exposed to the national press in gotcha mode; Paul has the disadvantage of holding issue positions out of the mainstream, but then again he probably has more facts at his disposal than does the average Senate candidate Granted, I haven't listened to him enough to be able to speculate how many of his facts are actually true -- could be all of them, could be only a portion -- but unless it gets to Reagan levels it's usually not a problem to confidently state facts that turn out not to be true. Unless, of course, the facts are about oneself...that gets tricky. But holding oddball positions, and having a history of holding oddball positions, is definitely a problem for a candidate, especially one that is going to receive more than his share of news coverage. Rand Paul wouldn't be a nominee for Senate without the things that have brought him all the attention this week; we'll see now how he handles it over the next several months.
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