2006 ELECTION PREVIEW Related stories are available to subscribers only: Suburban Blind Spot: Can Democrats Solve Their Problem? · Are The Lines Really To Blame? An Examination Of Redistricting · Where The Real Swingers Are: A Look At Two House Battlefields · Shared Turf: Does 'Synergy' Work Among Political Campaigns? · The Coming Nor'easter: The GOP's Future In New England Related Resources On NationalJournal.com PolitiScope: "Better Safe Than Sorry" (4/20/06) · On The Trail: "For The GOP, Some Diamonds In The Rough" (4/5/06) · Off To The Races: "Let's Get This Party Started" (3/21/06) · Poll Track: "About That Tenuous Democratic Lead" (3/28/06) · Poll Track: "The Senate By the Numbers, Part 1" (2/2/06) · Almanac Of American Politics: American Politics In The Networking Era (6/22/05) · National Journal: The 49 Percent Nation (6/8/01) [an error occurred while processing this directive] Additional Resources On The Web Center for Responsive Politics: 2006 Election Overview · The Census Bureau Report on "Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2004" [PDF]

By James A. Barnes, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, April 28, 2006

Demography can seem like destiny in politics, but geography still counts for plenty. As voters of both parties well remember from the 2000 presidential election, the location of a party's votes can sometimes be more important than their number: Democrats lost the White House despite receiving over 500,000 votes more than the Republicans. Similarly, the total number of votes cast for the Senate's 55-member Republican majority is some 3.6 million lower than the number cast for its Democratic minority. Clearly, for Democrats to change the balance of power in Washington, they must figure out how to be popular in the right places, not just how to lead in national opinion polls, as they do now.

This year, when Republican candidates can't count on the pro-Bush tailwind that helped increase their party's congressional majorities in 2002 and 2004, they need to rely on the GOP's traditional regions of strength -- suburban and rural areas. Conversely, if Democrats can boost their vote totals in the very places that tend to cause them problems, they stand a much better chance of recapturing the House, perhaps even taking the Senate and gaining governorships.

"It's clearly the suburban-rural political topography that Republicans have to protect," said GOP political consultant Alex Gage, who noted that his party could have a turnout problem this year.

For Republican first-term Sen. Jim Talent of Missouri, that means fighting to keep his edge in the St. Louis suburbs, which cast roughly 30 percent of the state's votes and were crucial to his 2002 victory. He prevailed in a special election by the narrowest margin of any successful GOP Senate candidate that year. In a race in which nearly 1.9 million votes were cast, Talent won by fewer than 25,000.

Predictably, given the closeness of his last contest, Talent is one of the Democrats' prime targets. If the Democratic nominee, state Auditor Claire McCaskill, is to unseat him, she will have to regain the advantage that her party enjoyed in the St. Louis suburbs in the 2000 Senate race and the 1996 gubernatorial contest.

And St. Louis's suburbs won't be the only ones flexing their political muscle this year: The suburbs around Philadelphia could determine not only the outcome of Pennsylvania's Senate and gubernatorial contests but also the outcome of key House races. The four suburban counties ringing Philadelphia -- Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery -- usually count for about one-fifth of the statewide vote. In 2000, Republican Rick Santorum received 57 percent of the vote in the Philadelphia suburbs on his way to winning a second Senate term. Two years later, Democrat Ed Rendell, a former mayor of Philadelphia, swept the territory with 64 percent of the vote and captured the governorship. Both are facing tough challengers this November.

The counties surrounding Philadelphia tilted Republican in voter registration, yet gave 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry 53 percent of their votes, an increase over Vice President Gore's 51 percent showing there in 2000. The area is home to a significant number of ticket splitters: At the same time Kerry was winning, GOP Sen. Arlen Specter captured more than 54 percent of the vote in the Philadelphia suburbs on his way to re-election.

