13 November 2008
Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2008
Sifting through the election data dispels some popular myths and shows how different this election really was. Conventional wisdom has been wrong about straight-ticket voting, the weakness of the Democratic party and the demise of the Republican party.
Democrats have long sought to eliminate straight-ticket voting. Yet in 2006, it helped create a Democratic landslide. With control of the Legislature, Democrats admirably stood on principle and eliminated straight-ticket balloting despite its usefulness to them in 2006. Observers thought the lack of the straight-ticket voting option in 2008 would help Republicans on balance.The elections results suggest that even without straight tickets, New Hampshire voters by and large chose one party and stuck with it. The gubernatorial landslide race was an exception, but other races followed the presidential percentage closely. Barack Obama led all candidates with 54 percent, but the congressional candidates received almost exactly the same vote as he did. U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter was nine-tenths of a point behind him in her district, and Rep. Paul Hodes was three-tenths ahead in his.
On the GOP side, the team effect is even more striking. U.S. Sens. John McCain and John Sununu and the congressionals fluctuated in a 1.5 percentage point range from 43.6 to 45.2. Even without a formal straight ticket, most voters lumped their peas all in a pod. There were only 5 percent fewer votes for Congress than President, the same "dropoff" percentage as four years ago when straight ticket was still an option.
In the high-profile races, lack of a straight-ticket option had little or no effect. However, in the often-ignored legislative races, it seems to have made a difference. The dropoff percentage, those who voted for President but not for state Senate, increased from 6 percent in 2004 to 10 percent in 2008.
For the first time in many decades, the party that won the presidential ballot lost seats in the Legislature. When Presidents Reagan and Bush won in the 1980s, Republicans picked up legislative seats. Both Clinton victories in the 1990s saw Democratic gains. President George W. Bush's elections were both close here, but when he won in 2000 the Republicans gained and when Kerry won in 2004 the Democrats gained.
This year, Barack Obama won big, but the Democrats lost 17 seats in the House. This is only a marginally hopeful sign for the GOP. Eliminating straight tickets probably helped a little here, and Democrats were coming off two elections in which they had picked up a total of 120 House seats. A little slippage was to be expected.
On the state Senate side, the future looks mixed. Despite their huge financial advantage and a top of the ticket landslide, the Democratic majority stayed at 14-10. However, that majority is not nearly as precarious as some thought.
Barack Obama won 19 of the 24 state Senate districts. Each of the 14 Democratic senators is in a seat that Obama carried. On the Republican side, only five of the 10 GOP senators are in seats that John McCain carried.
GOP Sens. John Gallus and Bob Odell sit in districts Obama carried with 59 percent of the vote. In fact, each of the 10 GOP senators ran between three and 18 points ahead of the presidential nominee. They had to focus on state issues to buck the national trend.
Five of the Republicans ran at least 9 points ahead of McCain. Four of them won, but Tom Eaton had too much ground to make up in a district Obama carried with 67 percent.
New Hampshire also likes incumbents. Every incumbent senator ran ahead of his or her party nominee with two exceptions. The two exceptions were both in races where the GOP challenger made traditional budget issues the focus of the race. Molly Kelly in Keene was about nine points below Obama because of a strong bid from Tom Eaton. Harold Janeway ran about three points behind Obama but still held off the hard-charging but under-funded Andy Sanborn to win by about a thousand votes.
Republicans will point to strong performances in spite of an Obama landslide as hope for the future. For the first time in recent history, the party that carried the state in the presidential race lost seats in the Legislature.
For the Democrats, they had gained eight Senate seats in the last two elections. Arguably, they had picked off all the vulnerable seats, and just holding them would be a battle. In the House, some sort of fallback after gaining 120 seats in two elections was to be expected.
It seems likely that for the foreseeable future, New Hampshire will be neither red nor blue but some sort of plaid. The last election was dominated by national issues and a marathon of a presidential campaign. Perhaps we can stipulate that the next election will focus on state issues and start paying attention to them.
Charles M. Arlinghaus is president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank in Concord.