It makes intuitive sense to attribute election results to structural factors, and in this election structural factors favoured the Republican Party.  On Election Day, President Obama’s job approval rating was at about 43%, having declined steadily during his first two years in office, while public approval of the Democratically controlled U.S. Congress was a moribund 20%.  Sixty to 62% of Americans believed that the country was heading in the wrong direction.  The national unemployment rate was 9.6%, but it exceeded 10% in Nevada, Florida, Rhode Island, Michigan, and California. For their part, congressional Democrats had sizeable majorities in both chambers, but many of their members were from marginal (that is, competitive) districts. (See John Sides’ analysis, http://tinyurl.com/2a89yg7.)  None of these factors created an especially favourable opportunity structure for the governing party. 

Election punditry will no doubt attribute Democratic losses to these factors.  Indeed, poll data indicate that the economy and joblessness were the most salient issues in this election, by far.  It was no surprise that pollsters were finding Republicans favoured on the generic ballot by wide margins.  However, there are two things worth noting.  First, the political science literature on what affects vote choice is mixed.  We may attribute voting to these larger factors, but voters do not necessarily explain their vote in those terms.  Second, Americans do not receive a generic ballot when they go to the polls.  They face a choice between two individuals of varied candidate quality, and in this election, Republicans fielded higher quality candidates.   

More than affecting vote choice, structural factors altered the strategic environment.  Politicians are, on the whole, strategic and ambitious actors.  In deciding when to run for office, they are more likely to expend the necessary capital to mount a campaign when the environment is favourable to them and their party.  On this point, the political science literature is fairly compelling.  In the current cycle, quality Republican candidates read the context as good for them and decided to run, while quality Democratic candidates likely decided to keep their powder dry for another time.  The argument on aggregate candidate quality holds even taking into consideration the Tea Party movement, whose candidates were less likely to have electoral experience, although not to the degree one might expect.  (See Brendan Nyhan’s analysis on this point, http://tinyurl.com/26lcj7m.)

Speaking of the Tea Party movement: to the extent that it confounds my Irish friends, they will find themselves in the company of many establishment Republicans.  Political Scientist Andrew Gelman asks an interesting question, ‘Radical or merely conservative?’ It is difficult to know what the movement is, given that it has no leadership and has not been subject to systematic study, yet.  To be sure, it includes some of the fringe elements of American politics. (Quick, American readers – raise your hands if you’d like to repeal the 17^th Amendment to the Constitution and/or eliminate Social Security.  Any takers?)  At the same time, I suspect it also includes disaffected conservatives – primarily Republicans and maybe some Independents – who do not feel well represented by the party system at the moment.  When I first started teaching in 1999, and I would discuss ideology with my students, it was reasonable to characterize conservatives as those supporting limited, smaller government, and liberals as those believing that activist government is an effective mechanism for achieving social goals.  Yet, during George W. Bush’s presidency, a new phrase entered the American political lexicon – big government conservatives. (And thank you for that, Fred Barnes, http://tinyurl.com/26qrnp.)  These were people who supported robust government, but for conservative ends. This was accompanied by increased discretionary spending, a new prescription drug entitlement, increased federal responsibilties in primary education, two foreign wars, a new cabinet department, and, of course, federal intrusion into Terri Schiavo’s end of life care. 

Conservatives with any kind of libertarian streak no doubt chafe at these developments, and I suspect they have found a home in the Tea Party movement.  So, the movement is some part fringe, some part conservative activism.  I would not guess at the proper proportions, nor would I treat the movement glibly. The Tea Party may have cost the Republican Party some seats, but I am not sure that its effect is a net negative.  As others have noted, the movement’s candidates did well, especially considering that many were running in unwinnable Democratic districts.  Moreover, the movement’s enthusiasm probably drove up Republican turnout.  In any case, the Republicans should be grateful that the Tea Party worked within the confines of the Republican Party, rather than mounting third party bids. 

When conjecturing about what this election means moving forward, some perspective is in order.  First, Americans now have divided government, as they have had for 30 of the last 42 years. Moreover, the congressional parties will likely be extraordinarily polarized.  (See Boris Shor’s analysis, http://tinyurl.com/29llkvd and http://tinyurl.com/3a5nn9c.) The upshot of this is that if the parties are disciplined, neither has sufficient institutional power to be dominant.  The American people can anticipate two years of incrementalism and ethics investigations.  Second, if Republicans parlay this victory into longer term electoral dominance, it will be because of what happened at the state level.  According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Republicans picked up at least 675 state legislative seats and took control of at least 19 legislative chambers.  U.S. House districts are drawn by state legislatures after each decennial census.  Having just completed the 2010 Census, legislatures will begin this process very shortly.  Republicans are now in a position to gerrymander favourable districts all over the country, perhaps facilitating additional pickups in 2012.

Finally, it is the norm for the president’s party to lose seats in midterm elections.  To the extent that winning presidential candidates have coattails, they facilitate the election of fellow partisans from marginal districts, districts that will be extraordinarily difficult to defend in the next cycle. In that context the Republicans had a terrific night, winning control of the House and increasing their numbers in the Senate, but not winning enough that they can easily be held accountable for unfavourable conditions two years from now. (According to Politico.com, 51 incumbents lost their bid for re-election; all but two were Democrats.)  Having said that, this is hardly a mandate for congressional Republicans.  Leading up to the election, only a third of Americans approved of the way congressional Republicans were doing their job, giving them support roughly equivalent to congressional Democrats.  In some instances they polled even worse than the Democrats.  Americans are in a practical mood.  Mostly, they would like to see economic growth and improvement in the unemployment rate.

ENDS

Dr. Elizabeth Oldmixon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at University of North Texas-Denton and one of this years US Fulbright Scholars to Ireland. Dr. Oldmixon is based at the Department of Government at University College Cork where she is lecturing and undertaking research in the area of, ‘Religion and the Legislative Politics in the Republic of Ireland and the United States’.