Election 2010 Outlook in Minnesota's 6th Congressional District
Part I: The Political Environment
This is the first in a two-part series examining the outlook for the 2010 U.S. House of Representatives election in Minnesota's 6th Congressional District, represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann.
Part I surveys the political environment in which the contest will take place. Part II, to follow, will take a look at the candidates.
Party-political affiliation
The first and by far the primary consideration with respect to predicting election outcome is party-political affiliation. In presidential elections, roughly 90 percent of voters vote their party-political identification.
However, in congressional districts, party-line voting is somewhat less robust as a predictor, with a candidate's personal qualities and other unique factors occasionally playing a significant role. Case in point: Blue Dog Democrat Collin Peterson of Minnesota's 7th Congressional District -- the state's most solidly Republican district after the 6th -- who won reelection with about 70 percent of the vote in the last two election cycles.
So, how Republican is Minnesota's 6th Congressional District?
The Cook Partisan Voting Index (CPVI), a measure of how strongly an American congressional district or state leans toward one political party compared with the nation as a whole, rates the 6th District as Republican-leaning with a CPVI of R+7.
The index is derived by averaging a district's results from the previous two presidential elections and comparing them with national results. The 6th District's index indicates that the Republican Party's presidential candidate (R) was significantly more successful in the district than his Democratic opponent in the past two elections, exceeding the national average by seven percentage points (+7).
Specifically, John McCain beat Barack Obama 53.3 percent to 44.6 percent in 2008 and George W. Bush beat John Kerry 57 percent to 42 percent in 2004.
The ceiling level of support for a Democratic candidate in terms of party-political affiliation in the 6th District in a best-case scenario is reflected in a SurveyUSA poll conducted October 20-21, 2008 in the immediate aftermath of incumbent U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann's October 17 fiasco on MSNBC "Hardball" with Chris Matthews. In that poll, Democratic nominee Elwyn Tinklenberg led Bachmann 47 percent to 44 percent, with 6 percent support for unendorsed Independence Party (IP) candidate Bob Anderson and 2 percent undecided.
Looking at the internals of the poll, Tinklenberg drew the support of 87 percent of self-identified Democratic respondents, 15 percent of self-identified Republicans, and 51 percent of self-identified independents. By comparison, Bachmann drew the support of 79 percent of self-identified Republicans, 8 percent of self-identified Democrats, and 35 percent of self-identified independent respondents. (Anderson was favored by 12 percent of independents, 4 percent of Republicans, and 3 percent of the Democratic respondents.)
The poll results suggest that for a Democrat to win in the 6th, that candidate has to retain the support of nearly 90 percent of Democratic voters, win more than 50 percent of the independent vote, and take around 15 percent of the Republican vote.
Those numbers may be difficult to attain in an actual election; the SurveyUSA poll was conducted at the worst possible time for Bachmann, in the wake of a national controversy yielding overwhelmingly negative press in the midst of a wave election year for Democrats.
In terms of party-political affiliation, the bottom line is that any Democratic candidate is at a serious disadvantage in Minnesota's 6th District, where Republican congressional candidate Mark Kennedy defeated Democratic contender Janet Robert by 22.2 points in 2002 and Patty Wetterling by 8.1 points in 2004; George W. Bush beat John Kerry by 14.4 points in 2004; Tim Pawlenty bested Democrat Mike Hatch by 18.6 points in the 2006 gubernatorial race; and John McCain beat Barack Obama by 8.7 points in 2008.
Past voter behavior as a predictor
Another consideration in election-outcome prediction is past voter behavior. Even though this variable is highly correlated with party-political identification, it does yield additional insights.
Bachmann received 50.1 percent of the vote in a three-way race when she was first elected in 2006 and 46.4 percent of the vote in another three-way race when she ran for reelection as a first-term incumbent in 2008. The 46-percent number is probably a worst-case scenario for Bachmann, given that the election was held a couple of weeks after her "Hardball" fiasco and considering that 2008 was the worst election year for Republicans in decades, with Barack Obama at the top of the ticket to help get out the Democratic vote. That will not be the case in 2010.
Averaging the results in the past two 6th District congressional elections in which Bachmann was a candidate yields the following means: Bachmann, 48.3 percent; Democratic candidate, 42.8 percent; Independence Party candidate, 8.9 percent. In a counterfactual scenario in which those numbers are converted to a hypothetical two-way race in which two-thirds of the IP vote goes to the Democratic candidate and one-third to Bachmann, Bachmann still beats the Democrat, by about 51 percent to 49 percent.
Personal qualities of the candidate
As noted earlier, a candidate's personal qualities occasionally trumps party-political affiliation as an election-outcome predictor in congressional races. Indeed, that seems to be a significant, though secondary, factor in the 6th District, where Bachmann has consistently underperformed relative to Republican presidential candidates. In 2008, Bachmann gained just 46.4 percent of the vote, compared with McCain's 54.3 percent. When she was first elected, in 2006, Bachmann won 50 percent of the vote, significantly less than Bush's 57 percent two years earlier, in 2004.
