In a move with huge consequences both at the Senate and at the House level, Rep. Charlie Melancon announced today that he will challenge Louisiana Senator David Vitter.
Senate: A surprisingly strong get for the DSCC but Vitter remains favored
This should ensure that Louisiana hosts a Senate race well worth watching. Vitter has been on everyone’s list of vulnerable senators ever since he was involved in the D.C. Madam scandal, but Democrats had little bench left. Melancon was one of the only high-profiles names considering this race, and his entry is as good a get as the DSCC could have hoped for. A March Research 2000 poll found Vitter leading Melancon 48% to 41% while a July PPP survey had him up 44% to 32%. Comfortable leads, but certainly not overwhelming ones - and Vitter is noticeably under the 50% mark.
That said, Vitter has to be considered the clear favorite. His poll numbers bear little trace of the 2007 scandal and Louisiana has been rapidly drifting rightward, especially given the demographic changes brought about by Katrina. In 2008, Mary Landrieu survived with just 52% of the vote despite a national environment that was golden for Democrats, so how high could Melancon hope to get in a cycle that is bound to be less favorable for his party?
I have repeatedly argued that Democrats do not for now have to fear the prospect of a red wave, but that doesn’t mean it would be as easy for them to challenge Republican incumbents - especially those who are sitting in states Democrats have no more business contesting. Melancon might have had a 50:50 shot to win in 2006 or in 2008, but 2010 is another story. The burden is now on the DSCC to prove that Vitter should worry.
Of course, even if he did make it to the Senate, Melancon would be one of the most conservative Senate Democrats - probably even to the right of Mary Landrieu: A supporter of the Federal Marriage Amendment, Melancon voted against health care reform when it came up in the Energy and Commerce Committee last month. Even if Vitter is one of the more conservative senators, can Melancon expect an enthusiastic reception from Democratic activists given that latter vote?
House: A golden opportunity for Republicans
It might still be unclear how competitive the Senate race will get, but we already know for sure that Melancon’s decision creates a huge headache for House Democrats. LA-03 is a staunchly conservative seat - George W. Bush got 58% of the vote in 2004, McCain received 61% in 2008. Melancon won in a tough open race in 2004 but he didn’t face much of a challenge in the subsequent two cycles, entrenching himself enough that he would have been favored to win a fourth term in 2010.
Yet, LA-03 will now feature an open race. In such conservative territory, that undoubtedly makes the district one of the GOP’s top takeover prospects - right up there with AL-02, ID-01 and MS-01. Democrats have a strong bench in the district (Swing State Project broke down the state legislators representing a portion of LA-03 and found that most state Senators are Democrats) so they should be able to remain competitive rather than simply folding. But given that we are talking about a 62% McCain district hosting an open seat in the midterm elections of a Democratic president, it’s hard not to consider Republicans the early favorites.
What this means is that Louisiana is now more likely than not to give us a House wash in 2010. With Democrats highly favored to recapture the New Orleans-based LA-02, Republicans can certainly hope to compensate by picking-up LA-03.
Note that such an exchange of seats might not affect the House’s partisan composition, but it would certainly change its ideological breakdown: Given how left-wing a district he represents, Cao is bound to be one of the most unreliable Republican representatives while Melancon is a staunchly conservative Blue Dog. So if both parties do pick-up a seat, Democrats are likely to exchange Melancon for a left-wing representative while Republicans would replace Cao with a staunch conservative.
[Update: CQ provides more names of potential House candidates, including Scott Angelle, a longtime Democrat who is now serving in Bobby Jindal's Cabinet - making him a potential recruit for both parties, a la Bobby Bright.]
For Democrats, redistricting could assuage sting of House loss
All in all, then, all of this makes it hard to consider Melancon’s decision as that good news for Democrats: They are more likely to lose his House seat than they are to truly endanger Vitter, which also makes Melancon’s move a huge career risk. So why did he do it?
I can think of only one word: Redistricting. Democrats do have (very) tenuous control of both chamber’s of the legislature, so the GOP cannot simply gerrymander Melancon out. But Louisiana is slated to lose a seat in the next round of redistricting, and that will mean an extensive redrawing of the congressional map. It will not necessarily be easy for Democrats to salvage a good district for Melancon, and the prospect that they’ll lose the state legislature in 2011 (allowing the GOP to easily dislodge Melancon) has to be considered.
And this gets us to the one comforting thought for the DCCC: If Republicans do pick-up LA-03 next year (giving them a 6-1 advantage if they also lose Cao), they’ll probably have no choice but to accept to sacrifice one of their own. New Orleans is too predominantly Democratic for the GOP to hope to control all of the state’s districts, so the best configuration it could hope for post-redistricting is 5-1. This considerably lowers the stakes of the LA-03 race.
