A little reading before voting:
Tomgram: Schwartz, A One-Stop Guide to Election Night 2006
This post can be found at http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=136516
If, in these last hours before the midterm elections, you want to
quickly brush up on key races as well as the latest opinion polls,
predictions, fraud reports, and scandals before you settle onto that
couch, popcorn bowl beside you, for a long night of viewing and
punditry, there's probably no better place to start than the
election-resource page of Cursor.org
. (Elsewhere, election or not,
Cursor offers its inspired Media Patrol daily
round-up of articles you shouldn't miss.) For a good, quick rundown of
opinion polls in close races, check out the right-leaning Real Clear
Politics website
with its extensive, easy-to-read polls on the 14 Senate races and good
sets of polls on 40 of the 60 close congressional races. For a useful
catalogue of the (very confusing) 60 House races now considered in the
mix for election night, take a look at the careful forecast page of
NPR's Ken Rudin
.
But if you want tips on what to watch for once that TV goes on in your
house -- as well as some canny reflections on where we all may find
ourselves on Wednesday morning -- just settle back and consider the
thoughts of Tomdispatch regular and former pollster, Michael Schwartz.
/Tom/
The Couch Potato's Guide to Election Night
By Michael Schwartz
If you have a political bone in your body -- even if you're usually
a cynic about elections -- you're undoubtedly holding your breath
right now. With the 2006 midterm elections upon us, the question is:
Will the Democrats recapture at least the House of Representatives
and maybe even take the Senate by the narrowest of margins?
There is very little agreement about what might happen if a change
in Congressional control takes place. The Bush administration, of
course, has trumpeted the direst of warnings, predicting (in
sometimes veiled ways) nothing less than the demise of the country.
Less apocalyptic predictions include an expectation among 70% of
potential voters (as reported in the latest New York Times poll
)
that "American troops would be taken out of Iraq more swiftly under
a Democratic Congress." The more cynical among us hope for at least
a few challenging congressional investigations of administration
activities at home and abroad.
So we will go into Tuesday looking for that tell-tale count that
will indicate a Democratic gain of 15 or more seats in the House;
and -- a much bigger if -- six seats in the Senate. We probably face
a long night sorting out so many disparate races -- and our
traditional counters, the TV networks, won't even begin their task
until the polls close on the East coast. So we could face a long
day's journey into night, if we don't have some other "benchmarks"
-- to use a newly favored administration word -- and issues to ponder.
*Before the Polls Close*
/Voter turnout is crucial:/ The networks have grown skilled at
predicting elections using exit polls and they begin collecting
their numbers first thing in the morning. Even for close races, they
often have a very good idea what will happen by early afternoon.
They are, however, sworn to secrecy until those polls close, because
early forecasts of results have, in the past, affected voter turnout
later in the day.
But they are willing to reveal one very important fact during
daytime newscasts: voter turnout, which is generally /the/
determining factor in close races. Here's why.
By the time Election Day arrives, just about every voter has made up
his or her mind about whom to vote for. Even for that vaunted
category, independent voters (who, so many experts are convinced,
will determine this election), less than 15%
were undecided a week before the election. True enough, those who
hadn't by then made up their minds are expected to be splitting
two-to-one for the Democrats even as you read this, thereby making
some previously secure Republican seats competitive. But by Election
Day itself, the handful of independent "undecideds" that remain will
not be enough to tip the close races one way or the other, no matter
what they do.
The determining factor in winning those "too close to call" seats
is: How many already committed voters actually go to the polls.
Traditionally, in a midterm election as many as two-thirds of a
candidate's supporters may stay home
, so whoever moves
the most people from the couch to the polling booth will win.
And this year there is real intrigue about which party can get its
supporters to the polls. Since the 1990s, the GOP has been
hands-down better at this. Leaving aside the question of fraud for
the moment, most observers believe this "get out the vote" effort
was critical in the elections of 2000, 2002, and 2004. But this year
may be different.
GOP superiority has been based on two factors -- a much better
on-the-ground organization and far greater enthusiasm among the rank
and file. Such enthusiasm means potential voters are more likely to
brave cold weather or long lines to vote; and it also means more
volunteers to encourage people to get out and, in some cases, to
transport them to the polls.
The Democrats have been working since 2004 to build up their
on-the-ground organizations in key states like Ohio and
Pennsylvania. Because Bush is so unpopular and the GOP obviously so
vulnerable, opinion polls tell us that there is tremendous electoral
enthusiasm among Democratic rank and file -- and concomitant gloom
and disillusionment on the Republican side.
