Competitive Races

CQ has the rundown here. Of course, these things are inherently a little fuzzy. Parties experience waves of support now and again driven by large macro-political events. And good candidates waging good campaigns can win "unwinnable" races against representatives of an unpopular national party. I've seen a lot of analysis over the past year and a half indicating that Democrats underplayed their hand in the 2006 House races. There were a few dozen races, basically, where had there been enough funds for an adequate final-week push, you'd have won a couple handsful of 'em.

The overall political climate for 2008, meanwhile, shows overall signs of being just as bad for Republicans as you saw in 2006. The one fly in the ointment is that the existence of a presidential race alongside the congressional ones could prompt people's most partisan pro-Republican instincts no matter how disgruntled they may be. At any rate, all this is by way of mentioning that I saw Dan Grant yesterday again, a great guy and a veteran of civilian-side operations in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan who's running for congress in the Texas 10 against an undistinguished incumbent opponent. It's not a CQ-certified competitive district and probably shouldn't be. But these are the kind of races you can win if there's a wave, and they're also the kind of races of which a wave of victories is made.

Comments

Well, how many of these did we really know needed a final-week push where it would have helped, and how many merely looked like a final week push would have helped but would have just been wasteful?

Remember that the Republicans DID pour founds into a final week push in races they thought would be competitive. The problem was that those races were the republican senate campaigns in New Jersey and Maryland, where it didn't do a bit of good.

Posted by Tyro | September 28, 2007 9:57 AM

"Democrats underplayed their hand in the 2006 House races. There were a few dozen races, basically, where had there been enough funds for an adequate final-week push, you'd have won a couple handsful of 'em."

Yup.

A lot of folks were screaming their heads off about expanding the playing field in the weeks before the voting, and they were entirely correct.

-----

"The one fly in the ointment is that the existence of a presidential race alongside the congressional ones could prompt people's most partisan pro-Republican instincts no matter how disgruntled they may be."

My favorite story about '06 is that we won the Senate because Claire McCaskill, who wanted to run for Governor in '08, ran for Senate in '06 instead because she was assuming Hillary would be the nominee and understood that having Hillary on top of the ticket would be death for a Democrat in Missouri.

Top of the ticket can really matter to House and Senate races in Presidential years. Hillary would not only going to send Republicans back to their party with enthusiasm, but she would also send quite a few Indies back to voting (R).

Posted by Petey | September 28, 2007 2:09 PM

There's a very complicated selection effect here, in that some races could really have used more money, but the time they needed it was early '06 when they were establishing operations, and not late '06. But in early '06, we didn't know nearly as much as we did later.

Lastly, the netroots (and small donors in general) tendency to focus their contributions very late in the cycle on the close races then, hinders their influence because they're not really picking the candidates. This is compared to party committees and large PACs and major donors who pick which races to support in January, and thereby very largely determine WHICH races will be competitive in October.

Posted by Tony V | September 28, 2007 4:33 PM

Hillary would not only going to send Republicans back to their party with enthusiasm, but she would also send quite a few Indies back to voting (R).

Here's one poll that contradicts your assertion, Petey. Have you any data to back up what you say?

Posted by Charles Kuffner | September 28, 2007 11:55 PM