This is some of the best news Democrats have gotten in a while. With all of these senate polls looking bad for Democrats, Democrats needed a break, and Melancon gave it to them. You can’t compare Melancon to Mike Castle of Deleware: unlike Castle in a Deleware, Melacon starts out as the decided underdog in a state that is rapidly moving Republican at all levels of government. I think progressives will like Melancon if only because he forces Vitter (who liberals despise) on the defensive and the RSCC having to spend money to defend Vitter, money that would otherwise be spend defending vulerable open seats or on offensive in states like CT or IL.
In terms of his house seat, I don’t believe that Republicans will get the chance to control the whole redistricting process: elections in LA are held on the off year before a presidential election year, so that would be 2011, with the session/inaguarion of officals in 2012. The redistricting process I believe is mostly done in 2011, when the Dems would still be in control.
Now to speculate, Republicans could potentially control the entire delegation after redistricting if they split New Orleans in 5 parts: the rest of LA is heavily Republican. However, to do so would to basically turn all of LA districts into swing districts and the potential situation of a plan backfiring with Dems winning more than one seat. Plus, it may not be legal according to the Voting rights act on minority representation. So I do think that Republicans will need to sacrifice one of their own when LA loses a district.
Jaxx, I agree with your redistricting analysis: It is technically possible to divide New Orleans in such a way (and I think if the GOP controlled redistricting and Cao survived 2010 - both unlikely prospects - they might at least attempt to dilute Democratic strength) but it force them to foolishly dilute their advantage in the rest of the state. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to take that route: Democrats would be furious since many are from NoVa and Republicans from the rest of the state would be very unhappy as well.
As for the financial question, is this not a two-edged sword? It will also force the DSCC to divert money to Louisiana that could have been used to push Carnahan, Fisher/Brunner, Hodes, Mongiardo/Conway or Marshall/Etheridge/other over the edge.
I dont see how this is good news for Democrats. This is yet another House seat that will be lost and the high turnout among blacks that put Landrieu over the top in 2008 will be sharply down. I can see Vitter holding a big lead over Melancon for the whole campaign and the NRSC not spending a penny on the race, much like the Collins/Allen race in 2008,
Well, something to consider is that Landrieu didn’t need a high black turnour; while she won by six percent, that is still far over 100,000 votes. Another thing is that I don’t exactly believe that LA is turning as red as everyone thinks. (Maybe for president, but that still doesn’t have too much influence in the South locally or statewide.) It was mainly due to Blanco and “Star” Jindal, who really blew himself up in most residents’ eyes earlier this year. There was some poll taken, and somewhere around 70% of residents thought their governor “must be a fool”. But overall, I definately wouldn’t count Melancon out (his name really touts the Cajun factor [Mel-law-sawn]). The really big difference: name recognition, even though Vitter doesn’t have too high a profile himself.
Maurice,
I hope you’re right about Louisiana’s politics, but I doubt it.
The only way Melancon can win is if he hammers Vitter with the protitution scandal over and over and over again.
If he does that, he should have a reasonable chance.
Maurice, the high black turnout accounted for her margin of 100,000 votes and then some. The state is turning deep red. Democrats lost two Congressional seats there in 2008(a great year for Democrats) and failed to pick up another that they should have won easily. They also nearly lost control of the state House for the first time since Reconstruction in 2007. Melancon would need a miracle to win.
Ron, while I agree that Louisiana is turning increasingly red, let’s not exaggerate the disaster Louisiana was for House Democrats. Neither seat did they lose because of the state’s red drift: LA-02 is among the most Democratic districts in the country Cao because of Jefferson’s indictment and will likely lose next year; LA-06 was a staunchly conservative district Cazayoux had no business in winning back in the spring - and then he lost it because another Democrat siphoned votes away (the Republican received less than 50%). Same goes for LA-04, which is I believe the one you refer to when you say Democrats failed to pick-up a seat: The district voted for Bush, Bush and McCain - all by double-digits. This was never going to be an easy pick-up for Democrats!
Maurice, I disagree with your analysis of Louisiana politically. On a federal level, Republicans are now firmly in control. In addition, the Dems stranglehold in the state legislature is tenious. Just a few years ago the Dems held huge majorities and the GOP is on the cusp of gaining a majority in at least one body of the legislature.
People in Louisiana are now out of the habit of automatically voting for Democrats at all levels. Arkansas is next to follow IMO. Luckily for Arkansas Dems, Beebe is possibly the strongest incumbent governor in the country.
Basically what I meant was that I believe that the last legislative round was somewhat of a fluke because of the hurricanes, and their backlash on Democrats, rather than the Democratic electorate moving elsewhere or a much more conservative electorate. There were just a couple of Democrats in high positions that were too liberal for the state.
And Ron, of course Landrieu would have been crushed if no black voters had turned out, but there weren’t 120,000 more of them in 2008. Rather, it was somewhere around 65,000. It wasn’t as much of an increase here than in most other multiracial states because many of the minorities who were around to vote in 2004 weren’t there anymore.