The Philadelphia suburbs could also play an important role in the Democrats' quest to regain the House. Republican Rep. Jim Gerlach's district includes parts of Chester and Montgomery, and Kerry won 51 percent of the district's vote. Serving in a district that includes parts of Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery, GOP Rep. Curt Weldon may be in even more danger; Kerry won his district 53 percent to 47 percent. Republican Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, whose seat is in Bucks and Montgomery, seems a bit less vulnerable; Kerry carried his district 51 percent to 48 percent.

Although their party is strongest in urban areas, Democrats must look beyond the cities to have any hope of picking up additional House seats. "Democrats are consciously targeting areas where they have done well in national and state elections," said Democratic political consultant Andy Bechhoffer. "And that leads them to target districts that are generally in the suburbs."

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Incumbency gives Gerlach, Weldon, and Fitzpatrick significant advantages, but to some extent, their races depend on the performance of Santorum and Republican gubernatorial nominee Lynn Swann, a former television sports broadcaster and star receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers. That's because competitive races at the statewide level normally determine which party's base is more energized and what the level of turnout will be. "Those top-of-the-ticket races are what really drives [turnout]," said political scientist Michael McDonald of George Mason University.

With Pennsylvania's political observers focused on the suburbs of that state's largest city, those in neighboring Ohio should be paying attention to the marginally Democratic northeastern part of the state, including the beleaguered industrial cities of Akron, Canton, and Youngstown, and the Republican northwest, which is mostly farmland except for the Democratic island of industrially depressed Toledo. Those portions of the Buckeye State are likely to determine the outcome of its Senate and governor's races. GOP Sen. Mike DeWine and outgoing GOP Gov. Bob Taft both carried those regions in past elections.

Ohio hasn't elected a Democratic governor since 1986 or a Democratic senator since 1992. But Taft's ethics problems and Bush's unpopularity mean that DeWine, who won handily in 2000, is locked in a difficult race with Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown. (DeWine and Brown are expected to easily win their May 2 primaries.) And the GOP can't count on holding on to the governorship either.

Also at stake in Ohio are four House seats where three GOP incumbents, Steve Chabot in Cincinnati, Bob Ney in rural central Ohio, and Deborah Pryce in Columbus, face difficult contests. Democrats must defend Rep. Ted Strickland's House district in eastern Ohio, where roughly half of the population is rural. Strickland is running for governor instead of re-election. Ney's district is quite Republican. But his connections to lobbyist Jack Abramoff and to Abramoff associates who have pleaded guilty to corruption are making him one of the year's most vulnerable incumbents.

The Chabot and Pryce contests will be key tests of whether Democrats can prevail in districts with significant suburban voting blocs where their party's presidential nominees have made gains. Although Bush narrowly carried both districts in 2004, the turnout for Kerry soared above what it was for Gore.

Districts like those "are bellwethers to watch on Election Night," said GOP consultant Gage. The voters most likely to defect from the Republican Party this November, Gage explained, tend to be moderate, independent, or GOP-leaning women; older men; and people who are well educated: "You find that demographic in Northern and Midwestern suburban rings."

To capture the Senate, Democrats can't limit their gains to the Midwest, though. They also need to win in two states that could hardly look more different geographically: Rhode Island and Montana.

In Rhode Island, their chances will be enormously improved if a conservative primary challenger defeats GOP Sen. Lincoln Chafee. While Providence and the industrial towns of Pawtucket and Woonsocket have working-class, Catholic, and ethnic voters who are reliably Democratic -- Chafee narrowly lost this territory when he was first elected in 2000 -- they count for only about a quarter of the statewide vote. The suburbs around Providence and Warwick are usually the critical battlegrounds in the close Rhode Island races. Chafee handily won this turf six years ago. Democrats have to be competitive there to be successful, because the remainder of the state -- a mix of rural areas, wealthy outer suburbs, and old-line Yankee townships that together often produce a plurality of the state's votes -- went solidly for Chafee and, in 2002, for Republican Don Carcieri when he won the governorship.

