By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/
Believe it or not, Tuesday was election night. Several million Americans voted (or more accurately, did not vote) in mostly local races.
These results provide a helpful snapshot of the national mood. Polls may be inaccurate, or – more commonly – different pollsters may have different pictures of the public mood. Unlike polls, elections have that useful tendency of never being wrong.
Special elections for congressional districts are especially convenient, because there is already a wealth of accumulated data about them. Moreover, because name recognition of both candidates is generally very low, they come as close as one can get to “generic Democrat versus generic Republican.”
Quite happily, a special election occurred on Tuesday in one such congressional district. Specifically, voters in Florida’s 19th congressional district went about replacing retired House Representative Robert Wexler. Here are the results:
More below.
Of course Democrats do not and have – almost – never have enjoyed a majority anything close to that pictured here. These results must be placed in the context of the congressional district’s political lean. If, for instance, FL-19 constituted a Democratic stronghold, this result would be fairly unremarkable. It might even be quite worrisome for Democrats, depending on the district’s Democratic lean (there are some very, very, very Democratic congressional districts out there). On the other hand, if FL-19 usually voted Republican, Democrats would have some reason to celebrate a victory of this magnitude.
As it turns out, FL-19 constitutes a reliable Democratic stronghold. Located in the Miami metropolis, elderly and Jewish voters compose much of the district’s population. The latter accounts for Democratic strength, making Florida’s 19th 15% more Democratic than the nation as a whole.
With this in mind, last night’s election results do not look so impressive for Democrats. In fact, it appears that the party underperformed relative to the district’s lean.
But this is not news at all – in recent months the public mood has shifted quite strongly against the Democratic Party. Almost the entire Beltway agrees that Democrats will lose seats in November’s midterm elections; the only question is the degree of their loss. Republicans are hoping for a repeat 1994-type landslide; Democrats would be happy to retain control of the House.
Due to the unfavorable public mood, Democrats have had a terrible batting average in the most recent special elections; they most famously lost the state of Massachusetts to an unknown Republican State Senator:
In this context, Florida’s result looks positively respectable. The Democratic Party can take heart in the relatively small drop-off since 2008 – especially compared to their previous performances. Given that President Barack Obama won the election by more than 4.65%, it even suggests that Democrats hold a slight lead on the national level.
Indeed, in recent weeks Democratic fortunes have been on the rise. The passage of health care, alongside a slowly but surely improving economy, has led to an ever-so-slight uptick in their polling. Florida’s result substantiates these polls.
Finally, the very nature of FL-19 can lead Democrats to be optimistic. Mr. Obama’s strongest supporters, young and minority voters, are not present in large numbers in FL-19. Instead, this district – whiter and much more elderly than the nation at large – is composed of the very groups which have been moving away from the Democratic Party. Although it still votes strongly Democratic, Fl-19 is not as blue as it once was:
That Democrats performed as well as they did in a district such as this provides further reason for Democratic optimism. Elderly and white voters have not all abandoned the party; it still can do well with constituencies outside the Obama coalition.
The national mood is still fairly unfavorable towards the Democratic Party; certainly the public is more antagonistic than it was when electing Mr. Obama. If an election were held today, there is a good chance Republicans would end up controlling at least one chamber of Congress. But perhaps, if these results are to be believed, the Democrats are climbing out of the hole the recession has dug for them.
Lynch raised 100k for this race, Deutch raised $1.2 mil. If a favored candidate out raises a some dude by 12 to 1 and can’t beat the crap out of him on friendly territory than there is a problem. Lynch was joke a Deutch beat him like a red headed step child, that is really the only lesson to be drawn IMO.
Also you left out the district is heavily Jewish and that most non uber orthodox Jews tend to support Democrats, especially locally.
While FL-19 is heavily white and elderly, a lot of those voters are Jewish retirees (think Boca and the high-rise condos). So while the 2010 electorate will be older and whiter than 2008, this district is not really representative of that because of the large Jewish population. A more characteristic electorate of 2010 would be FL-05, a fairly Republican district in North Florida home to many retirees as well, albeit non-Jewish ones. While there are a lot of retirees in the U.S., only so many of them are Jewish.
Since this district is so heavily Democratic, I don’t really think that it can gauge the national mood very well, as this district in its current form would elect a Jewish Democrat under nearly all circumstances. Also, the fact that the Dem presidential percentage has gone down since 2000 is attributable to:
1.)Middle class Cuban families moving into the district from Miami.
2.) Joe Lieberman’s presence on the ticket in 2000, which drew a disproportionately high percentage of the Jewish vote for Democrats.
3.)A very small number of Jewish voters believing (incorrectly in my opinion) that Bush and McCain were tougher on Israel than Kerry and Obama were, although most Jewish voters did not believe that or base their votes solely on the Israel issue anyway.
That trend would show the Dems are really in trouble.
Of course you also left out NY-23, where Owens did better than Obama.
And many of those races you listed are nothing like “generic Democrat vs generic Republican”. An unpopular incumbent governor (NJ) is hardly a generic Democrat. In VA Tim Kaine could have won reelection if not for term limits, and in MA Capuano would have mopped the floor with Brown.
I certainly hope the Democrats won’t be happy just to “retain control of the House”. They barely have control of the House as it is. If the Dems end up with a 5-seat majority in the House then it will be so disfunctional, nothing will get done, and the Dems will take the blame because they still nominally are in control.
…are kind of apples and oranges.
Using that methodology, we can take two special elections from early 2004: Ben Chandler in KY-06 and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in SD, and it would imply the following:
Chandler won his special election by 13% in a district Gore lost by 14%, this implies a swing of 27% towards the Democrats.
Similarly, Herseth Sandlin won her special election by 3% in a district Gore lost by 22%, implying a swing of 25% towards the Democrats.
Needless to say, this didn’t happen. While it is encouraging that elderly white voters in FL-19 didn’t abandon us, I don’t know how much it says about the nation. Maybe this is telling for elderly white voters in FL-20 and FL-22, but it’s hard to say how much this would translate to unlike districts, let alone the nation as a whole.