Posts Tagged ‘
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Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
Lee Drutman
Lee Drutman is a senior fellow and the managing editor for the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Lee Drutman
As Democrats shift from licking their wounds to figuring out how to win back the House in 2012, the obvious question is: what will it take? Or at least, what will it take besides the obvious triumvirate of a solidly recovering economy, a healthy dose of Republican overreach, and a bit of luck?
Over the next several weeks, I’m going to be taking a closer look at the 66 seats (net 63) that Democrats lost, asking some questions about the character of these lost districts with the goal of putting a finer point on what Democrats need to pay attention to in order to get those seats back. In this post, I’m going to focus on the role of manufacturing, race, and education.
But first a quick look at the map: Democrats lost seats all over the country: 23 in the South, 20 in the Midwest, 15 in the Northeast, and eight in the West.
Seats Democrats Lost, 2010
The bulk of post-election commentary has blamed the losses on the fact that the incumbent party almost always loses seats in a mid-term election and the fact that Democrats were being blamed for a bad economy.
But yet California, where unemployment is 12.4 percent, did not yield a single Republican pick-up (though California is famous for having very safe districts, so this may not be a fair test.). In Oregon, where unemployment is 10.5 percent, Democrats held the five (out of six) seats they maintain.
MANUFACTURING
One industry that has been hit particularly hard in the recession is manufacturing. Of course, the decline in manufacturing has been going on for a long time. In 1950, roughly three in ten U.S. employees worked in manufacturing. Today manufacturing jobs account for just 8.9 percent of U.S. nonfarm jobs. In the 2000s, manufacturing lost roughly one-third of its jobs, falling from 17.3 million people to 11.6 million people.
In most cases, these are jobs that are not coming back, leaving communities that depended on them demoralized and angry. How much of a factor was this in the 2010 elections?
Across the 66 Republican pick-up districts, manufacturing accounts for, on average, 11.9 percent of the jobs. That’s three full percentage points higher than the national average of 8.9 percent. In roughly three quarters (73 percent) of the districts Democrats lost, manufacturing accounted for more than the national average of 8.9 percent of the jobs.
Not surprisingly, this was most pronounced in the Midwest, where the 21 districts Republicans picked up averaged 14.4 percent of manufacturing jobs as a share of total non-farm employment. But it was also pronounced in the Northeast and the South. In both regions, manufacturing accounted for 11 percent of the jobs in the districts Democrats lost, two points above the national average. Only in the West did the districts the Democrats lost have less manufacturing than the national average, averaging only 6.9 percent of the economy. This was the region in which Democrats lost fewest seats – only nine.
| |
Manufacturing Jobs as Share of Total Jobs |
| Entire U.S. |
8.9% |
| ALL GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
11.9% |
| Midwest GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
14.4% |
| South GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
11.0% |
| Northeast GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
11.0% |
| West GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
6.9% |
To understand the potential importance of declining manufacturing as a key to the Democrats’ losses, consider Pennsylvania’s 11th District, which includes Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Democrat Paul Kanjorski had held the seat since 1985, but was ousted by Lou Barletta by a 55-to-45 percent margin. The district gave Obama 57 percent of its vote, and was one of only nine Republican pick-up districts that voted for Kerry. Manufacturing accounts for 16.9 percent of jobs in the district.
Or Wisconsin’s 7th District (northwest and Central Wisconsin), where Republicans picked up a seat formerly held by long-time incumbent David Obey, and a district both Obama and Kerry carried as well. Manufacturing accounts for 17 percent of the jobs in the district. Likewise with the 17st District of Illinois (northwest Illinois) – held by a Democrat since 1983, went for both Kerry and Obama, and 14.3 percent of its jobs come from manufacturing.
EDUCATION AND RACE
Democrats also have a problem with non-college educated whites. This has been a long-standing challenge for Democrats. Many of these voters feel frustrated and left behind by economic changes related to the loss of manufacturing jobs and global competition. They don’t see Democrats as helping them out. They wonder why they can’t seem to get ahead, and they want answers and somebody to blame.
Democrats have not enjoyed parity with Republicans among white voters in 20 years (since Bill Clinton), but 2010 was especially bad, with white voters breaking 62-to-38 for Republicans in the mid-term elections.
