November 6, 2006
Dems Would End Odd Jinx in Taking Senate, Analysis Shows
By Greg Giroux
http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2006/11/06/cq_1793.html?adxnnl=0&adxnnlx=1162811822-rsNnDdA4T3+t6ieVCIICOA&pagewanted=printIn April 2005, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor that it would take a “little miracle†for the Democrats to win a majority of seats in Senate elections that, at the time, were still more than 18 months away.
The Nevada Democrat did not specify why he thought his party needed a miracle to overcome the Republicans’ 55-45 advantage in the Senate (a figure that includes in the Democrats’ number now-retiring Vermont Independent Sen. James M. Jeffords, because he caucuses with the party).
Surely Reid knew the structural obstacles his party faced at the beginning of the 2005-06 campaign cycle. Reid knew that his party had more of its own seats up for election in November 2006 (18) than the Republicans (15). He also knew his Democrats faced a difficult partisan terrain: Just three of the states Republicans are defending this year favored 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, with the other 12 going for President Bush.
Reid’s remarks came well before it was clear that the Republicans would have only one retiring senator: Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee. With just one open seat on the GOP side, the Democrats need to unseat at least five Republican incumbents to make the six-seat net gain that they need to get to 51 seats — while defending three open seats of their own and a handful of potentially vulnerable Democratic incumbents.
But it is unlikely that Reid knew of one historical fact that would have underscored the tall challenge facing his party this year in its bid to take over the Senate: No party, in the era of popularly elected senators, has registered a net gain of six Senate seats in a year in which it has had more overall seats to defend than the opposite party.
This is a major finding of a CQPolitics.com analysis of every Senate election since 1914, one year after the 17th Amendment established direct election of senators.
In 1994, Republicans made a net gain of eight Senate seats and won control of the Senate. But that year, the election lineup provided Republicans with a political landscape of opportunity: The Democrats had to defend 22 seats, compared to just 13 for the Republicans.
That said, the Democrats of 2006 have as strong a chance as any party has had to break this unusual jinx.
According to the latest analysis by CQPolitics.com, the Democrats and Republicans are expected to control at least 48 seats apiece, with four contests considered too close to call.
Democrats are rated as more likely than not to unseat Republican incumbents in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Ohio and Montana. Several Democratic incumbents are in close races, including Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey. But it is plausible, if not likely, that the Democrats will not lose a single one of their Senate seats to a Republican takeover.
The following analysis lists each election year since 1914 in which one party registered a net gain of at least six Senate seats in the November election. In this analysis, the seat gain is determined by comparing the election results to the partisan breakdown of seats just before the election.
The partisan distribution of the Senate seats in that year’s election and some background about the election year is included in each section.
1994: Republicans — 8-seat net gain
Seats up that year: 22 Democratic, 13 Republican.
Background: In this landslide Republican election year, which installed a GOP Senate majority for the first time in eight years (as well as a House majority for the first time in 40 years), just two Democratic Senate incumbents were defeated: Tennessee’s Jim Sasser, who lost to Republican Bill Frist, and Pennsylvania’s Harris Wofford, who lost to Republican Rick Santorum.
Senate Democrats’ big problems in 1994 were open seats. They lost all six races in which Democratic senators retired: Arizona, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma and Tennessee (which had two Senate elections that year, including an open-seat race for the seat that then-Vice President Al Gore had held).
Republicans did not lose a single incumbent and defended their open seats in Minnesota, Missouri and Wyoming.
1986: Democrats — 8-seat net gain
Seats up that year: 22 Republican, 12 Democratic
Background: If Democrats in 1994 were hampered by their many vulnerable open seats, Republicans in 1986 were handicapped by their many vulnerable incumbents.
Democrats defeated seven Republican incumbents — all but one who had been elected in a Republican upsurge that accompanied Ronald Reagan’s 1980 victory for president, but were much more vulnerable in the sixth year of Reagan’s tenure in the White House.
Republican incumbents were defeated in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota and Washington.
Democrats Barbara A. Mikulski in Maryland and Reid in Nevada succeeded retiring Republican senators. The only Democratic-defended state to go Republican was Missouri, where Christopher S. Bond was narrowly elected to succeed retiring incumbent Thomas F. Eagleton.
