Election Reflects National Parity

As the race for control of Congress sprints through its final weekend, voters appear poised to maintain the narrow division of power that has marked American politics for nearly a decade.

Analysts in both parties consider Republicans the favorite to maintain -- and possibly even expand -- their slender six-seat majority in the House. And Democrats seem positioned to maintain -- or enlarge -- their one-seat Senate majority. Enough races remained within reach, however, to sustain Republican hopes of a takeover.

What seems least likely on Tuesday are decisive gains for either party in either chamber. After months of campaigning, vast expenditures and endless cycles of attacks and counterattacks through televised ads, this election may not do much to alter the basic parity between the parties vividly demonstrated in the razor-thin 2000 presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

“The 2000 election was ultimately a story about how evenly divided the country is politically, and that story line is very much continued in 2002,” said Democratic pollster Geoff Garin.

Because the country, and Congress, are so closely split, each party is operating with virtually no margin of error. By holding the House and gaining just a single seat in the Senate, Republicans would reestablish unified control of the federal government and greatly improve the odds for President Bush to advance his agenda in the next two years.

Alternately, if Democrats can take back the House while holding the Senate, they would be in position to highlight their ideas -- and perhaps place Bush on the defensive leading into his reelection campaign, just as a Democratic Congress did with his father in 1991 and 1992.

With Congress so evenly divided, virtually every competitive race around the country has become a proxy war between the national parties and their allied interest groups. The Senate, in particular, is so precariously balanced that just a few thousand voters -- or perhaps hundreds -- in states such as Colorado, New Hampshire and South Dakota are likely to decide which party holds the majority.

Behind the close races is an exquisite balance of conflicting forces.

Boosting Republicans have been Bush’s high approval rating and a perception among many voters that the party is better able to handle national security and terrorism.

Boosting Democrats have been comparable advantages for their party on domestic issues such as Social Security and health care, along with widespread gloom over the economy. Many analysts believe, though, that the Democratic failure to articulate an alternative economic plan has prevented the party from establishing a consistent advantage when voters are asked which side can better produce prosperity.

These contrasting forces have produced an electoral environment where candidates have been slugging it out without help from a discernible national tailwind for either side.

“Everyone keeps waiting for this election to break toward one side or the other,” said GOP pollster Bill McInturff. “Well, it doesn’t have to break.”

In all, voters this year are selecting 34 senators, 36 governors and all 435 members of the House.

These three groups of races have been moving in different directions. Democrats appear certain to gain ground in the governorships -- in part because Republicans are defending twice as many seats. The Senate is a toe-to-toe title fight that could see either party make small gains. And Republicans have grown increasingly optimistic about the prospects for retaining control of the House.

In the House races, history favors the Democrats. Since the Civil War, the party holding the White House has gained House seats in a president’s first midterm election only once: in 1934, when the glow surrounding Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal propelled Democrats to a nine-seat advance.

But through the fall, Democrats have seen a number of once-promising races deteriorate. In four contests where redistricting has forced Democratic and Republican incumbents to run against each other, Republicans now hold clear advantages in three. Democratic challenges against such Republican representatives as Jim Nussle in Iowa, Shelley Moore Capito in West Virginia and Rob Simmons in Connecticut appear to have faded. And Republicans have established advantages in open or new seats in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Georgia, Louisiana and New Hampshire that Democrats once targeted.

In their final assessments, the two major independent analysts tracking House races gave Republicans strong odds of holding the chamber. Stuart Rothenberg, publisher of a political newsletter, gave the GOP the advantage in 220 seats (two more than the 218 needed for a majority), Democrats the advantage in 207, with eight too close to call.

Charlie Cook, who publishes a competing political newsletter, identified 217 districts leaning toward the GOP, 202 toward the Democrats and 16 as too close to call.

Democrats aren’t ready to throw in the towel on the House. But they acknowledge that the party will need the political equivalent of an inside straight, winning virtually all of the remaining competitive seats, to capture the majority.

“You’ve got enough races within the margin of error that it is difficult to predict what is going to happen,” said one senior House Democratic aide. “But to win the House back, it has to be a flawless election.”

In the Senate, the needle is tilting toward the Democrats, analysts in both parties agree. “We are just running out of room in terms of seats,” says one top GOP strategist.

But there are enough conflicting polls, and neck-and-neck races, that the outcome is still in doubt--so much so that it might not be clear for weeks which party holds the Senate majority.

That prospect is raised by the unusual nature of Louisiana’s election system. Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu holds a large lead in the polls over three Republicans. But if she doesn’t receive more than 50% of the vote on Tuesday, she will have to face the second-place finisher Dec. 7.

If the Republicans and Democrats come out of election day tied at 49 senators each -- Vermont’s James M. Jeffords is an independent -- and Landrieu doesn’t clear 50%, the stage would be set for an unprecedented monthlong siege between the parties over the Louisiana seat. For now, Landrieu appears on track to just avoid a runoff.

Assuming Landrieu holds on, six seats seem most likely to decide Senate control, with three others looming as potential surprises.

Each party has one incumbent who appears especially endangered.

Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.), a social conservative hurt by controversy over his divorce and remarriage, has consistently trailed Democratic Atty. Gen. Mark Pryor, who has run an effective campaign blending centrist and populist themes.

Sen. Jean Carnahan (D-Mo.), appointed to the seat in 2000 after her husband, Mel Carnahan, was killed in a plane crash yet still won the election, has trailed former Republican Rep. Jim Talent in most of the latest surveys.

Each side has two other seats at significant risk. Republicans are straining to hold seats in Colorado and New Hampshire; Democrats in Minnesota and South Dakota.

In Colorado, first-term Sen. Wayne Allard has struggled in a rematch against Democrat Tom Strickland. The state leans toward the GOP, but Strickland appears to be pulling ahead in late public polls.

In New Hampshire’s Senate race, outgoing Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen has opened a small but consistent lead over GOP Rep. John Sununu in three of the four public polls released late last week. Emphasizing her support for abortion rights, Shaheen is benefiting from a huge advantage among women over Sununu, who ousted Republican Sen. Bob Smith in a primary.

In South Dakota, GOP Rep. John R. Thune and Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson have been jostling within the polling margin of error all year. This race is likely to be decided by which side does a better job of turning out its supporters.

In Minnesota, the first public poll last week showed former Vice President Walter F. Mondale comfortably leading Republican Norm Coleman in a Senate race upended by the death in a plane crash of Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone. But a Wellstone memorial that morphed into a campaign rally generated a backlash, and both sides see the race tightening.

Three other races hold the greatest potential for an upset. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll late last week showed Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.) clinging to just a three-point lead among likely voters over Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss. And Democratic candidates Erskine Bowles and Ron Kirk remain within range of Republican rivals Elizabeth Dole and John Cornyn respectively for open seats now held by the GOP in North Carolina and Texas.

In the governorships, Democrat Gray Davis is favored in California and Republican incumbents Rick Perry, George Pataki and Jeb Bush are given the edge in the other three largest states: Texas, New York and Florida.

Democrats are expecting to recapture governorships in Michigan, Pennsylvania and probably Illinois. Republicans are optimistic about ousting Democratic incumbents in Alabama and South Carolina, which would reverse a Democratic mini-revival in the region.

In a closely watched race, Democratic Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, has struggled against Republican Rep. Bob Ehrlich in Maryland, despite the state’s strong Democratic tilt.

That’s a fitting emblem for a year in which so many statewide races are so close that both parties are sweating the campaign’s final hours.