"Blue" Dogs or Republicans?

A couple interesting SPSS outputs (of course I'm not revealing everything I have).

Among Democrats Elected in 2006 and 2008: Obama (D) %
	Mean	N	Std. Deviation
Blue Dogs	47.42	24	6.114
Progressives	70.06	17	11.755
Total	56.8	41	14.294

  

2008 victory margin
	Mean	N	Std. Deviation
Blue Dogs	55.88	24	4.599
Progressives	73.93	15	14.845
Total	62.82	39	13.157

 

Partisan Voting Index Scores Among Democrats Elected in 2006 and 2008
	Mean	N	Std. Deviation
Blue Dogs	5.46	24	5.942
Progressives	-16.12	17	11.973
Total	-3.49	41	13.909
Cook PVI Scale - 40 (liberal) to + 40 (conservative)

For the not political nerds: These indices demonstrate that among NEW Blue Dogs (those elected in 2006 or 2008) 1) Obama lost their Congressional district compared to Progressive districts and 2) they barely won. The CPVI score is a good confirming variable. Also, check out that ideological cohesion (as measured by the sigma.) It's the stuff young polisci student's dreams are made of.

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Three Reasons Why O'Donnell won in Delaware

I realize that tomorrow morning many Delaware Republicans are going to wake up with a headache. Although they're not Blue Dog Democrats, the continued erosion of moderate Republicans against Tea Party candidates is an interesting phenomena that mirrors left-challenges to conservative Democrats. As an Delaware-adoptee, here's my immediate reaction to this result...

Reasons Christine O'Donnell won:
1. Closed Republican Primary
There were 182,796 people eligible to vote in Delaware's Republican primary today, yet 57,582 actually did. I suspect that the percentage of leaning Republican identifiers (i.e., those not 'registered' with the Republican Party, simply those moderates who support Castle) WOULD have voted in the Delaware Republican primary if the election was open. The people who did come out: the Tea Partiers, who feel intensely about their candidate.

2. The Electorate
Given that the people who usually vote in Republican primaries are the most politically participatory, it might not be surprising that more Republicans describe themselves as being more conservative. Christine O'Donnell won because she earned the support of the Delaware Republicans most conservative, plus maybe a few moderates. Mike Castle had to get out the vote among more traditional Republicans who may be a little less likely to vote. That could be the difference between 3,500 votes sometimes.

3. The Geography
A few interesting observations from Congressional Quarterly:

Delaware is deeply divided ideologically with its two southern counties Kent and Sussex greatly more conservative than New Castle. 55% of the state's registered Republicans are located in New Castle, but only 50% of the votes in the last comparable Republican primary were cast in New Castle. If Tuesday's vote mirrors past elections, 15% of the rest of it should come from Kent and between 30-35% from Sussex.

Castle couldn't overcome O'Donnell's early lead. Why? Because the early vote was more likely coming in from New Castle County (50%) of the electorate, who were voting for O'Donnell marginally over Castle. When the more rural, small town, conservative Kent and Sussex county votes came in later - it could only buttress O'Donnell's lead.

In short, for Castle to have pulled it off, he would have needed a better GOTV operation in New Castle County. In all likelihood, it's where he's MOST popular, and could make the easiest sell. I think polling this race would have been enormously difficult, because pollsters simply didn't know the electorate. If Castle's ground game was better, PPP would have got their projection completely off. Fortunately for them, for O'Donnell, and in all seriousness, for the Democrats, they're weren't.

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Blue Dogs in Danger of Losing Their Seats, Democrats to Hold House

Analysis of the New York Times and University of Virginia's Race Ratings for the 2010 Midterms reveals that 16 Blue Dogs (29% of the coalition) face tough reelection challenges. 5 Blue Dogs are in imminent danger of losing their seats.

This November, anywhere between 57 and 82 seat are actually competitive, however that number can be reduced to 33-37 seats if seats "leaning Democratic" are excluded. Republicans need 38 seats to capture the House of Representatives. According to this analysis, if everything holds otherwise constant, Republican recapture is unlikely given that many Democrats in toss up districts will win reelection. Republicans would need to sweep in all toss-up districts to gain a majority and win some leaning Democratic districts.
 

New York Times Race Rating * Blue Dogs Crosstabulation
Count
		Blue Dogs		Total
		Rest of Democratic Party	Blue Dogs
New York Times Race Rating	Toss Up	16	12	28
	Leaning Democratic	29	20	49
	Leaning Republican	1	4	5
Total		46	36	82

University of Virginia Race Rating * Blue Dogs Crosstabulation
Count
		Blue Dogs		Total
		Rest of Democratic Party	Blue Dogs
University of Virginia Race Rating	Toss Up	15	11	26
	Leaning Democratic	10	10	20
	Leaning Republican	6	5	11
Total		31	26	57

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Health Care Vote Politics II: Geography & Race

Following up on my last post touching the generalities of the health care vote, I wanted to look specifically at the impact of congressional district geographic location and race.

Blue Dogs from Southern districts voted against the health care bill. There were also a number of Blue Dogs from East Coast and Midwestern states with low percentages of racial minorities who voted against the bill. Examples of these include New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Ohio. Further research will investigate the income distribution of these districts, but I can speculate that they're in predominately working class, blue-collar areas. As a result, the number of Blacks is skewed higher in both the average and the median racial composition.

Blue Dogs who voted for the bill came from the West and parts of the Midwest. Traditionally, these individuals represented large Hispanic and similarly blue collar constituencies with low Black populations.

Below you will find two graphs demonstrating the racial compositions of Blue Dog representatives who voted for or against the health care bill. Please note that this data is based on the 2000 Census and therefore information is limited by the availability of new data. Furthermore, the data sometimes does not equal 100% of the population. I excluded Asians from the graphs for the sake of simplicity. Asians constituted a very small sample of these populations. 

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Hoyer Beats Hildebrand in South Dakota

A compelling article in the Rapid City Journal reveals the back story behind progressive Dr. Kevin Weiland's (D) decision did not challenge Blue Dog Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in South Dakota.

Barack Obama campaign deputy Steve Hildebrand was actively involved in recruiting Dr. Weiland. The morning Weiland decided not to run, Hildebrand all ready had assembled three times the petitions required to declare candidacy with the headline "It’s official: 3,834 South Dakotans said I should run.”

That was, until Weiland received pressure from Washington to abort his campaign.

“Congressman Hoyer called me at home Monday evening. I was on a call with a patient, but I got back to him. He had some huge concerns about my primary campaign and about losing this congressional seat and the risk of losing (Speaker Nancy) Pelosi’s majority,” Weiland said Wednesday. “I spoke with him for 25 to 30 minutes.”

And then a call from Rep. Chris Van Hollen:

Weiland got another compelling phone call on Tuesday, this time from U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. Van Hollen, an assistant to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, also urged Weiland to reconsider his primary run.

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