USA TODAY: Voter 'anger' has Dems set for big gains in Congress

Voter 'anger' has Dems set for big gains in Congress

By John Fritze, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Out of money and down by double digits in the polls a month ago, Georgia Democrat Jim Martin's campaign for U.S. Senate was all but dead. Now, those polls show, it's dead even.
The race for the Georgia Senate seat should have been as comforting as peach cobbler for Republicans, but this month the non-partisan Cook Political Report changed its outlook for Sen. Saxby Chambliss' re-election from a safe bet to a tossup.

"The mood across the country is not particularly good right now," says Chambliss, a first-term senator who adds that he suspected the early lead wouldn't stick. "We knew it was going to be very close."

An unpopular president, fundraising doldrums and the burden of defending 27 more open seats than the Democrats are factors forcing GOP leaders to play defense in congressional races across the USA, as the Democrats angle for even wider majorities. Open seats do not have an incumbent.

Democrats have a 38-seat advantage in Congress now and, despite their own low approval ratings, the party could add as many as 28 seats in the House and seven to nine in the Senate, according to Cook.

As late as September, many Republicans thought the energy created by vice presidential pick Sarah Palin and the party's populist response of drilling to reduce gas prices could stem the losses.

But that was before the economic meltdown sent financial markets — and GOP poll numbers — tumbling as Americans linked the downturn to the Bush White House.

Even once-safe Republican seats — such as in North Carolina where Sen. Elizabeth Dole faces Democrat Kay Hagan — have become the focus of tight races.

In Minnesota, Republican Sen. Norm Coleman is in a contentious contest with Democrat Al Franken, the writer and comedian. Others, such as Chambliss and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., still have leads, but narrow ones.

Democrats seized control of Congress in 2006, picking up 36 seats. Usually when a party wins big one year it has to defend the gains in the next election, notes Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.

This year, however, polls indicate Democrats are en route to bucking that trend.

"Republicans are still hung over from 2006, and they're about to get kicked in the gut again," says David Wasserman, who tracks House races for Cook.

"Voters are intent on taking out their anger on the party they perceive to have mishandled the economy."

Battling for open seats

Northern Virginia sent Republican Rep. Tom Davis to Congress for 14 years. This year, Davis is retiring, and his voters are flirting with a Democrat.

"The district is turning bluer by the hour," says Democratic candidate Gerry Connolly, who faces Republican Keith Fimian for Davis' seat. "The Republican label is a tough label this year."

The race, which Cook predicts is likely to go Connolly's way, illustrates a major problem Republicans face: a high number of hard-to-defend seats left open by retirements.

Republicans are leaving open five Senate seats; Democrats, one. In the House, 29 Republican seats are open, and Cook predicts 16 of those are in jeopardy of going Democratic.

Six Democratic seats are vacant in the House, but the GOP appears to have a shot at winning just one, in northern Alabama.

Defending an open seat is harder, in part because challengers lack the visibility and fundraising muscle that come with elected office. In 2006, 94% of House incumbents and 79% of senators won re-election, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Open seats also cost more to win.

First-time winners in open House races two years ago spent an average $700,000 more than successful incumbents, the center reports. This year, polls show Democrats ahead for open Republican Senate seats in Virginia, New Mexico and Colorado.

"People really do want change," says Democratic Rep. Mark Udall, who the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report forecasts to win the Colorado Senate seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Wayne Allard.

Hoping to defy conventional wisdom, Republicans are pressing on. In Northern Virginia, Fimian says he believes his race against Connolly will be closer than predicted.

"The more people I get in front of, the better my chances," he says.

Republican Bob Schaffer, who is trailing Udall in Colorado's Senate race, says his polling shows 10% of voters are undecided. He expects many of those voters to break his way Election Day.

"People are making their minds up that the economy and pocketbook issues are the driving force behind their decision-making," says Schaffer, a former energy executive who describes himself as the low-tax candidate.

"If this race is about the economy, I'm going to win."

Like many Republican candidates, Schaffer acknowledges Democrats will pick up seats. But, he says, "we don't intend for it to be in Colorado."

For Democrats, the challenge is different.

They need to defend incumbents who won in Republican-leaning districts two years ago. Four freshmen House Democrats are in races Cook calls tossups.

Democrats boost spending

Democrat Larry Kissell, a North Carolina social studies teacher who has never held public office, came within 329 votes of Republican Rep. Robin Hayes in 2006.

