The Wave Election Paradox

A lot of narratives have been posited to explain the current election cycle: the “establishment” vs. the “base”, Main Street vs. Wall Street, outsider vs. insider, legacy vs. newcomer, and most recently, conservative women vs. moderate (and often male) challengers. You hear about these trend so often, you wonder if actual qualifications – - intelligence, experience and ideologies that resonate with voters – - matter much at all.  They do, of course, but the chattering class gets bored discussing them because the story lines aren’t nearly as good.

The South Dakota Congressional race seems to touch on all of them, as well as make a bigger point about something I’ll call the “wave election paradox.”

I’ll explain further, but first let me set up the race.  Last time I looked at the South Dakota Congressional race, Rep. Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin seemed the most likely of the South Dakota Democrats to survive the upcoming midterms, although she was certain to have a tough race, her likely GOP opponent at that time being South Dakota Secretary of State Chris Nelson.

Well, a few things have changed.

For one thing, SD Secretary of State Chris Nelson lost the Republican primary to Representative Kristi Noem. Until a couple of weeks before the election, nobody saw this coming. First elected to the state legislature in 2006, Noem was a relative newcomer. Yet she blew away her two competitors, Nelson and fellow state representative, Blake Curd, who had a vast personal fortune as his disposal.

Political newcomer, Kristi Noem, defeated Secretary of State Chris Nelson in the Republican primary.

How did Noem do this? The old fashioned way: she ran a good campaign. Her political ads were upbeat and positive, praising her background as a farmer and restaurant owner while addressing deep-seeded voter concerns about overspending and the direction of federal government.  Then, of course, there were the intangibles. Noem, who’s in her late 30s, is, as kids might say, “really hot.” Also, paradoxically, by getting in late, Noem avoided the curse (in this cycle) of lining up establishment support and was able to play as the outsider card subtly but effectively. An anonymous comment on a South Dakota blog said that the commenter and his wife knew Chris Nelson and thought of him as a good man, but ultimately both of them voted for Noem whom they just flat-out liked more and viewed as a “rock star.” Apparently, he spoke for a lot of South Dakota Republicans.

The second thing that has changed is the likelihood of Herseth-Sandlin surviving the race.

Herseth-Sandlin looks strong, a three-and-a-quarter term incumbent with unlimited fundraising potential, looks strong on paper. Her family has political clout in South Dakota; her grandfather was governor, her grandmother secretary of state and her father in the state legislature for two decades.  Like Noem, Herseth-Sandlin is “hot” and not yet 40.  She won her last two elections with over 60% of the vote. She is one of the few true moderates in the House, splitting her votes almost straight down the middle, and she voted against Obama’s health care bill (which is radioactive in South Dakota).  She looked as golden as you can get in a district that Obama lost.

But things aren’t looking so good for Herseth-Sandlin right now.

While it might just be the “new kid on the block” effect after her unexpected primary win, a recent poll showed Noem beating Herseth-Sandlin by a twelve points.

Rep. Herseth-Sandlin's prospects for re-election are less certain.

Why is Herseth-Sandlin in so much trouble?  Because she’s on the wrong side of an electoral wave.  You can talk about Noem’s attractive candidacy all you want, but if it were 2006, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Which brings me to the point, the logical yet perverse effect of wave elections: When people are really angry with the incumbent party, they take it out disproportionately on that party’s moderates, not on its hard-core ideologues. It happens every time.

In 2006, Connecticut voters threw out two of the most moderate Republicans in the House – - Nancy Johnson, who’d served for decades, and Rob Simmons, who had served for three terms.  Chris Shays, another long-serving Republican, barely survived, only to be defeated in 2008, another wave year, resulting in a congressional delegation free of Republicans.  This, in spite of the fact that Reps. Johnson, Simmons and Shays all had voted against several of the bills that had angered the voters most.

The reason is this: “Swing” or moderate districts are more likely to elect swing candidates. This is particularly true of districts or states such as South Dakota and Connecticut, which vote reliably Republican (SD) or Democratic (CT) in presidential elections but are willing to elect members of the opposing party to Congress. In a wave election year, however, a swing district or state is the most prone to change its mind about the direction the country should be going and thus replacing its centrist representatives of one party with a more reliable right or left member of the opposing party.

What about the districts represented by the legislators who’ve really angered the voters, say, Nancy Pelosi? Let’s put it this way: the only serious challenge Gavin Newsome, the mayor of Pelosi’s home town of San Francisco, ever had, was from a member of the Green Party. Pelosi might lose the speaker’s gavel, but she’s not losing her home district.

That isn’t to say being a moderate in a swing district is a bad thing. Contrary to what ideologues on both sides of the isle would have you believe, voting against legislation that’s unpopular in your district even if it’s popular within your party usually increases your chance of keeping your seat.  But that won’t always work. In the end it is moderates in both parties that disproportionately lose their re-election efforts in wave elections.

Examples from other districts seem to back this up.  Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-TN), along with Herseth-Sandlin, is one of the most moderate members of the House.  But he’s from a district that John McCain carried by double digits.  The Republican primary isn’t decided for a while in Tennessee, but he’s only polling 44% of the vote against his challengers, who have little name ID at this point.

Moderates in swing districts, or districts that lean toward the opposing party, spend years convincing skeptical voters that they are good guys. “I’m a Republican/Democrat, but I kind of like Representative So-and-so of the other party,” they’ll say. But in a year in which voters want to “send a message” to legislators they REALLY don’t like, they hear “I kind of like Rep. So-and-so,” as “Rep. So-and-so isn’t standing up to (insert party leader here) and is no different from the rest of ‘em.”  That’s death for those politicians.

Some know this all too well.  Rep. Marion Berry (D-AR), who holds a seat in a district easily carried by John McCain, warned Obama that moderates like he would lose their seats as a result of the president pushing his agenda so hard.  Berry said he feared 2010 would be like 1994, when Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress. According to Berry, Obama replied that everything would be okay because “This time, you’ve got me.”

“We’re going to see how much difference that makes now,” said Rep. Berry.  Shortly thereafter, Berry announced his retirement.