The Obama White House is getting gripes from party members about how its agenda may cost Democrats the House, or even the Senate, this fall. Come Nov. 3, the bigger criticism may be the extent to which the White House has cost Democrats their grip on the electoral map—not just this cycle but for some time to come.
The 2008 Obama victory was followed by that great wash of literature hailing a Permanent Democratic Majority. The electoral map showed Democrats ascendant in vast swaths of the country—the Midwest, the Rocky Mountains, and states such as Virginia and North Carolina. Republicans looked more like a shrunken, rump party of the South.
In his New Republic piece, “America the Liberal,” John Judis wrote that the Obama win was a culmination of a “Democratic realignment” long in the making; conservatism was kaput. Demographer Ruy Teixeira, in a paper titled “New Progressive America,” feted the spreading blue map and its durability.
Asked if Republicans might “come back,” Mr. Teixeira explained the GOP had “nothing much to sell” and wouldn’t until it had jettisoned “outdated ideology.” Until then, the “long-term shifts” would “advantage the progressive side of politics.”
Or not. Take a look at the map today. Go to RealClearPolitics.com, which offers three clever electoral maps—one each for House, Senate and gubernatorial races. Each is shaded red or blue based on the latest averages of polls. They are extraordinary. If the current blowback against Democrats holds, the electoral map come Nov. 3 will again be a vast expanse dominated by red, with Democrats again pushed back to their coastal strongholds.
This is President Obama’s (and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid’s) legacy to their party. All the more humiliating because the Republican Party had indeed lost its way. With each election the GOP resorted more to rallying a shrinking base. Had the president abided by his own campaign rhetoric—to act as a consensus-oriented bridge-builder—the GOP would have struggled to change the dynamic.
Instead, the administration’s policies have prolonged economic misery, leading to skyrocketing unemployment in crucial electoral areas. Its radical and partisan agenda has unnerved and angered key voting groups. Americans want it to stop, and so it turns out Republicans have something to “sell” after all: That they aren’t the “progressive side of politics.”
It’s the president who showed the GOP a way out of the wilderness. He couldn’t have provided a better message. Republicans are always at their best, always throwing up the broadest tent, when they talk sense on the economy—free markets, the need for growth, the problems of overspending.
Republicans are storming back into Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Colorado, Virginia—all states that swung for Mr. Obama in 2008, many the supposed building blocks of that permanent Democratic majority. The administration has, if anything, given the GOP an opening in areas it hasn’t played seriously in for years—Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut. Hoggish public unions helped here, too.
Mr. Obama’s other gift to Democrats is that he’s managed all of this in a year ending with “0.” We just had a census. Come 2011, state legislatures and governors will use the results to redraw congressional lines. The party that controls the state is able to draw the lines in ways that benefits its side for the next 10 years.
And as big as the GOP revival is looking nationally, it’s looking even bigger from a state level. Republicans are expected to finish this election with between 30 and 36 of the governorships. The Republican State Leadership Committee, which backs state legislative candidates, is already claiming victory in six state chambers and estimates that another 11 are in play.
More important is where these gains take place—Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, for starters. These are states expected to lose House seats because of the census, and the GOP may control the cutting. Or, consider this: Of the 75 most competitive House districts, 35 are in areas where Republicans feel confident they will take control of a legislative chamber. The GOP could be redrawing the map in its favor for nearly half the nation’s swing districts.
Redrawn districts are no guarantee that the GOP—which still has much to prove—will keep seats. But they would give the party a toehold to turn a 2010 revival into something more lasting. And local wins give it a stronger base from which to operate against Mr. Obama in the 2012 election. All of this clearly worries the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which recently blasted out this email: “Anyone who cares about the long-term well-being of the Democratic Party knows that this fall, the smart money is in state legislative races.”
There are no guarantees. Mr. Obama is trying to rally his base; maybe he will. Republicans are trying not to blow it; maybe they will. But should this prove a Democratic bust-up, the least the GOP can do is send the president a thank you.
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