GOP gloomy about House elections
WASHINGTON – Republican campaign officials said Monday they expect to lose at least seven House seats and as many as 30 in the Nov. 7 midterm elections as a result of sustained violence in Iraq and the page scandal involving former GOP Rep. Mark Foley.
Democrats need to pick up 15 seats to control the House after more than a decade of GOP leadership. Two weeks of virtually nonstop controversy over President Bush’s war policy and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert’s handling of the page scandal have forced party leaders to recalculate their vulnerability and have placed a growing number of Republican incumbents and open seats at much greater risk.
GOP officials are urging lawmakers to focus exclusively on local issues and leave it to party leaders to try to mitigate the Foley controversy by accusing Democrats of trying to politicize the sex controversy. At the same time, the White House plans to amplify national security issues, especially the threat of terrorism, after North Korea’s reported test of a nuclear weapon in hopes of shifting the debate away from casualties and controversy.
Still, GOP leaders privately say Democrats are edging much closer to locking down a majority of House seats because a small but significant number of conservative voters are frustrated with Republican governance while independent swing voters are turning against GOP candidates.
“If you are Democrat, you have to like the atmosphere,” said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, R-Va., a top campaign strategist for the Republicans. Davis said the GOP could lose as many as 30 seats if conditions worsen.
With four weeks left in the campaign, GOP strategists, speaking on background, have begun to outline a highly gloomy view of the House elections. They are all but writing off GOP open seats in Arizona, Colorado, Texas and Florida (the one previously held by Foley). Party officials said that three GOP incumbents in Indiana are trailing in private polling and that seats thought safe suddenly appear imperiled. Those include the open Florida seat being vacated by Rep. Katherine Harris, who is running for senator.
“It is unquestionably closer than we would like,” said Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla.
Political handicapper Charlie Cook lists 25 GOP-held seats as tossups – seven more than before the Foley scandal broke Sept. 29. Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan expert on House races, has raised to nine the number of GOP seats likely to switch hands.
Unlike in most elections, Democrats are favored to win every seat they now occupy and are spending money to defend only a few close contests. As a result, Democrats are not as vulnerable to the GOP’s campaign finance advantage. A Democratic takeover of the House is not a foregone conclusion, however.
Because of redistricting plans that gave huge advantages to incumbents, fewer than 50 of the 435 House seats are competitive. Democrats said internal polls show that the fallout from the Foley scandal is confined to half a dozen races. Moreover, House elections traditionally are shaped by local issues and personalities, and the closest races come down to which party can turn out its most loyal voters.
The page scandal erupted two weeks ago when Foley abruptly resigned after being confronted by ABC News with sexually explicit messages that he had exchanged with a former page. Investigations by the Justice Department, the House ethics committee and Florida authorities have ensued.
The GOP’s emerging strategy on the Foley scandal is to try to limit losses among conservative voters. As part of that strategy, the Republican National Committee is seeking to convince conservatives that the debate is centered fundamentally on politics, not values. The committee is shipping reams of information to conservative talk-radio hosts, television commentators and GOP bloggers. Those GOP talking points detail the Democratic connections of groups including the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and American Family Voices, which are working to turn the scandal into an issue with national implications.
Republican strategists are highlighting Democratic leaders who supported former Rep. Gerry E. Studds, D-Mass., who was censured by the House in 1983 after admitting sexual contact with a male page a decade earlier. Studds went on to serve in Congress until 1997.
Still, the “Foley factor” has made GOP strategists nervous. Several officials said it dramatically has undermined the re-election prospects of several incumbents. Elsewhere, the political debate is returning to traditional disputes over the war, taxes and health care, according to Democrats and Republicans. The Foley story “is getting a lot of attention now, but I don’t think it will have the legs to last four weeks,” said Ron Carey, chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party.