This shows up in the districts that Democrats lost. The U.S. population is 65.9 percent white. The average Republic pick-up district was 76.8 percent white. In the Northeast, the average Republican pick-up district was 86.5 percent white, and in the Midwest, the average Republican pick-up district was 81.5 percent white. Overall, 82 percent of the Republican pick-up districts have white populations greater than the national average.
| |
Pct. White |
| Entire U.S. |
65.9% |
| ALL GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
76.8% |
| Midwest GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
81.5% |
| South GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
68.8% |
| Northeast GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
86.5% |
| West GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
70.3% |
A decent number of these whites are blue-collar workers, we should note that those without bachelors’ degrees who have been hit much harder in this recession (unemployment among those with college degrees is only 5.1 percent). In the 2010 elections, Republicans won among both voters with only a high school diploma (54-46 percent) and those with some college (56-41 percent) after Democrats won both categories in 2008.
In the United States, 27.4 percent of adults have at least a bachelor’s degree. But the Republican pick-up districts are on average, less well-educated. Only 24.1 percent of adults have a bachelor’s degree. The gap was greater in the districts Dems lost in the South, where only 20.8 percent were college-educated, and the Midwest, where only 23 percent were college-educated. Overall, 71 percent of the Republican pick-up districts have fewer adults with bachelors’ degrees than the national average
| |
Pct. of Individuals With a Bachelor’s Degree |
| Entire U.S. |
27.4% |
| ALL GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
24.1% |
| Midwest GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
23.0% |
| South GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
20.8% |
| Northeast GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
29.2% |
| West GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
26.0% |
One of the most poorly educated districts is the 18th District of Ohio (Eastern Ohio), where only 12.5 percent of adults are college educated. It had been a solid Democratic seat for 46 years until Republican Bob Ney won it in 1994. Ney resigned in 2006 and shortly thereafter wound up in prison on conspiracy charges. Zachary Space won solidly in 2006 and 2008 with more than 60 percent of the votes, but dropped 20 points this time around. It is also a high manufacturing district (17.4 percent of jobs come from manufacturing), and very white (96.3 percent)
Another poorly educated district is the 1st (and only) District of South Dakota. Just 15.1 percent of South Dakotans have a bachelor’s degree. And despite one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country (Just 4.5 percent), they voted out three-term incumbent Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, who had won easily in the last two elections, garnering 68 and 69 percent of the vote. South Dakota is 88.7 percent white.
Obama’s problems among white, non college-educated voters are well-known, but these are both districts that Obama yet still went Democratic for the Congressional seat. That these voters have now lost faith in the ability of a Democrat to represent them in Congress, and in a rather remarkable way (both of these districts, for example, reduced their Democratic vote share by 20 percent in just two years) speaks volumes of the problems Democrats are having with non-college educated voters.
TAKEAWAYS
This analysis echoes others that point to the fact that Democrats are struggling among white working-class voters, many of whom had voted Democrat in the past, it adds a new way of parsing the data.
For all Democrats’ talk about helping working class folk, they have not done much for those who have lost blue collar jobs other than extend unemployment benefits. This does little to assure those upset by the pervasive sense of decline and who want somebody to blame for their increasing feelings of powerlessness.
As Steven Pearlstein wrote shortly after the election, “For the president and his party, regaining the confidence of the industrial Midwest is now a political imperative. For the U.S. economy, its no less an imperative to find a way to revive the Rust Belt.” Democrats have thus far only paid lip service to this with their “Make it in America” initiative, which appears to be mostly an apparently failed attempt at messaging as far as I can tell.
The problem for these districts is that the Democrats can’t rely solely on a generally improving economy to bring back manufacturing. These are places where there is a real sense of decline, and where voters are surely feeling incredibly frustrated that Democrats really haven’t done much to help them. If Obama and the Democrats want these beleaguered voters to give the Democrats another chance, they’re going to need to show them that they are serious about investing in America again.
Certainly, making inroads with the white working class voters is not the only way that Democrats can win back the House. There are other paths to 218. But without making at least a few inroads in key swing districts, the Democrats will have a lot less room for error in any other strategic approach.