In Montana, where GOP Sen. Conrad Burns is hurting because of his ties to Abramoff, Democrats typically carry the state's urban western outposts, including the state capital, Helena, and Missoula, home to the University of Montana. But they provide only about 30 percent of the vote. And because the rural portions of western Montana tend to vote Republican, a Democrat must do well in the agriculturally richer eastern part of the state, which casts another 30 percent of the vote. Democrat Brian Schweitzer split the eastern vote on his way to winning the governorship in 2004, but Burns carried it comfortably in 2000.

In wrangling for control of the Senate, Democrats will have to play a little defense, especially in Minnesota where Mark Dayton is retiring. GOP Rep. Mark Kennedy will attempt to pick up the seat. He currently represents some of the suburban and exurban collar counties around the Twin Cities. Those counties are the state's prime battleground; Republican strength there has been growing in recent elections. Kennedy's likely opponent is Amy Klobuchar, the county attorney in Hennepin (which includes Minneapolis).

One part of the political landscape that's unlikely to play a decisive role in this year's midterm elections is the South. According to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, the only two top-tier statewide races in the region that are rated as toss-ups are the open-seat Senate contest in Tennessee, where Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is retiring, and the open-seat gubernatorial race in Arkansas, where Republican Mike Huckabee is barred from seeking another term. Tennessee could be critical to the Democrats' prospects for gaining the six Senate seats needed to take over that chamber. And likely nominee Rep. Harold Ford is known as a formidable campaigner. From a well-known political family in Memphis, he will probably generate a large turnout there. But in the traditionally Republican eastern part of the state, which typically accounts for a plurality of votes in statewide contests, Ford will be hard-pressed to match the 2002 showing by Democrat Phil Bredesen, who won the governorship. Bredesen managed to win 45 percent of the region's vote, an unusually high percentage for a Democrat. His eastern support was crucial to his narrow victory.

Of the 35 House races judged to be either toss-ups or only leaning in a certain direction, zero toss-ups and just six leaners are in the South. And five of those are now held by Democrats.

Four of those Democrats -- Jim Marshall in Georgia, Charlie Melancon in Louisiana, John Spratt in South Carolina, and Chet Edwards in Texas -- have the same problem that has felled many Democrats in Dixie. They must try to hold territory that has become reliably Republican in presidential elections. In 2004, Marshall and Spratt won easily with more than 60 percent of the vote, while Edwards and Melancon barely prevailed. And now that Bush's popularity has ebbed, Edwards and Melancon are probably less vulnerable than they were two years ago.

The lone Republican congressman in the South who is rated as potentially vulnerable is 13-term veteran Clay Shaw, whose Florida district stretches along the Atlantic Ocean from Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale. Both Kerry and Gore narrowly carried this white, affluent district, tailor-made by the state Legislature to keep Shaw safe. It is the kind of place where Democrats will have to do well this year to make a comeback in the House.

Democrats must try to win on the "away" field. Republicans will be playing defense in the suburbs and farmlands.

The stories that follow in this Election Preview package elaborate on the Republican history of skillfully cultivating the suburbs and their exurban progeny; spotlight the 22 states that have both Senate and gubernatorial contests; weigh whether the geography of House districts (in the form of partisan redistricting) is an overrated force; focus on two House districts where the ground could shift from under incumbents; and describe the angst of once-powerful Northeastern Republicans as they await a storm that might well be powerful enough to transform the nation's political landscape.

2006 ELECTION PREVIEW:
(Related stories are available to subscribers only)

Suburban Blind Spot: Can Democrats Solve Their Problem?
Are The Lines Really To Blame? An Examination Of Redistricting
Where The Real Swingers Are: A Look At Two House Battlefields
Shared Turf: Does 'Synergy' Work Among Political Campaigns?
The Coming Nor'easter: The GOP's Future In New England

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