Campaign Diaries

Yet another congressman has decided to retire just after learning that he would face his first tough re-election race in decades. But this time, it’s a Republican.

76-year old Rep. Vern Ehlers has represented Western Michigan since he was first elected in 1992. He had a relatively moderate reputation, most notably due to his membership in the Republican Main Street Partnership or his opposition to the death penalty. From what I can see from scanning a number of revealing roll calls of the past decade, he did cross over to the Democratic camp on legislation that attracted the support of a substantial share of the GOP caucus. In 2006, he was one of 82 Republicans to vote in favor of an increase to the minimum wage in 2006; in 2009, he supported the credit-card bill and the cash-for-clunker program. He also supported the 2008 bailout plan, which has come to haunt a number of GOP congresspeople, most notably Senators Hutchison and Bennett.

Deciding that this gave him an opening to defeat Ehlers in the GOP primary (after all, if there is one year in which conservative activists have a chance to oust incumbents they are unhappy with, it should be 2010), state Rep. Justin Amash announced today he would challenge the incumbent. Within hours of landing his first real opponent in years, Ehlers’s office announced he would have an announcement to make tomorrow, and the Hotline is reporting the congressman will announce his retirement.

(This puts us in a situation we have encountered many times already this cycle, most notably when Rep. Vic Snyder called it quits just hours after SUSA found him trailing by a shocking 17%: How much dos the prospect of facing a tough re-election battle weigh in a veteran incumbent’s decision to retire? While it is impossible to know for sure and while there is no doubt that both Snyder and Ehlers had already been seriously seriously considering not running for re-election, it’s hard not to conclude that news like such a dismal poll or a credible primary challenge has not provided the decisive shove.)

If Ehlers indeed announces his retirement tomorrow, he will become the 17th Republican not to seek re-election and the 4th to do so without seeking higher office. (For Democrats, those numbers are 11 and 6, plus HI-01 and PA-12 which will hold special elections).

Here is what makes Ehlers’s retirement particularly interesting: Of the 17 GOP-held districts that are now open, his MI-03 is the third least Republican per the 2008 presidential election results. John McCain won the district by just 0,6%. The only other open seats in which Obama was competitive are IL-10 and DE-AL, which he won handily, and FL-12, which he lost very narrowly.

Unfortunately for Democrats, this probably does not give them a much better chance than they have in districts like AZ-03 or CA-19, as there are a number of factors that put the GOP in a far stronger position to hold MI-03 than one might think based on the 2008 results. (This makes MI-03 the mirror image of PA-12, in which it is Democrats who are in a stronger position than the district’s presidential results would indicate.)

For one, Michigan’s electorate might be even more hostile to Democrats than those in other states: The state is disproportionately impacted by the economic crisis and voters are also looking to punish the state’s Democratic leadership, which explains why Republicans are looking in such good shape in the open Governor’s race.

Second, MI-03 is a historically staunchly Republican district. The district is based around Grand Rapids, which forty years ago was represented by none other than Gerald Ford; Democrats briefly won the seat in Watergate’s immediate aftermath, only to lose it shortly thereafter. (Interestingly, Western Michigan’s two strongly conservative districts, arguably the heart of the state’s GOP politics, will be open this year, since Rep. Pete Hoekstra is running for Governor.) In 2000, MI-03 voted for Bush 60% to 38%; in 2004, 59% to 40%. While Obama’s showing suggests district voters are open to voting Democratic in some circumstances, 2008 was probably a high-point for the party, boosted by McCain’s withdrawal.

As you would expect in a district that has a long Republican history, the GOP has a stronger bench in the Grand Rapids region. While Amash will be a force to reckoned with due to the staunchly conservative profile he has managed to acquire in a very short time, he is only 29 and is still serving in his first term, which means other Republicans are unlikely to be scared away. The Hotline names state Senator Bill Hardiman, which would be an interesting choice as he could become the House Republicans’ only African-American member; also mentioned is Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, who unexpectedly chose not to run for Governor last year.

My efforts to figure out which members of the state legislature represent the district yielded few Democrats and many Republicans, including I believe two more in the state Senate and perhaps five more in the state House (state Rep. Brian Calley, Tom Pearce, David Agerna, Kevin Green, David Hildenbrand). MI-03 covers most but not all of Kent County, so I am not sure whether state Rep. Robert Dean and Roy Schmidt live in the district; both are up for re-election this fall, so they might not want to live their seat for a tough House race anyway. The same goes for state Rep. Mike Huckleberry; about a third of his district falls in MI-03, but he ran in neighboring MI-04 back in 2006, which suggests he would not be available to run in this new open seat.