Tags: bachelor’s degree, Bill Clinton, blue-collar, California, Congress, David Obey, Democrats, Education, GOP Pick-Up, high school diploma, House, Illinois, Lou Barletta, Manufacturing, Mid-Term Elections, Midwest, non-college educated whites, Northeast, Obama and Kerry, Ohio, Oregon, Paul Kanjorski, Pennsylvania, presidentiql elections, Race, recession, Republican Bob Ney, Republican pick-up, Rust Belt, South, South Dakota, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, Steven Pearlstein, U.S. economy, unemployment, West, Wisconsin, Zachary Space
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Friday, December 10th, 2010
Mark Reutter
PPI Fellow Mark Reutter is the former editor of
Railroad History and author of
Making Steel: Sparrows Point and the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might (2005, rev. ed.).
by Mark Reutter
The Obama administration yesterday called the bluff of two newly elected Republican governors and regained control of its high-speed rail program. Confronted by Governor-elects Scott Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio, who vowed to kill the administration’s signature high-speed transportation initiative in their states when they take office next month, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood preemptively yanked $1.195 billion not yet spent by the states.
This is good news and something we had urged. It shows resolve by the administration against politically motivated obstructionism. A backlash has been growing in Wisconsin against Walker’s anti-rail rhetoric. Now voters can mull over how he “saved” them money by destroying thousands of construction jobs that the proposed Milwaukee-Madison rail line would have created. Plus Wisconsin and Ohio may owe the federal government upwards of $25 million already spent on rail planning.
The administration said it would redirect the bulk of the freed funds to California and Florida, assuring that these truly transformative projects can move forward even if a Republican House blocks rail funds in the upcoming federal budget.
California will receive $624 million of the redirected funds, adding to the $3 billion previously awarded toward the construction of a 220-mph railway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Combined with matching state funds from a voter-approved bond referendum, California now has $7 billion committed to the project.
Both outgoing Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and incoming Democratic governor Jerry Brown are strong supporters of the rail project, despite California’s current budget woes. Last week, the California High Speed Rail Authority approved construction of the first leg of the line, a 65-mile stretch in the Central Valley running through Fresno. The redirected funds are likely to enable the authority to extend construction to Bakersfield.
Florida will get $342 million on top of the $2.05 billion previously allocated to build a high-speed train on a new right of way between Orlando and Tampa.
Incoming Republican governor Rick Scott initially opposed the line, but has softened his position, saying he is in favor of high-speed rail so long as Florida taxpayers don’t have to foot the bill. Yesterday’s allocation basically closes the funding gap. It strengthens LaHood’s prediction that the Florida project will break ground next year.
Of the remaining $230 million redirected by LaHood, the state of Washington will receive $162 million to rebuild trackage and signaling on an existing Amtrak route between Portland and Seattle. The other major recipient ($42 million) was Illinois, whose re-elected Democratic Governor Pat Quinn is an ardent rail advocate.
Focusing federal funds on a few core projects is a smart strategy as the administration realizes that additional rail allocations in a Republican-controlled House are far from certain. The redirected rail funds give the administration breathing room to keep the program afloat at least through the 2112 election cycle.
Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the likely chair the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in January, has been critical of rail projects – such as the now-rescinded Wisconsin and Ohio lines – where trains would only reach maximum speeds of 110 mph.
Mica has repeatedly said he favors speeds of over 150 mph and wants private partners to help fund the projects. Earlier this week, a consortium led by Central Japan Railway said it may offer $210 million in loans to help pay for the Tampa-Orlando line if its high-speed equipment was selected by the state.
Tags: Amtrak, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bakersfield, California, California High Speed Rail Authority, Central Japan Railway, Central Valley, Florida, Fresno, high-speed rail, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, HSR, Illinois, Jerry Brown, John Kasich, John Mica, Los Angeles, Milwaukee-Madison, Obama Administration, Ohio, Orlando, Pat Quinn, Portland, Ray LaHood, Rick Scott, San Francisco, Scott Walker, Seattle, Tampa, Transportation, Transportation secretary, Wisconsin
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Wednesday, November 24th, 2010
Scott Andes
Scott M. Andes is a research analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
by Scott Andes
When it comes to innovation-based growth, not all states are equal. Certain states are on the front lines, and are accordingly most likely to lead the way to economic recovery. According to a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the most leading New Economy states all excel at supporting a knowledge infrastructure, spurring innovation, and encouraging entrepreneurship.
