While all eyes were on Louisiana’s Northwestern corridor, New Orleans sent a Republican - Anh Joseph Cao - to the House.
Let’s once again set the context of what is the biggest upset of the 2008 cycle. Yes, Rep. William Jefferson is indicted on corruption charges and has been stripped of his committee assignments - but LA-02 is a heavily African-American district that is more Democratic than any red district is Republican.
Simply put, such districts never ever elect a Republican and it is a sign of how damaged Jefferson had become that he lost his re-election race - even by only 3%. And even then, it took the special circumstances of an off-date election day (the general election had been postponed due to Hurricane Gustav) for Jefferson to actually go down: Turnout in white precincts was more than twice that of black precinct, sealing Jefferson’s doom.
Had the Jefferson-Cao match-up taken place on November 4th, there is little doubt that Jefferson would be heading to Washington. Nor, for that matter, would Cao have been able to defeat any other Democrat yesterday. What happened last night is entirely Democrats’ fault for not taking care of the Jefferson problem on their own - either by ostracizing him to such an extent as to render him unelectable or by organizing behind a single Democratic challenger to defeat him in the primary.
The good news for Democrats is that they are already heavily favored to reclaim the seat in 2010 - especially now that they are rid of Jefferson for good. It is almost inconceivable that Cao could win re-election.
This is why the Democrats’ apparent defeat in LA-04 is so much more painful. Paul Carmouche has not conceded the race yet (nor has the AP called it) and we could be heading to a recount, but John Fleming is hanging on to a 356 vote lead. If he emerges as the winner, he would be likely to keep the seat for as many years as he would like. This is the sort of heavily conservative seat (John McCain won LA-04 by 20%) that Democrats can only hope to pick-up as open seats, so this loss is a long-term one.
Coming just a few days after Saxby Chambliss’s triumph in Georgia’s Senate runoff, LA-04 allows the GOP to finish the year on a strong streak that will reassure Republicans that the worst is over and that voters no longer feel the need to punish them. If the Carmouche-Fleming match-up had occurred last spring (when Democrats picked-up LA-06, MS-01 and IL-14 in similar conditions), Carmouche might have been in a better position.
But yesterday’s results suggest that the Democratic base is no longer more enthused (since turnout for once favored Republicans) and that conservative-leaning independents that have been voting Democratic since 2006 might be returning to the GOP’s fold now that President Bush is on his way out.
This should serve as a warning sign to the Democratic incumbents elected in heavily Republican districts either this year or in 2008 - starting with ID-01, TX-17, KS-03, OH-18, … Unfortunately for Republicans, regaining those districts alone would not be enough to reclaim a majority in the House.
I’m not sure Carmouche’s loss in LA-4 means the Dem’s base has lost its enthusiasm. It probably is less enthused than it was during the spring, but still a Democrat came within 400 votes of winning in a district that John McCain won by 20%. The Democrats are likely to lose some seats in 2010, but they still have about 58% of the house and there are several Republican seats that could turn in 2010.(starting with MN-6, Bachmann would have lost if the Dem’s had a stronger candidate from the beginning)
And let’s not forget that all these races took place in the Deep South, the most unfriendly region for them.
If Democrats lost special elections at Ohio, Colorado, or Virginia, then maybe they would have cause for concern.
Keep in mind all three races were in the deep South, and the GOP was supposed to win two of them.
The LA-02 result, has to be placed on the Democrats for not taking action against William Jefferson earlier.
I do think there might some drift back to the GOP among conservative independents, but we shouldn’t overreact to these reults.
Democrats better be preparing NOW for the 2010 House elections. If this keeps up, they could easily lose the House.
I agree that the Democrats are likely to see a small net loss in the 2010 elections, but as Taniel said, winning back very conservative districts won’t be enough for the GOP. It is very early, but I would guess that that the GOP would at the very least get a net gain of one seat in the House, losing LA-02 in a landslide but winning ID-01, where Walt Minnick only won because he was up against Sali, and in AL-02, in which Bobby Bright represents a district I believe Obama did worse than Kerry did. The GOP also has a better than 50% chance in MD-01 (although 2010 will probably be their last chance: if they fail then the Democrats will probably gerrymander the district to make it difficult for Kratolvi to be unseated in 2010, and the bench in MD, even for a conservative leaning seat, is weak seeing as how it is very Democratic statewide), and CO-4, where Betsy Markey won because she was up against unpopular Musgrave. There are also several toss-up seats in conservative districts that the GOP can contest for, and probably do better in thanks to a less toxic enviroment.
However, there is too few seats for the GOP to actually have a chance of getting back the majority: most of the swing districts (3 points or less leaning for a party) will probably stay Democratic, and a GOP comeback will not happen unless this comes to pass.
Also Taniel, you mention other races that the Democrats should be worried about, however, I think only ID-01 and AL-02 fit into the description of seats the GOP will probably win back in 2010. TX-17 is represented by Chet Edwards, who has been in Congress for more than a decade, and is savy enough to stay elected in a district that strongly favors the Republican. McCain, not being from Texas, likely did worse than Bush did in TX-17, and in fact Edwards won by a massive margin in 2006 when there was no Presidential Candidate to drag him down.
In KS-03, Dennis Moore won by 15 points in 2008 so there is little chance he could be defeated in a midterm, but there are rumors that he could retire (possibly to run for Senate if Gov Selbius refuses to enter) which would make it harder for the Democrats. However, some blogs from the district has estimated that Obama actually narrowly won, which probably bolds well for local (and more conservative) democrats to try to win the seat.
Zack Space won by double digits in both 2006 and 2008 in OH-16 and has probably established himself already: it will be extremly difficult for the GOP to find a credible challanger against him. Plus, his district is not as GOP leaning as several other districts represented by Democrats.
Also, on LA-02: if Cao is up against a Black Democrat (which is almost assured) then there is nothing he can do to win reelection. If he is up against a white Democrat, then he may have a small chance as African Americans may be dissapointed enough to not turnout, but even in this situation he would be heavily favored to lose because Obama would surely come to LA-02 to push up the AA turnout.
The GOP also has like no bench in OH-18 except for in the a few of the Westernmost counties.
Chet Edwards should be OK in a midterm, since he survived 1994 and 2002.
Markey beat Musgrave by a solid 12 points. As long as she doesnt vote for any kind of gun control bills or tax increases, she should be OK.