CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Nov. 6, 2009 – 12:20 a.m.
One More Reason New York Contest Was Unusual
By Greg Giroux, CQ-Roll Call
This week’s special election in New York’s 23rd district was noteworthy in part because Democratic lawyer Bill Owens was elected to a district Republicans were defending — a change in the balance of power to the advantage of the majority party.
It gave Democrats another seat in the House, 27 of 29 congressional seats in New York and 258 seats overall. The outcome also was significant because it’s very rare for the party controlling the White House to flip control of a seat that way. Owens’ victory in New York’s 23rd was the first time since 2001 and only the sixth time in the past 30 years that has happened. And not since 1980 had a Democratic White House claimed a special election victory in a Republican-held district.
Because of their unusual timing and low turnouts, special elections present challenging circumstances for the party in control of the White House in part because the opposition party is usually more ginned up than the defending party in these sorts of races. Even in California’s 10th district, where California Democratic Lt. Gov. John Garamendi was elected in a much lower-profile special election on Nov. 3, his 53 percent vote share in a vacant northern California district was well below the 65 percent vote share Obama received there a year ago.
Here’s a look at the five previous races in the past 30 years in which the party in the White House flipped a congressional district in a special election:
June 2001, Virginia’s 4th district. Republican state Sen. Randy Forbes defeated Democratic state Sen. Louise Lucas, 52 percent to 48 percent, to succeed Democrat Norman Sisisky, who had died in March. The politically competitive district had split its votes between George W. Bush and Al Gore in the 2000 election, but a GOP-controlled redrawing of congressional lines after Forbes’ election has helped him win easily ever since.
August 1989, Florida’s 18th district. In the first year of George H.W. Bush’s administration, Republican state Sen. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen defeated Democrat Gerald Richman, 53 percent to 47 percent, to capture a south Florida district long represented by Democrat Claude Pepper, who had died in May. Ros-Lehtinen continues to serve.
April 1988, Louisiana’s 4th district. Republican Jim McCrery defeated Democrat Foster Campbell by 1 percentage point in a runoff election to succeed Democrat Buddy Roemer, who vacated the district after his election as governor. McCrery was a Democrat who once worked for Roemer, who later joined McCrery as a party-switcher. McCrery served in the House through 2008, when he was succeeded by Republican John Fleming .
February 1983, Texas’ 6th district. This was an unusual special election: Phil Gramm, a conservative Democrat, resigned from the House after angering Democrats by siding with the Reagan administration on budget and tax policy, and then sought to succeed himself running as a Republican. Gramm won, then was elected the following year to the first of three Senate terms.
May 1980, Louisiana’s 3rd district. With Jimmy Carter nearing the end of his single term as president, Democrat Billy Tauzin beat Republican James Donelon, 53 percent to 47 percent, in a runoff election held because Republican David Treen vacated the seat after his election as governor. Tauzin won eight full terms as a Democrat, became a Republican in 1995 and won four more terms before retiring at the end of 2004. He now heads the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).
Comments
Your observation regarding New York failed to mention that Democrats overturned New York's 25th district in the 2008 election when Dan Maffei defeated Jim Walsh who had held that seat for 6 terms and prior to that held by Republicans, including Walsh's father for a number of years. What was interesting about Walsh's defeat was that the Republican legislature had changed the district's boundaries to include the more traditiional Republican strongholds in northern counties of Wayne and Monroe.
Dear Truth - What part of "special election" confuses you?
As I breezed through your article, I misread your statement "The outcome was significant...." After re-reading, I now realize the statement referred to flipping as the result of a "special" election and the general election. You are correct. However the election of Dennis Owens was very signifcant, but it had nothing to do with the administration in power. Since New York Republicans generally run on both the Republican and Conservative tickets, this race really was in-fighting between those two NY parties, which usually find unity for the Republican candidate and the Republican ticket vote count almost always outnumbers the Conservative vote count. Once the NY State GOP conceded to Hoffman before the election, many of the traditional Rockerfeller moderate Republicans voted the Republican ticket and some, who were very bitter over the way Conservative Doug Hoffman smeared Republican Dede Scozzafava, a state legislator, voted the Democratic party ticket. As a result Dennis Owens won, but not with a majority of votes.
Aniother unusual factor in the NY 23rd race was the elevation of the political cipher Doug Hoffman to celebrity status by Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, the Club for Growth and Fred Thompson. The transparent effort by the GOP right to dictate the outcome of the election to the voters was taken poorly and resulted in a dramatic overturn and a Democrtatic victory. Since the NY 23rd is fertile territory for conservatives, the setback to Palin et al, has national implications.
Great whistling past the tea party, guys. The NY-23 race portends serious trouble for all Democrat candidates in 2010, but especially the so-called Blue Dog Democrats. They will drop like flies. Owens in particular will be a lame duck in less than a year, now. It is certain that he will be beaten by a much more conservative Republican candidate than Scozzafava and pretty likely that he will be beaten resoundingly by none other than the political cipher Doug Hoffman, the presumptive GOP/Conservative Party nominee who should get at least 65% of the vote after Owens' shameful behavior (already) in the House of Representatives. The GOP nationwide is committed now to a far more conservative slate of candidates in 2010 than they otherwise might have fielded. The bitch slap delivered in NY-23 to the GOP's RINO party leaders and to more liberal party icons like Newt Gingrich (yep, liberal, endorsed Scozzafava, washed up). Those conservative candidates will win, running against the failed policies and sour taste already evident in the Obama mis-administration. The 2010 election results will eclipse 1994 as the year a new President threw his mandate into the Potomac. You don't have to believe me on this one, folks. Wait for it.... I'm guessing Tennessee will have one Democrat serving in the House in 2011. Other states, similar results. Sarah Palin all the way in 2012. You have a deer-in-the-headlights experience right ahead of you - courtesy of the ObamaNation, alienating Americans since January 2009.
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