National Conditions, Strategic Politicians, and U.S. Congressional Elections: Using the Generic Vote to Forecast the 2006 House and Senate Elections

Abstract

W ith the 2006 midterm election fast approaching, Democrats' chances of regaining control of the House of Representatives remain unclear. On the one hand, national political conditions appear to be more favorable for Demo crats than at any time since the Republi can takeover of the House in 1994. A pickup of only 15 seats would give Dem ocrats control of the House in 2007 and, since the end of World War II the aver age midterm seat loss for the president's party is 24 seats. Moreover, when the president's approval rating is below 50%, the average midterm seat loss is 38 seats and, according to data compiled by poll ingreport.com, George W. Bush's average approval rating during the month of June was only 37%. Recent national polls also show Dem ocrats with a strong lead in the "generic vote" for Congress. Between September 2005, and June 2006, 64 national polls asked Americans which party they pre ferred in the 2006 House elections. Dem ocrats led in every one of these polls with an average advantage of about 10 percentage points among registered vot ers. In nine polls taken in June, the aver age Democratic advantage was 11 percentage points. This is the largest margin Democrats have enjoyed in the generic vote since the early 1990s, be fore the Republican takeover of the House. So, if the national outlook for the Democrats is so rosy, why are many pundits and journalists skeptical about the Democrats' chances? The answer is that a midterm election is not just a na tional election. It is also a collection of 435 individual House and 33 individual Senate races, and right now the evidence from those individual races does not clearly point to big Democratic gains in November. Because of the tremendous advantages enjoyed by incumbents in House elec tions, open seats generally present the best opportunities for opposition party takeovers. But so far only 18 Republican incumbents, along with nine Democratic incumbents, are not seeking reelection in 2006. And many of those retiring Repub licans represent safe Republican districts. Only 12 House Republicans won by a margin of less than 10 percentage points in 2004 and only 16 House Republicans represent districts that were carried by John Kerry. So, among Republican in cumbents, there is relatively little low hanging fruit for Democrats to pick. And thus far, Democrats have had limited success in recruiting top-tier challengers to run against potentially vulnerable GOP incumbents (Cook 2006).