Stuart Rothenberg approvingly quotes this anonymous bit of advice from a Republican consultant to the GOP on S-CHIP (sub. req.):
So what advice would this Republican give his party’s Members of Congress? “If I were in a swing district, I’d vote to override. There’s no way I’d take a bullet on this. But if I were in a good Republican district, I’d vote to sustain the veto.”
Leaving aside the obvious questions of the morality of this stance, does this even make for good advice? Amy Walter intimates that the answer is no (sub. req.):
But the political environment is actually worse than it was at this point two years ago, making it very dangerous to assume that a GOP-leaning district will perform exactly as it had four years ago. A depressed GOP base, a very motivated Democratic base and independents still sour on Republicans all works against a return to normal. (Emphasis added.)
And today, a New York Times article on how badly the GOP is hemorrhaging over its opposition to health care for children includes this aside:
Worried about increasing departures, the House leadership has been encouraging Representative Steve Pearce of New Mexico to forgo a run for the Senate and avoid opening a second Republican-held House seat in a state where Democrats are gaining strength. A fellow Republican, Representative Heather A. Wilson, is already running for the seat being vacated by Senator Pete V. Domenici.
Pearce’s district, NM-02, is R+5.7. It went for Bush by a wide 58-41 margin in 2004. Pearce won with 60% of the vote in 2004, and, despite the huge Dem year, with the same total in 2006. In other words, this is not ordinarily a district you’d consider competitive.
But the fact that the NRCC is begging Pearce to stay put says otherwise. It gives a lot of credence to Walter’s observation, and makes you wonder about the kind of advice Republicans on the Hill are getting – and listening to. The NRCC seems to understand what time it is, but it sure looks like a lot of GOPers are happy to let themselves get surprised by another potential blue wave.
The district ratings now reflect the 49% performance of Bush in 2000 and the 51% performance in 2004. With Bush at, say, 30%, those numbers would look pretty different.
According to the prognosticators, “swing” territory at the moment, whether you look at < href="http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.blogspot.com/2007/10/2008-house-ratings.html">Rithenberg or CQ or Cook, is primarily in the R+1 to R+5 category. A D+4 seat is a lot safer for a Democrat now than an R+4 seat is for a Republican.
A PVI Rating of R+5.7 is not significant enough of an edge to be a solid Republican seat for an Open seat election in a pro-Democrat political atmosphere.
Republican fundraising and retirements show this issue. It’s like a wall, that has holes popping up. When a hole opens up, water starts pouring out. So you stick your finger in the hole to stop the leaking.
How many holes can the NRCC fill with the funding they have and the constant flow of retirements?
Is this a swing district? Yes, if it’s an open seat.
see WSJ
NM-2 is a good example. This district goes from the southern burbs of Albuquerque all the way south to Mexico. It includes Las Cruces, a college town, and a lot of military, rural Latino (very different than urban), and Native American voters. If there is another district in the nation (maybe AZ-1) that feels farther from Washington, DC, or even in the same universe, than this one I don’t know it.
The voters of NM-2, except for some of Las Cruces, are deeply conservative. That’s not the same as Republican, however. A lot of Latinos and Native Americans vote Democratic even though they hold deeply conservative views on all sorts of issues, especially social ones. They voted D for Gore less so for Kerry, but often cross over, as they have in significant numbers for Pearce. Raising money for a D in this district, especially a progressive one, is basically impossible, not least because it’s incredibly poor, with the D’s being the poorest. And it’s very hard to raise money nationally for a congressional district.
In trying to figure out whether this is a winnable district, even in an open seat scenario, everything depends on the two candidates. IF the D is relatively conservative and a self-funder, AND the R is a weak campaigner, we’ve got a chance.