So check the news early for turnout reports from key areas. Look for
whether turnout is higher this year in Democratic urban strongholds,
and lower in GOP suburban or rural ones. This will tell you a lot
about each party's congressional (and gubernatorial) possibilities.
/What about fraud?/ In 2000 in Florida and 2004 in Ohio, fraud made
a world of difference in close contests. As early as noon on
Tuesday, you should begin to get a sense of how much of a problem
fraud will be this time around.
Many people are terrified that the new electronic voting machines
will be the means to falsify vote totals (as was apparently done in
Ohio in 2004) and so steal elections -- especially with no paper
trails available for recounts. However, the biggest threat is
old-fashioned indeed: legal and illegal methods that block eligible
voters from voting.
Two examples will illustrate how this can be done. In the 2000
election, Republicans in Florida disenfranchised over 10,000 voters,
by purging names from the voting lists that happened to match the
names of convicted felons. When these voters showed up at the polls,
they were simply declared ineligible; and, by the time they took
their case to court, George W. Bush was already president. (The
excluded voters were largely African American and would have voted
overwhelmingly in the Democratic column.)
In Ohio in 2004, election officials simply did not provide enough
voting machines in predominantly Democratic areas, so many potential
voters waited all day in endless lines without ever getting the
chance to vote, while others grew discouraged and left. There seems
little doubt that the excluded voters would have tipped the state to
Kerry -- and this act of voter suppression wasn't even illegal.
This year, GOP state officials in as many as a dozen states have
already made good use of the legal system
to exclude otherwise eligible voters. They have, for instance,
passed laws that will disqualify people who think they are eligible
to vote. One common way to do this is by requiring a state-issued
picture ID (a driver's license), which many old and poor people
(guaranteed to fall heavily into the Democratic column) do not have.
These potential voters will simply be turned away and, by the time
anyone can register a meaningful complaint, the election will be a
/fait accompli/. Watch especially for complaints in the following
states that have passed such laws (or similar ones to the same end):
Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, South
Dakota, Texas, and Virginia.
But Ohio
will
probably be the worst, since Republican officials there have
developed an ingenious electoral "purging" system. State-appointed
officials are allowed (but not required) to eliminate people from
the voting rolls for a variety of minute irregularities -- without
notifying them. This year, only strongly Democratic districts had
their rolls purged, while strongly GOP districts, not surprisingly,
went untouched. On Election Day, many voters, possibly hundreds of
thousands statewide, are going to show up at the Ohio polls and be
told they are not eligible.
So start looking for news reports early in the day reflecting the
following symptomatic problems: (1) voting sites with tremendous
long lines because there aren't enough machines to accommodate all
the voters; (2) people in enough numbers to catch reportorial eyes
who claim that they have been declared ineligible on appearing at
the polls. Expect virtually all affected people to be Democratic.
*Election Night*
/Contested races:/ Of the 14 contested Senate seats, the Democrats
currently hold six (Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey,
Minnesota, and Washington State) and are favored in all of them
except Connecticut, where Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the defeated
Democrat, is leading as an independent. If Lieberman beats Ned
Lamont, but then caucuses with the Democrats (not exactly a given,
despite his promises), then in addition to holding those six, they
have to win six of the eight GOP races.
Right now the Democrats seem likely to win three of these --
Pennsylvania (ousting the odious Rick Santorum), Ohio (barring
massive disfranchisement and fraud) and Rhode Island (replacing the
most liberal Republican in the Senate, Lincoln Chafee). The latest
polls indicate that they are behind (but not out of it) in Tennessee
(see below) and Arizona (where incumbent Jon Kyl is leading
shopping-center magnate Jim Peterson). Their best chances to get
those crucial three more seats are Virginia (where incumbent George
Allen has given away the lead with verbal gaffs), Missouri (where
Michael J. Fox and a statewide referendum on stem-cell research may
put underdog challenger Claire McCaskill over the top), and -- most
surprising of all ---Montana (where the Abramoff scandal has given
challenger Jon Testor a slight lead).
Among the approximately 60 house seats now generally agreed to fall
into the category of "contested," all but six are currently held by
Republicans. The Democrats need just 33 of these, a little over
half, to claim the House. It's obvious why so many people are
predicting that the Democrats will win.
/Three states to watch:/ New York (at least 5 contested seats) may
be a real bellwether, since the results will come in early. All five
of them are upstate Republican, and if even three go to the
Democrats that could mean a genuine sweep to come (barring massive
fraud elsewhere) ? as well as being a signal of the emergence of a
"solid (Democratic) North" that might in the future help offset the
solid (Republican) South.
