Campaign Diaries

Earlier this week, state Senator Mick Mulvaney signaled he is preparing to challenge Rep. John Spratt, who has been in office since 1982. This makes South Carolina’s 5th District the latest in a series of red-leaning districts represented by entrenched Democrats that the NRCC is determined to wrestle away.

Just as in AR-01, MO-04 and WV-01 (other districts with similar situations), the GOP’s excitement over Mulvaney’s challenge confirms their unyielding optimism about the coming cycle: While there is no evidence that any of them are vulnerable, Republicans are betting that the environment will favor them to such an extent that a red wave will submerge veteran Democratic lawmakers. The NRCC must realize that it won’t manage to force all of these veteran lawmakers in competitive races, but there’s no other way of knowing which are endangered than throwing all they’ve got at the wall and seeing what sticks.

SC-05 is Republican enough that a wave could surely cause Democrats heartburn: it voted for Bush by double-digits and for McCain 53% to 46%. A state Senator running in a district that leans towards his party is necessarily credible, and if there is indeed a red wave it could very well take Spratt with it: in 1994, Spratt survived by only 5%. That he now occupies a position of great power (he chairs the Budget Committee) could hurt him more than help him if voters turn against Congress as much as they did that year. Finally, Democratic electability in this district depends in large part on black turnout (a third of the district is African-American) and we will have to see how mobilized the Democratic base is next year.

(For those keeping track of vulnerable Democrats’ ideological leanings: Like most of the entrenched congressmen finding themselves in the GOP’s cross hairs, Spratt is moderate-to-conservative but he is not a member of the Blue Dog Coalition.)

Yet, there are a number of differences that put Spratt in a better position than his colleagues in aforementioned districts.

For one, his district is not overwhelmingly conservative; a 7% margin for McCain is nowhere comparative than the 20%+ victories he scored in AR-01 or MO-04. Relatedly, Obama substantially improved Gore and Kerry’s performance in this district; that cannot be said of many of the red districts the GOP is hoping to reclaim, from AL-02 and MS-01 to AR-01 and MO-04. Democratic performance in SC-05 is not simply a factor of ancestral party allegiance that is collapsing post-Obama’s emergence as the party’s standard-bearer.

Also, the GOP won’t be able to rely on the most important factor that sometimes gets entrenched incumbents like Spratt in trouble: the element of surprise. In 2006, a number of Republican incumbents had forgotten how to run competitive races and did not have the infrastructure in place to fight back when it became clear they were vulnerable late in the cycle. But Spratt recently faced a competitive race: In 2006, then-state Rep. Ralph Norman ran against him, spent $1 million but still lost by double-digits. Sure, 2006 was a dismal environment but that contest must have reminded Spratt of how to run a campaign and mount an infrastructure.

Finally, it’s difficult to know what voters think about their congressmen absent some type of challenge, a problem that applies to Skelton or Snyder: Since they have not faced a competitive challenge in at least 10 years, Democrats cannot point to any concrete signs that the NRCC is wasting its time targeting them. But Spratt can point to the 2006 race as evidence he is not vulnerable, thereby potentially discouraging Republican donors and avoiding that the NRCC devotes that much attention to the race.

None of this means that Mulvaney doesn’t have a very good reason to jump in this race, as speculation is already rampant he is doing so to prepare 2012: The Palmetto Scoop writes that Spratt is expected to retire in 2012 and ambitious Republicans want to position themselves to be the heir apparent in what would be a top-tier takeover opportunity for their party. 2006 nominee Norman had for now positioned himself as that heir apparent, but Mulvaney’s candidacy next year shuffles the deck, especially as Norman is no longer in the state legislature.

I am unsure that Spratt is this close to retirement, since he is now only 66, but it’s only a matter of time before the GOP gets a shot at an open seat here. Of course, that there is talk that Republicans are mainly preparing for the post-2010 landscape is not a good sign for Mulvaney’s prospects of being taken as a top-tier challenger.