1980: Republicans — 12-seat net gain
Seats up that year: 23 Democratic, 10 Republican
Background: The Reagan landslide swept in 16 new GOP senators — 12 of whom won seats that were being defended by the Democrats.
Democratic incumbents were felled in Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin. Republicans also won seats in Alabama, Alaska and Florida, where Democratic incumbents had been defeated in primary elections.
1958: Democrats — 15-seat net gain
Seats up that year: 21 Republican, 13 Democratic
Background: This year was the second midterm election of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration, and Republicans paid dearly at the polls.
Democratic challengers unseated GOP incumbents in Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Utah, Wyoming — and two in West Virginia.
Democrats succeeded retiring Republican senators in California, Indiana and New Jersey. They also won the two Senate seats assigned to Alaska, which are factors in the tally above, even though Alaska did not become a state until the next year.
The Senate class of 1958 included West Virginia Democrat Robert C. Byrd, who this year is a shoo-in to win a record ninth six-year term this year — and extend the record of all-time Senate service that he set this June.
1948: Democrats — nine-seat net gain
Seats up that year: 18 Republican, 15 Democratic
Background: President Harry S. Truman, a Democrat, labeled the GOP-controlled Congress as “do-nothing.†This charge helped Truman come from behind to defeat Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey, and Democrats won majorities in the House and Senate to wrest the chambers from GOP control.
In Senate races, Democrats defeated eight Republican incumbents and also won an open seat in Oklahoma.
1946: Republicans — 11-seat net gain
Seats up that year: 24 Democratic, 12 Republican, 1 Independent
Background: Truman, who succeeded to the presidency upon the April 1945 death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, had abysmal approval ratings the next year. Voters delivered majorities in both chambers of Congress to the Republicans. In the Senate races, GOP candidates defeated seven Democratic incumbents and won four open Democratic seats.
1942: Republicans — 9-seat net gain
Seats up that year: 24 Democratic, 9 Republican, 1 Independent
Background: The GOP made big gains less than a year after the United States entered World War II. Republicans defeated five Democratic incumbents and also wrested away another three open seats from the opposition. The GOP netted a ninth seat, though not at the Democrats’ expense, by unseating Independent Nebraska Sen. George Norris, a former Republican.
1934: Democrats — 9-seat net gain
Seats up that year: 18 Republican, 16 Democratic, 1 Farmer-Labor, 1 Progressive
Background: This was the midterm election year of FDR’s first term, and it proved to be a relatively rare instance of a presidential administration making gains in a midterm election. Democrats defeated eight Republican senators and won a ninth seat that had been left open by a retiring Republican.
1932: Democrats — 11-seat net gain
Seats up that year: 17 Republican, 17 Democratic
Background: Roosevelt’s landslide victory in an election colored by the Great Depression ushered in huge Democratic majorities. Democrats unseated eight Republicans senators and also won three other seats left open by departing GOP senators.
1930: Democrats — 8-seat net gain
Seats up that year: 22 Republican, 12 Democratic
Background: The Democrats, in the midterm election of Republican Herbert Hoover’s only term as president, made substantial gains in the Senate amid the onset of the Great Depression.
1928: Republicans — 7-seat net gain
Seats up that year: 20 Democratic, 13 Republican, 1 Farmer-Labor
Background: Hoover was elected president, and Republicans won seven Senate seats that had been held by Democrats.
1926: Democrats — 7-seat net gain
Seats up that year: 27 Republican, 7 Democratic
Background: The Republicans were defending the vast majority of seats because they had won most of the seats six years earlier (see 1920 election below). Losses by Republican Senate incumbents accounted for all of the GOP turnovers.
1922: Democrats — 6-seat net gain
Seats up that year: 18 Republican, 16 Democratic
Background: The Democrats defeated seven Republican incumbents and won another open Republican-held seat, while losing two seats of their own to the Republicans. Minnesota Republican Sen. Frank Kellogg lost to Henrik Shipstead, a member of the Farmer-Labor Party (which later merged with the Democratic Party in Minnesota).
1920: Republicans — 10-seat net gain
Seats up that year: 19 Democratic, 15 Republican
Background: Republican Warren G. Harding, himself a senator, was elected president in one of the biggest landslides in American history, which came in the aftermath of World War I. The GOP also cleaned up in the Senate contests, defeating seven Democratic incumbents and wresting away three Democratic open seats, while not surrendering any of their own seats to the opposition.
