The 2010 midterm election that swept Republicans into power in the U.S. House of Representatives was a mandate to put the brakes on President Obama and his agenda.
Aside from voters also hoping that Republicans would do something – anything – to boost the economy, restraining Obama was pretty much the issue of that election.
It was the second wave election in four years (Republicans were dumped from the majority in 2006). And it had less to do with voters finding Republicans appealing once again and more to do with putting a halt to the Democrats’ overreach.
At the center of that overreach was the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare – which is why many of those elected to office in that cycle and reelected last year have been adamant about repealing it, even at the cost of a government shutdown.
Or even at the cost of losing their seats, which has led to talk of a Democrat wave election cycle. It is a possibility pushed by paid pundits as reality, but the facts do not support it.
That does not mean a wave election isn’t brewing out on Main Street. In fact, early polling indicates the 2014 midterm might produce another electoral shift, but not one that shoves Republicans out of power.
First of all, the playing field of vulnerable GOP seats is too narrow for Republicans to lose their majority, baring a massive wave. (Think 1894, when 107 Democrats were swept out of the House.)
Second, major waves historically have not happened concurrent with the “six-year itch” – the election held in the sixth year of a president's tenure, in which the party holding the White House typically loses a substantial number of House and Senate seats.
And remember that, in the 1996 midterm election of the Clinton era, Republicans lost 18 incumbents but kicked the Democrats’ butts in the open-seat races. The Republicans’ losses were mostly “wave seats” that they unexpectedly won two years earlier, during their first sweep back into power after 40 years in the political wilderness.
No comments:
Post a Comment