Ohio (5 contested seats) is at least as interesting, because polls
show at least three of the four contested races, all with Republican
incumbents, to be really close -- and so especially sensitive to
fraud. If all of them go GOP, this might be a strong signal of
success for the various Republican voter-suppression schemes in the
state -- and for fraud in the rest of the country. If the Dems win
at least two, it will probably be a long night for the GOP.
And then, keep an eye on Indiana. There are three GOP House seats up
for grabs in districts that were supposed to be Republican shoo-ins.
Miraculously, Democrats are leading in all three, and the lead is
approaching double digits in one of them (the 2nd district). If one
or two of these actually go Democratic, you're seeing a small
miracle, a tiny sign of tidal change in the electorate -- and the
good thing is, the polls close early in Indiana, so what happens
there could be a bellwether of change. But take note that Indiana
passed
"the strictest voter identification law" in the country; so watch
out as well for frustrated Democratic voters turned away at the
polls and a GOP sweep of these seats.
/Three elections to watch, for very different reasons:/ First, keep
a close eye on the Tennessee Senate race. African American
Congressman Harold Ford, the Democratic candidate, was essentially
written off early in a generally blood red state -- until, that is,
he caught up and even pushed ahead in some polls. Now, he is
slipping back a bit and probably won't win (in the 10 polls since
October 20, he is, on average, lagging by about 3%). But even if he
loses, the margin by which he goes down will be an interesting
indicator of the national mood. It seems that white southerners have
this habit of telling opinion pollsters and exit poll workers that
they favor a Black candidate, even though they vote for the white
opponent. This peculiar racial trait has resulted in Black
candidates losing big in "close" races. So if Harold Ford stays
within 5% of his opponent, businessman Bob Corker, it may indicate
that white electoral prejudice in the South is waning (or that anger
over the President and his war in Iraq simply trumps all this year).
Second, make sure to keep an eye out for the results of the
anti-abortion referendum in South Dakota. This is a draconian
measure making virtually all abortion illegal. It is meant as a
full-frontal challenge of /Roe v. Wade/, offering the new Bush
Supreme Court a future chance to weigh in on the subject. The latest
poll suggests that it is losing, 52% to 42%, with only 6% undecided.
Third, Connecticut is fascinating because Joe Lieberman, defeated by
anti-war Democrat challenger Ned Lamont in the primary election, is
leading as an independent. He says he will caucus with the
Democrats, but we should have our doubts. If the final tally in the
Senate, for instance, is 50 Democrats and 49 Republicans, think what
his vote would mean and what kind of horse-trading might then go on.
After all, the GOP could then retain the ability to organize the
Senate and appoint committee heads as long as he voted with them and
the Vice President cast the deciding vote to break any 50-50 ties.
The pressure would be incredible and so would the temptation for
honest Joe to take a GOP dive. Remember, he's already shown himself
more loyal to his own career than to the Democratic Party through
his refusal to accept defeat in the primary. If things are close,
this is a story that will eat up media time in the days to come.
*The Morning After*
/What do the Democrats stand for?/ But what if, as some pollsters,
pundits, and even Republican prognosticators are suggesting, those
New York seats go Democratic, along with moderate Republican ones in
Connecticut and previously red-meat Republican ones in states like
Indiana? What if the Democrats win by 20-35 seats
or more, as some are
suggesting, decisively gaining control in the House?
From the opinion polls, we already know that most Democratic voters
this time around will see the taking of the House, or all of
Congress, as a mandate to begin a draw-down of American troops in
Iraq and to bring the American part of that war to an end in some
undefined but rather speedy fashion. As it happens, however,
Democratic leaders do not see it this way. Their strategy has been
to "lay low" and let anger towards Bush sweep them into office.
An indicator that voters know the Democrats ran on a non-platform is
the fact that independent voters favor them in polling by two-to-one
margins mainly because they are incensed with the President and the
GOP. As the Washington Post
put it:
"Independent voters may strongly favor Democrats, but their vote
appears motivated more by dissatisfaction with Republicans than
by enthusiasm for the opposition party. About half of those
independents who said they plan to vote Democratic in their
district said they are doing so primarily to vote against the
Republican candidate rather than to affirmatively support the
Democratic candidate. Just 22 percent of independents voting for
Democrats are doing so ?very enthusiastically.'"
A Democratic victory, if it actually occurs, will be a statement by
independent (and other) voters that they disapprove of Bush
administration policy on a wide range of issues, not an ideological
tilt in support of the Democrats. But then how could it be? Today's
Democrats essentially stand for nothing. They are the not-GOP Party.
