Republicans are forecast to pick up as many as a dozen U.S.
House seats this November, strengthening their grip on the House majority. Democrats
say they expect to make gains in the House, but Republicans have a host of
built-in advantages this year, including:
• Recently redrawn districts have resulted in fewer
competitive seats.
• Historical midterm-election-year trends indicate a limited
Democratic turnout.
• President Obama's waning popularity is part of a political
climate suggesting that Democrats cannot expect a "wave" election to
turn the tide in their favor.
Democrats and Republicans are locked in a competitive
struggle over who will control the U.S. Senate next year. But barring a seismic
political event between now and Election Day, the GOP's control of the U.S.
House is not in question. Here's why.
If it ain't got that swing
It's hard to win the hand when the deck is stacked.
In 2012, congressional district lines were redrawn, as is
constitutionally required every 10 years, based on population shifts. Republicans
had the upper hand in many states after the GOP won control of governorships
and state legislatures following the 2010 Tea Party wave. The end result has
been a precipitous drop in the number of competitive seats and a rise in the
number of seats considered so safely Republican or Democratic that they are
unlikely to ever switch party control.
Today, roughly 50 districts in the 435-member House make up
the entirety of the 2014 battleground.
The non-partisan Cook Political Report ranks just
16 of those districts, 13 held by Democrats and three by Republicans, as
competitive enough that neither party has a clear advantage with fewer than 100
days to go before Election Day.
The current House makeup includes 234 Republicans and 199
Democrats, and there are two vacant seats that are safely Democratic. That
means Democrats need a net gain of 17 seats for a takeover. They'd have to pick
up 17 Republican seats and lose none of their own, or make even greater gains
in GOP territory to make up for any losses.
The midterm voter
To Democrats' advantage, their long-term future includes a
broader, more diverse and expanding base of young people, women and minorities.
To Democrats' detriment, their voters are less likely to show up in midterm
elections than Republicans' older and whiter base. To Democrats' 2014 peril,
this year is on track to maintain that trend.
In a recent detailed analysis, the primary turnout has been
low throughout the first 25 states to hold those contests. Only 18 million of
the 123 million voters eligible to cast primary ballots did so thus far this
year.
Low primary turnout isn't necessarily indicative of low
turnout come November. To get more of their people to the polls, Democrats are
plowing resources into voter registration drives and get-out-the-vote programs.
The House Democratic campaign operation doubled its
grass-roots mobilization effort for the 2014 cycle and recently launched
"1 Million Votes for 2014" to register new voters in time for the
election. Israel says the party has already achieved 120,000 commitments to
vote.
Most voters don't start tuning in to election season until
after Labor Day, so Democrats have time to maximize their turnout.
No wave in sight
In order to take back the House, Democrats would need a
"wave" election in which one party enjoys dramatic political gains.
But there is no wave on the horizon, largely because of the president's
unpopularity. There have been only four times in the past two decades in which
the House saw a net seat change in the double digits. In those four election
years — 1994, 2006, 2008 and 2010 — the wave was fueled by backlash against the
incumbent president's party.
Republicans won control of the U.S. House under President
Clinton in 1994; Democrats won control back and increased their majority under
President Bush in 2006 and 2008. Republicans returned to the majority in 2010
with the Tea Party-inspired wave under Obama. The prospect of 2014 becoming a
wave election year benefiting congressional Democrats is more than just unlikely.
It would be unprecedented in modern politics.
Obama and the six-year itch
Democrats are also facing a trend commonly known as the
"six-year itch," in which the president's party historically loses
seats in Congress. Not all presidents have fallen victim to it — Clinton
enjoyed congressional gains in 1998 — but Obama is not expected to experience a
repeat, and Clinton's gains were not enough to switch party control.
While Obama has worked to build the campaign war chests of
the House and Senate Democratic campaign operations this year, he's been
largely absent on the campaign trail, where Democrats in tight races are
seeking to portray themselves as independent of the president and his agenda
The best chance that House Democrats have for making a play
for control may be in 2016, where the lift of a popular Democratic presidential
nominee who can appeal to voters in conservative-leaning states could boost
candidates down ballot.
Democrats are laying the groundwork for that election by
building better voter databases, registering voters and solidifying their
support among women and minority voters, especially Hispanics. What is clear is
that the 2014 election is unlikely to change Obama's loyal GOP opposition in
Congress. In fact, if House Republicans' achieve Walden's stated goal of an
11-seat gain, or a 245-seat majority, next January would usher in the biggest
GOP House majority since the Hoover administration.
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