Elections: Will Republicans take the House?

last updated 8 January 2015

Are the Democrats headed for another 1994? asked Adam Nagourney and Marjorie Connelly in The New York Times. That year, voters were fed up with both President Clinton and the Democratic Congress after an ugly health-care battle, and the midterm elections were a Republican rout, with the GOP taking control of both the House and the Senate. In the run-up to the 2010 midterms, both parties are feeling déjà vu—especially Democrats, “who are girding for big losses.” Poll numbers show a swing to the Republicans, with just 43 percent saying they would choose a Democrat in a congressional race if they went to the polls today, while 45 percent would pick a Republican. More important, Obama’s approval rating has sunk below 50 percent. When that happens just before a midterm election, the president’s party loses a historical average of 41 seats. As it happens, Republicans need 40 to win back the House.

“There certainly are parallels” between 1994 and today, said Jay Newton-Small in Time, but there’s a key difference, too. Today, the Republicans lack “a clear, dynamic leader,” whereas in 1994, they had the charismatic Newt Gingrich, who created the Contract With America to “rally voter discontent.” Tea Party activists, meanwhile, may actually hurt Republicans this year by driving the party too far to the right to suit independent voters. Look at the Senate races in Kentucky and Florida, where Tea Party candidates Rand Paul and Marco Rubio are out-fundraising more moderate Republicans and may seize the party’s nomination.

Don’t underestimate the power of the Right’s anger, said Nate Silver in FiveThirtyEight.com. A whopping 69 percent of Republicans tell Gallup they’re enthusiastic about voting in November—13 points higher than the previous high recorded for any midterm election. By contrast, 57 percent of Democrats are enthusiastic about going to the polls. That “enthusiasm gap” can mean only one thing: “The Democrats are in deep trouble.” So be it, said David Broder in The Washington Post, because a Republican win would actually be better for the country. In 1994, after the Republicans took control of Congress, Clinton and Gingrich both were forced to move to the center, and things got done. Welfare reform was passed, steps were taken to a balanced budget, and partisan warfare briefly gave way to pragmatism. “Could history repeat?”