Democrats have a shot at taking the presidency and a decent chance of winning control of the Senate next week. So what about those heady predictions we heard this past spring and summer that Democratic representatives would ride a national tide to a House takeover?
Don't bet on it.
Sure, some still insist that the party could achieve a net gain of 12 seats, enough to take control. “Absolutely!” affirms Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) spokesman Greg Speed. But for those not paid to hype the Dems' chances, the possibility of a takeover is no longer taken seriously.
“There's no chance of it happening,” says one Democratic congressional analyst who won't break the party line while speaking on the record. Thanks to redistricting by GOP-run state legislatures in 2000 and -- crucially -- last year's hardball re-redistricting of Texas, it's nearly certain that we'll be living with Speaker Dennis Hastert and Co. for at least two more years.
But, given the GOP's narrow, 22-seat majority, this is a game of inches. And there is a better than even chance that Democrats will pick up a few seats this year -- which would put them in a better position to win control in 2006. Here's how they hope to do it:
According to most estimates, there are about 35 competitive races this cycle. Outside of Texas (we'll get to that in a moment), incumbents, to an unprecedented degree, are safe in both parties. But of the few vulnerable incumbents, Republicans outnumber Democrats.
“If the Republicans beat any Democratic incumbents outside of Texas, that would be a surprise,” says Mark Gersh, Washington director of the National Committee for an Effective Congress (NCEC) and a longtime Democratic expert on districting issues and congressional campaigns.
There are certainly some vulnerable Democratic incumbents, including Baron Hill of Indiana's 9th District, Dennis Moore of Kansas' 3rd, and Jim Matheson of Utah's 2nd -- all running in heavily Republican territory. But the incumbents remain well-funded. And, as Democrats are quick to point out, every single non-Texan Democrat defending his or her seat is leading in the polls. (Matheson of Utah probably faces the toughest challenge, as he's running in a district that Republican legislators rendered significantly more GOP-friendly in 2000.)
As for Republican incumbents, at the top of every Democrat's list of seats to take over is the one held by Max Burns in Georgia. Burns won an upset race in the 12th District two years ago against an egregiously bad Democratic candidate (the convicted shoplifter Champ Walker), and he's been a marked man ever since. His district is 40-percent African American and leans Democratic. This time, the challenger is John Barrow, a vast improvement over Walker, who remains well-funded. Another vulnerable GOP incumbent is 74-year-old Phil Crane of Illinois' 8th District, facing an energetic challenge from 42-year-old business consultant Melissa Bean, who's recently garnered endorsements from both the Chicago Sun-Times and The Chicago Tribune. “She's gotten tremendous media coverage,” says DCCC spokesman Speed. “Phil Crane is in a dire, dire situation.”
The NCEC's Gersh lists Heather Wilson (of New Mexico's 1st District), the scandal-plagued Charles Taylor (of North Carolina's 11th), and Anne Northup (of Kentucky's 3rd) among other vulnerable GOP incumbents this year.
National political issues like the Iraq War and the president's record aren't central to many of the competitive races this year, but they may prove decisive in two of the Democrats' challenge races. The Democratic candidates in Connecticut's 2nd and 4th districts, Jim Sullivan and Diane Farrell, respectively, are doing their best (with heavy assistance from the DCCC) to link moderate GOP incumbents Rob Simmons and Chris Shays to the national Republican Party. As Speed points out, these are two Democratic-learning districts, and old-school northeastern GOP moderates like Shays and Simmons look ever more anachronistic given the modern makeup of their party. To the surprise of many, the Shays-Farrell race in the 4th District has recently tightened. Farrell has run a vigorous campaign, and this may be the one race where the corrupt stench and hardcore right bent of Tom DeLay's House party leadership actually take a Republican casualty.
Overall, Democrats enjoy a similarly small advantage among open seats. Only Democratic-held open seats in Missouri's 5th District, Louisiana's 7th, and Kentucky's 4th are really in jeopardy.
Dems can also look forward to a likely gain of retiring Republican Scott McInnis' seat in Colorado's 3rd District, where Democratic candidate John Salazar has run an effective campaign against a weak Republican contender, Greg Walcher. The GOP candidate for New York's 27th District, Nancy Naples, has been surprisingly tenacious, but Democrat Brian Higgins is still leading narrowly in the race for that strongly Democratic district. Other open-seat pick-up opportunities for Dems include Washington's 8th District, Louisiana's 3rd, Virginia's 2nd, and Pennsylvania's 8th, where Democratic and "Net-roots" darling Ginny Schrader is taking on Bucks County Commissioner Michael G. Fitzpatrick.
Republicans are sweating bullets over that race; you can tell by the outré audacity of their attacks in the past month. One flier distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) highlights Schrader's attendance at a Fahrenheit 9/11 screening; the words "The Hate American crowd has found their candidate" scream across the page. Schrader's is one of three Pennsylvania races -- the other two are Democrat Lois Murphy's challenge to 6th District GOP incumbent Jim Gerlach and the open-seat race in the Republican-held 15th District -- that Democrats are eyeing in hopes that huge turnout boosts from the presidential race will work in their favor.
All this sounds great, right? Well, then there's Texas. The redistricting plan that DeLay orchestrated in 2003 was intended to ensure that Republicans would keep the House. And, despite tough Democratic resistance, that's just what it's doing. Republicans are likely to come away with a gain of four or five seats in Texas. Of the five Democratic incumbents that Republicans have targeted, Chet Edwards in the 17th District has the best shot of keeping his seat. Democrats Charlie Stenholm, Nick Lampson, and Max Sandlin are all facing steep odds to retain theirs. The incumbent-on-incumbent battle in the 32nd District between Democrat Martin Frost and Republican Pete Sessions is the real surprise -- perhaps the single most intense and expensive congressional race in the country this year. When the redistricting map was redrawn last year, no congressional handicapper gave Frost a chance, but since then the caustic, savvy former DCCC chairman has confirmed in spades his reputation for ferocious campaigning and fund raising. As of September 30, both Sessions and Frost had raised more than $4 million each
The race has astonished even hardened political observers with its viciousness. One of Frost's ads shows footage of the World Trade Center in flames as a lonely bagpipe plays “Amazing Grace” while allegations of Sessions' lax homeland-security record flash across the screen. Meanwhile, Sessions' campaign staff has created a Web site documenting Frost's tax-and-spend ways. The candidates' mutual antipathy is personal, and palpable. Ugly or not, Frost's street fighting has put him back in the race. “He's got a respectable shot,” says the NCEC's Gersh.
In the final stretch, the DCCC and the NRCC have been roughly matched in cash on hand, with about $20 million apiece (though, in total, the latter has dramatically outspent the former this year). Analysts like the National Journal's Amy Walter and Charlie Cook see Democrats gaining three seats this year at most. Others are more optimistic, but only slightly. There are too few open seats and, given the polarized presidential race, not enough of a national trend to produce a major change in either direction. But the House races are a battle at the margins, and Democrats are primed to gain at least some ground.
Sam Rosenfeld is a Prospect online writer.