This year, Kissell's party isn't taking any chances.

The Democratic Party's national fundraising arm is helping Kissell overcome his financial disadvantage by pumping $1.7 million into his campaign — one of the biggest infusions of party support in the nation.

"The money itself controls the volume knob on a lot of things," Kissell spokesman Thomas Thacker says.

Outside cash has paid for TV ads that link Hayes to President Bush.

"Robin Hayes must have his head in the clouds," the narrator of one ad says as a picture of Hayes floats in the sky. "He seems to think George Bush's economic policy is working."

The party that controls Congress typically has an advantage in fundraising. So far in this general election, Democratic candidates have spent 29% more than Republicans — a reversal from 2006, when Republicans outspent Democrats, according to the center's analysis.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has spent $52 million on "independent expenditures" to help its candidates, according to the congressional newspaper Roll Call.

By contrast, the National Republican Congressional Committee has spent $12 million.

"The fact the DCCC is bankrolling this race is very telling that Larry Kissell needs Washington to run this race for him," Hayes said in a statement.

"The effect is that the voters are being bombarded with negative attacks that come from Washington, D.C."

Democrats poured $1.5 million into central Arizona's 3rd District, where Democrat Bob Lord is running against seven-term Republican Rep. John Shadegg.

And in Ohio's 15th District, the Democratic Party has spent $1.5 million to back Mary Jo Kilroy, who is seeking an open seat.

"Democrats are more energized, organized and well-funded than the Republicans," says Nathan Gonzales, political editor at Rothenberg.

"Republicans either don't have the money to respond in some districts or can't respond at the same levels."

'Blame the Republicans'

As bad as the political climate was for Republicans during the summer, it got worse in September when the financial crisis forced the Bush administration to ask Congress for a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street.

Incumbents in both parties said they received thousands of phone calls from constituents angry that the government would consider using taxpayer money to bail out private institutions. Many members in tight elections voted against the measure.

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., supported the bill and came under fire from his Democratic opponent, Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley, who called it "incredibly fiscally irresponsible."

The two are locked in a tight race that Congressional Quarterly says has no clear favorite.

"It goes right to the heart of Gordon Smith's view that you let the big boys do what they want, this willingness to put your hands over your eyes," says Merkley, who aired a TV ad criticizing Smith over the bailout just before Congress approved it.

Smith's campaign manager, Brooks Kochvar, argues that Merkley's message is not resonating.

"Sen. Gordon Smith faced a decision to do something, though not perfect, to help Main Street, or to do nothing at all," Kochvar says. "Our opponent's message is to do nothing at all."

Anger over the economy is likely to hurt Republican incumbents no matter how they voted on the bailout, says David Rohde, a political science professor at Duke University.

That resentment explains the Democrats' momentum, he says.

"The negative perceptions of Bush and the Republican administration have spilled over to Republicans more generally in Congress," he says.

"Here, more than anywhere, people tend to blame the Republicans because they blame Wall Street."

Turnout may change the game

Another factor that could drive House and Senate races has nothing to do with the congressional candidates: turnout in the historic presidential race.

Nearly 590,000 new voters have registered in Georgia in the past year, for instance, and both Senate candidates there say they are watching the effect Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's candidacy may have on black voters, who tend to choose Democrats.

Most polls have given Republican presidential nominee John McCain a slight lead in Georgia, which could help Chambliss.

So far, however, African Americans are casting a disproportionately high number of early voting ballots. Black turnout for Obama also could affect congressional races in North Carolina and Mississippi.

"Our challenge is for those first-time voters who are coming out to say 'I want to vote for Barack Obama for president' is to make sure they stay in the booth long enough and vote for the congressional candidates," says Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., chairman of the DCCC.

Davis, a former chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee, says high voter registration does not necessarily translate into turnout on Election Day.

"But there is no question that there is going to be an enhanced African-American turnout in this," he says.

"They are unlikely to vote for Obama and come back in significant numbers for Republicans at the congressional level."

Martin, the Democratic Senate candidate in Georgia, says it is not just an increase in black voters that will shape the election.

"People are coming from all different sectors of our society to exercise their rights as citizens to vote," he says.

"They're demanding change, and they're participating in numbers that we've not seen in many, many years."


Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-10-26-congress_N.htm