The conventional wisdom is that the Democrats have no chance to take control of the House, and the Senate is up for grabs. Is there any chance for a better outcome?Since winning the presidency, Obama acted quickly to prevent the full fledged depression which George Bush’s economic policies were pushing us towards. Since then we have seen record corporate earnings and stock prices while unemployment, along with the Bush deficit, have fallen considerably. Those who continue to suffer in this economy due so because of Republican obstructionism. Obamacare has turned into an even greater success than its supporters dreamed while all the Republican predictions of doom failed to come about. Events in Iraq demonstrate the folly of Republican policy on Iraq while most Americans agree with Obama on keeping American troops from getting in the middle of a war between different factions in the middle east. Republicans are also out of step with the views of Americans on social issues as Republicans push for greater government intrusion in the private lives of individuals.
Unfortunately our system leads to a situation in which a majority of people can vote for Democrats in both House and Senate elections but Republicans can potentially still wind up controlling both Houses of Congress. With Republican policies being both unpopular and failures, the Democrats might take control of the House if not for factors such as gerrymandering, a concentration of Democrats in urban districts, and Republican domination of a “news” media which is increasingly being used as a right wing propaganda machine. If there is any hope that we will see a sane outcome this fall, Bill Scher at The Week suggests one possible way the Democrats could take control of the House.
Everyone assumes that Republicans will easily hold the House in November. The dominant storyline among the chattering classes centers instead on the possibility that Republicans could seize control of the Senate from Democrats. But the rapidly escalating immigration face-off between President Barack Obama and House Republicans raises the possibility that Democrats could win back the House — even if Republicans do take the Senate
How is that possible? It’s simple: There are more competitive House races than Senate races in areas with significant Latino populations.
Last year, David Damore, a polling analyst for the firm Latino Decisions, found that there are 44 congressional districts with Republican incumbents that could be ousted if their Latino constituents flex their electoral muscle. “This includes districts where the Latino voting-age population exceeds the 2012 margin of victory or swing districts won in 2012 by President Obama and the House Republican candidate that also have notable Latino populations,” he wrote…
Immigration will probably have less of an impact in Senate races. Every competitive 2014 Senate race, with the exception of Colorado, is in a state where the Latino eligible voter population is less than five percent. Of course, in any nail-biter race, even a constituency of three percent can play an outsized role. But with so many of these races occurring in red states, embattled Senate Democrats will likely want to avoid the potential for right-wing anti-immigrant backlash. That explains why the Senate Democrats’ “Fair Shot” 2014 agenda touts raising the minimum wage, promoting equal pay, investing in manufacturing jobs, and protecting Medicare — but nothing about immigration.
In other words, the House Democratic campaign strategy and the Senate Democratic campaign strategy may run along separate tracks, one driving immigration, the other pushing the economy. One strategy could work while the other flops. That creates the possibility, however unlikely, for something completely unprecedented: a midterm election where Democrats and Republicans trade control of each congressional branch.
It is far more likely that the Republicans will take control of the Senate than the Democrats will take control of the House, with Republicans having a real chance of controlling both Houses of Congress. Republicans benefit from factors including receiving the same number of Senators from the small states which favor them as the large states which favor Democrats, along with Democrats being forced to defend several Senate seats this year which they picked up six years ago in red states.
Republican control of the Senate would be a disaster in terms of appointments, but could also wind up being harmful to the Republicans politically, as Dana Milbank pointed out:
The prevailing view is that a Republican Senate would only compound Obama’s woes by bottling up confirmations, doubling the number of investigations and chipping away at Obamacare and other legislative achievements.
Yet there’s a chance that having an all-Republican Congress would help Obama — and even some White House officials have wondered privately whether a unified Republican Congress would be better than the current environment. Republicans, without Harry Reid to blame, would own Congress — a body that inspires a high level of confidence in just 7 percent of Americans, according to a Gallup survey last month finding Congress at a new low and at the bottom of all institutions tested.
There would be no more excuses for Republicans’ failure to put forward their own health-care plan, immigration proposals, specific cuts to popular government programs, and pet causes involving abortion, birth control and gay rights. This would set up real clashes with Obama — who could employ the veto pen he hasn’t used a single time since Republicans gained control of the House in 2010 — and sharp contrasts that would put him on the winning side of public opinion.
It is not hard to imagine a Republican takeover of the Senate causing conservatives in both chambers to overreach. House Republicans would get more pressure from their base to take a swing at impeachment, because the odds of convicting Obama in the Senate would be better (if still prohibitive). Alternatively, Republican leaders, recognizing that the public will hold them responsible now that they have complete control of Congress, might try to compromise with Obama.
In the first scenario, marauding conservatives drive Republicans to oblivion in 2016 and beyond, putting Hillary Clinton in the White House. In the second scenario, Obama actually accomplishes something in his last two years.
The biggest danger to Republicans is that more voters might figure out what they are doing and what they stand for. At present only 40 percent of Americans are even aware of which party controls which House of Congress. With Republicans in control of both Houses of Congress, what they believe would be far more apparent to voters if they are allowed to pass their agenda and Obama could veto their legislation. Perhaps then more Americans would realize that the Republican economic agenda is to use government to rig the rules to transfer more wealth to the ultra-wealthy, while it is Democrats who are far more likely to support a true market economy in which people are rewarded for their work, or that Republican health care policies would once again allow insurance companies to increase their profits by denying health coverage when people are sick. Democracy would provide a solution for Republican extremism if more people were aware of what the Republicans are trying to do.
