Tossups Draw Focus In Midterm Elections

WSJ reported Incumbent advantages are so widely recognized that it's sometimes easy to forget: A few House districts really are up for grabs in the 2006 midterm elections. This select group will draw an outsize share of campaign funds and media attention next year, because it will almost certainly produce whatever partisan shifts emerge in the chamber's narrow but stable Republican majority. The Democrats' long-shot hope for recapturing control rests on the chance -- slim but not out of the question -- that voters' rising discontent with Washington will expand this tiny circle of genuine competition.

But if we can show success in Iraq having another successful election, the dissatisfaction may turn into satisfaction which will lead to Republicans increasing their majority.

However, recent turmoil in the labor movement -- specifically yesterday's disaffiliation of two unions from the AFL-CIO -- may cloud the party's hopes of picking up some House seats.

With the Teamsters split off, maybe we can get them to support Republicans as they did once or twice before.

If the labor rift persists, it could undermine this reliable bloc of Democratic support, but for the moment, public disaffection with lawmakers seems to favor newcomers, not incumbents. "There is a chance that the dissatisfaction in the public will catch fire politically," says Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia professor and political analyst. If that happens, he adds, even some seemingly safe Republican lawmakers "will be shocked on election night. ... It is rare, but it is not so uncommon that we can dismiss it out of hand a year and half ahead of the election."

True, but I would not bet the farm on it either.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released this month shows why that could happen. The overall approval rating for Congress stood at a paltry 28%. By 46%-41%, Americans said it was time to give a new representative a chance rather than re-elect their incumbent member. The poll's margin of error was 3.1 percentage points. For now, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the 2006 election outcome as being in question in just 50 of 435 House districts. Democrats hold a slight edge in targets of opportunity, since 28 of those seats are now in Republican hands, compared with 22 in Democratic hands. These contests have a few factors in common. In the decennial reapportionment process, boundary lines in most House districts have been drawn to yield lopsided constituencies favoring one party or the other. Competitive seats include some of the more balanced exceptions; incumbents in 33 of them won in 2004 with 55% or less of the vote.

The article includes a graphic the average loss in the president's party in midterm elections since WWII is 24, and 12 in the last 5 elections, and the Dems need a switch of 15 to regain majority, and they show 8 of the hotest elections, 5 involving Democratic seats (1 retirement), and 3 involving Republican seats (2 retirements).