Congressional campaigns hinge on local issues
This year’s election season was a tough one for Republicans running for Congress. Throughout the summer, leads in national polls and in underlying dynamics allowed Democrats to shape the tenor of many races. Yet history shows that national advantage often transfers to the ballot box in unexpected ways. While the national political climate impacted many districts, candidates’ approaches to local permutations of issues ultimately made the difference in the majority of 2008’s congressional campaigns.
A Democratic Wave
As this issue went to press, national polls seemed to burst with good news for Democrats. Yet, as David King, lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, explained to the HPR, some matter more than others. “The right track/wrong track poll is an anti-incumbent question. When the wrong-track numbers are as high as they are now, it will hurt all incumbents, but more Republicans than Democrats.” King sees Republicans as having borne the majority of the electorate’s wrath because they have been most closely identified with unpopular actions such as financial deregulation and the war in Iraq.
Throughout the summer and fall, the preferred metric of the generic congressional ballot demonstrated a level of support for Democrats around levels seen in 2006. It might appear tempting to explain those figures based on national conditions alone, but pundits disagree with this simplistic tack. Indeed, many reject the idea of a national picture distinct from the local one. Said King, “Congressional elections are not, repeat not, about local versus national issues. To the extent that anything’s a national issue, it’s also a local issue.” King cited the difficulties on Wall Street as an example of a national phenomenon with local effect. In this case, the electorate was more concerned with the performance of its own 401(k)s than with that of Goldman Sachs. Alex Castellanos, long-time Republican media consultant, concurred but said to the HPR, “the down-ballot races are subject to the storm. If you’re a congressman, you either ride the wave or you get swamped by it.”
This year’s storm debilitated many of the most adept surfers. Castellanos sees Republican retirements as having offered Democrats opportunities in normally safe red districts. Such advantages may not persist over the long term, but the 26 open Republican seats versus six Democratic vacancies this fall were illustrative of this current trend. Democratic strategist Charlie McMahon saw an even bigger picture for his party’s contests. “The Democrats thought the battlefield would be 26 seats,” McMahon told the HPR, “but there were 50 that they never expected to be there.” Most of these new targets, McMahon explained, were those contests in which the Democratic challenger greatly exceeded expectations. “We were doing a race in Nebraska [NE-2, Lee Terry (R) incumbent] that I thought had no chance to be successful, but [Jim] Esch had run well, so we dropped $500,000.” Whether this spending would yield a congressman remained unclear as this article went to press, but interest in the ultimate outcome should continue past November.
Bayou Blues
An even more prominent and expensive challenge took place 1000 miles south in Louisiana’s sixth Congressional district. Republicans had held the seat since 1975, but a special election in early 2008 saw a victory by the Democrat, Don Cazayoux. Cazayoux’s fall campaign against Republican Bill Cassidy focused on Cazayoux’s stances, such as his support for oil drilling and an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, which proved popular in the district despite diverging from the Democratic party line. Cazayoux nonetheless benefited from significant funding from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, as well as the national tide. In an interview with the HPR, Charlie Cook, publisher of the Cook Political Report, cited Cazayoux’s as an example of a district that was “not blue, not even purple, which [came] online for the Democrats because of national dynamics.” Cook argues that Cazayoux embodied the hallmark of successful challengers this cycle: appeal to “micro-factors.” While other candidates may fit their districts in less clear-cut ways, most found success through elevating local focus.
Conventional wisdom credits longtime House Speaker Tip O’Neil with the dictum that “all politics is local.” This year witnessed a dramatic presidential race accompanied by a volatile national political and economic climate, but in the end, O’Neil’s maxim has held mainly true. The national conditions expanded the map for Democrats and allowed them both more intensive and more balanced opportunities, while certain built-in and self-imposed limitations hampered Republican campaigns from Seattle to Miami. Nonetheless, most congressional races ultimately centered on candidates’ abilities to appeal to voter concerns and interests within their individual districts.