However, these numbers should be interpreted with caution, because third-party candidates have traditionally played a much more prominent role in 6th District congressional elections than in presidential elections. In that regard, it's instructive to examine the performance of Democratic candidates as well for purposes of comparison.
In 2008, Democratic candidate Elwyn Tinklenberg gained 43.4 percent of the vote, compared with Obama's 44.6 percent. In 2004, Patty Wetterling got 46 percent of the vote in a two-way race, compared with 42 percent for John Kerry.
The fact that, unlike Bachmann, Democratic candidates have not underperformed relative to their party's presidential candidate suggests that the "personal qualities" factor -- Bachmann's qualities, not the Democrat's -- does play a role on the margins in 6th District congressional elections. Stated differently, Bachmann performs significantly worse in the 6th District than would be expected of a Republican candidate.
The best evidence of the potentially key role of personal qualities in electoral success is provided by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the only Democrat ever at any level to outperform a Republican in the 6th District. In 2006, Klobuchar beat 6th District incumbent Rep. Mark Kennedy by a 4.8-point margin in his bid for Senate, 50.5 percent to 45.7 percent, with 3.2 percent going to IP candidate Robert Fitzgerald.
What does that tell us? It vividly illustrates that to have any hope of beating Bachmann Democrats will have to field a candidate with the personal qualities of an Amy Klobuchar. In common political jargon, that translates to personal "charisma."
Some structural considerations
In part because many congressional districts have been effectively gerrymandered by political parties, approximately 96-97 percent of U.S. House of Representatives incumbents are reelected. As a second-term incumbent, Bachmann is strongly favored to retain her seat in 2010.
Nonetheless, most political analysts regard Bachmann as vulnerable, because of her small 3-point margin of victory in 2008 in combination with her failure to win more than 50 percent of the vote.
But exactly how vulnerable is Bachmann? One heuristic for discerning that is to establish the strength of her electoral base -- those voters who will support her now matter what.
Looking back at poll numbers in the past two election cycles, with the exception of a couple of outliers early in the 2006 and 2008 races, Bachmann's support has consistently held above 42 percent. I consider that her "floor level" of support. Stated differently, absent a serious scandal or criminal offense, Bachmann is virtually assured of 42 percent of the vote in a Sixth District congressional race (though in reality she has never won less than 46 percent of the vote).
The strongest performance by a Democrat in a three-way race against Bachmann is Tinklenberg's 43.3 percent against Bachmann in 2008.
That has important practical implications. If support for Bachmann can be stripped down to her electoral base and the Democratic candidate can match Tinklenberg's 43 percent of the vote, it would be possible for the Democrat to win even if the IP candidate takes as much as 15 percent of the vote (equivalent to IP candidate Dean Barkley's share of the statewide vote in the 2008 U.S. Senate election opposite Democrat Al Franken and Republican incumbent Norm Coleman).
For historical perspective on the strength of the IP in 6th District congressional races, Dan Becker won 7.5 percent of the vote in 2002; John Binkowski gained 7.8 percent in 2006; and in 2008 Bob Anderson got 10% of the vote. The performance of third-party candidates in the 6th appears to be trending upward. Realistically, it's difficult to see any plausible scenario in which a Democrat beats Bachmann with a third-party name on the ballot.
Some Democrats have accused the IP of playing a "spoiler" role in 6th District congressional races, throwing the race to the Republican candidate. However, as long as the IP enjoys major-party status in Minnesota (winning at least 5 percent of the vote in statewide races), it's easy to get ballot access on the IP line. Thus, it's simply realistic to assume that someone will file as an IP candidate in the 2010 election, whether he or she has the IP endorsement or not -- and prospective Democratic candidates should plan accordingly.
Another complicating factor for Democratic hopefuls is the historical tendency for the party that wins the White House to lose seats in the first subsequent mid-term election. (Recall the 1994 "Republican revolution" during President Bill Clinton's first term.) That suggests that it would be more, not less difficult for a Democrat to beat Bachmann in 2010 than it was in 2008 with Obama's landslide Electoral College victory.
The trend toward the minority party in the wake of the Democratic sweep in the 2008 election is already evident in Minnesota. Eric Ostermeier of Smart Politics, the blog of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, reports that the latest monthly SurveyUSA poll finds more Minnesota residents identifying as Republicans than at any point in more than four years. The poll of 600 adults statewide, conducted July 17-19, also finds Republicans now match the Democrats in party ID for the first time since October 2005.
Finally, one of the most enduring factors in election outcomes is the economy, with the party controlling the White House getting punished at the ballot box when the economy is bad. (Recall the 1992 Clinton slogan, "[It's] the Economy, Stupid.") Stated bluntly, the outcome of the 2010 congressional race may hinge on the success or failure of President Obama's economic recovery program.
Thus, for a Democrat to beat Bachmann, the economy in November 2010 will have to be broadly perceived as improving, with Obama and the Democratic Congress receiving much of the credit. On the contrary, if the economy remains in recession, Democratic candidates will pay a price at the polls and Bachmann will reap the rewards of opposing not only Obama's economic proposals, but Bush's bailouts as well.
Up next: Part II -- The Candidates