/Will a Democratic victory mean a "mandate" for change?/ Do the
Democrats need to avoid political positions? Those of us who are
actively hostile to the Bush administration tend to excuse the
absence of a Democratic program as a necessary ploy to win the
election. Laying low and not being too "left wing" are, the common
wisdom goes, the keys to winning independents -- and thus the
election. Many of us expect that the Democrats, once in control of
all or part of Congress, will see themselves as having a mandate
from the people to be much more liberal than their campaigns have
suggested. This, I suspect, is an illusion -- and this cynicism is,
unfortunately, supported by our recent political history.
Remember, as a start, that Bill Clinton's 1992 election was based on
a similar "anti-Republican" appeal. Yet, once in office he proved
himself to be a "modern Democrat" by, for instance, advancing the
GOP agenda in eliminating much of the welfare system, adopting a
"don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military, and
abandoning a national health plan. Then, of course, came the
Republican "revolution" of 1994, which really did drastically alter
policy. The GOP made an explicit and vociferous break with the
failing policies of the Democrats, began the most serious drive of
our times to rollback history to the days before Franklin Delano
Roosevelt's New Deal, and never flinched from taking strong stands.
Since that year, the Democrats have found themselves increasingly
locked out of power, while the GOP has finally inherited the mantle
of the established party with the failing policies. Instead of
riding back to power on a dramatic set of alternative policies as
the GOP did, however, the Democrats -- like Clinton -- are mimicking
parts of the GOP platform, while arguing that the Bush
administration administered it in an inept, extreme, and corrupt way.
This strategy may indeed get them elected if the Karl Rove system of
political governance finally comes apart at the seams, but it won't
work to generate the changes in policy that so many of us desire.
Instead, we can expect Democratic leaders, suddenly invested with
the power of the subpoena (but probably little else), to investigate
past Republican sins while attempting to prove that they can,
indeed, pursue a less overtly offensive Republican program more
honestly and efficiently than the Bush administration has. Just as
the Democratic leadership has promised, they will probably continue
to support fighting the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan more
"effectively." They are also likely to continue the essence of Bush
tax policy (more cuts, just not as favorable to the very rich), and
to serve money to the Pentagon more or less on demand, but not to
domestic "reconstruction" programs.
Could the Democrats win in 2008 on the basis of actual differences
in policy? Only if they tried to win over the American people
(including independents) to a genuinely different platform. On the
Iraq War alone, look at how close ex-Marine Paul Hackett came to
winning a 60% Republican congressional district in Ohio back in 2004
on a simple platform of withdrawal from Iraq.
Or look at the actual attitudes held by independents
.
According to a typical recent poll, only a third believe the war is
"worth fighting"; three quarters think the country is "headed in the
wrong direction"; only 37% approve of the job Bush is doing. Doesn't
this suggest that such voters might indeed be receptive to ideas
that dramatically challenge Bush administration policies?
But, let's face it, even if such a strategy could win, the
Democratic leadership will not follow the path laid out by the GOP
from the 1970s through the 1990s as they toppled an entrenched
Democratic establishment. They may want to win on Tuesday, but what
they don't want is a mandate to lead Americans in a new direction.
In the end, they prefer to hang in there as the not-GOP Party, pick
up old-hat and me-too policies, and hope for the best.
*What's at Stake in This Election*
As in 2004, there is no mystery about what the voters think when it
comes to this election: It is a referendum on Bush administration
policies in which unhappiness over the war comes first, second, and
third. And this is why, no matter what the Democrats do afterwards,
the 2006 midterm elections whose results we will all be anxiously
watching on Tuesday are so important. If the Democrats prevail,
however narrowly, against a world of massively gerrymandered seats,
Republican finances, blitzes of dirty ads, the presidential "bully
pulpit," and well-planned campaigns of voter suppression, American
-- as well as world public opinion -- will interpret it as a
repudiation of Bush administration war policy. And this will become
a mandate for those who oppose these policies to speak and act ever
more forcefully. With or without Democratic Party leadership, this
added momentum might even make a difference.
/Michael Schwartz is Professor of Sociology and Faculty Director of
the College of Global Studies at Stony Brook State University. For
years he was part of the polling world, measuring attitudes and
attempting to predict the political, economic, and social behavior
of Americans. His current work, which has appeared frequently on
Tomdispatch.com, is focused on the equally problematic goal of
understanding the war in Iraq. His email address is ms42@optonline.net./
Copyright 2006 Michael Schwartz
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posted November 5, 2006 at 1:40 pm
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