The new report, The 2010 State New Economy Index, uses 26 indicators to assess states’ fundamental capacity to successfully navigate economic change. It measures the extent to which state economies are knowledge-based, globalized, entrepreneurial, IT-driven and innovation-based – in other words, the degree to which state economies’ structures and operations match the ideal structure of the New Economy. Indicators include percent of the population online, fastest growing firms, exports, industry and state R&D among others.
The top five states – Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland, New Jersey, and Connecticut —are at the forefront of the nation’s movement toward a global, innovation-based economy. Massachusetts has been the top ranked state in all iterations of the report (1999, 2002, 2007 and 2008). The Bay State boasts a concentration of software, hardware, and biotech firms supported by world-class universities such as MIT and Harvard in the Route 128 region around Boston. It survived the early 2000s downturn and was less hard hit than the nation as a whole in the last recession. And it has continued to thrive, enjoying the fourth-highest increase in per-capita income. Washington State (which ranked fourth in 2007 and second in 2008) scores high due not only to its strength in software (in no small part due to Microsoft) and aviation (Boeing), but also because Puget Sound region has emerged as entrepreneurial hotbed.
Maryland remains third (as it was in 2007 and 2008, as well), in part because of the high concentration of knowledge workers, many employed in the District of Columbia suburbs and many in federal laboratory facilities or companies related to them. These and the other top ten New Economy states (New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, California, Virginia, Colorado, and New York) have more in common than just high-tech firms. They also tend to have a high concentration of managers, professionals, and college educated residents working in “knowledge jobs” (jobs that require at least a two-year degree). With one or two exceptions, their manufacturers tend to be more geared toward global markets, both in terms of export orientation and the amount of foreign direct investment.
All the top ten states also show above-average levels of entrepreneurship, even though some, like Massachusetts and Connecticut, are not growing rapidly in employment. Most are at the forefront of the IT revolution, with a large share of their institutions and residents embracing the digital economy. In fact, the variable that is more closely correlated with a high overall ranking is jobs in IT occupations outside the IT industry itself. Most have a solid “innovation infrastructure” that fosters and supports technological innovation. Many have high levels of domestic and foreign immigration of highly mobile, highly skilled knowledge workers seeking good employment opportunities coupled with a good quality of life.
The two states whose economies have lagged most in making the transition to the New Economy are Mississippi and West Virginia. Other states with low scores include, in reverse order, Arkansas, Alabama, Wyoming, South Dakota, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. Historically, the economies of many of these and other Southern and Plains states depended on natural resources or on mass production manufacturing, and relied on low labor costs rather than innovative capacity, to gain advantage. But innovative capacity (derived through universities, R&D investments, scientists and engineers, and entrepreneurial drive) is increasingly what drives competitive success.
While lower ranking states face challenges, they also can take advantage of new opportunities. The IT revolution gives companies and individuals more geographical freedom, making it easier for businesses to relocate, or start up and grow in less densely populated states farther away from existing agglomerations of industry and commerce. Moreover, notwithstanding the recent decline in housing prices, metropolitan areas in many of the top states suffer from high costs (largely due to high land and housing costs) and near gridlock on their roads. Both factors may make locating in less-congested metros, many in lower ranking states, more attractive, particularly if their metropolitan areas offer high-quality schools, high-quality and efficient government, and a robust infrastructure.
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the New Economy is its relentless levels of structural economic change. The challenges facing states in a few years could well be different than the challenges today. But notwithstanding this, the keys to success in the new economy now and into the future appear clear: supporting a knowledge infrastructure (world class education and training); spurring innovation (indirectly through universities and directly by helping companies); and encouraging entrepreneurship. In the past decade a new practice of economic development focused on these three building blocks has emerged, at least at the level of best practice, if not at the level of widespread practice. The challenge for states will be to adopt and deepen these best practices and continue to generate new economy policy innovations and drive the kinds of institutional changes needed to implement them.
photo credit: Chantal Wagner
Tags: Alabama, and Connecticut, Arkansas, biotech firms, Boeing, Boston, California, college-educated, Colorado, Connecticut, DC, Delaware, digital economy, domestic immigration, downturn, economic recovery, entrepreneurship, foreign direct investment, foreign immigration, global markets, Harvard, high quality schools, high-tech firms, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, Innovation, innovation capacity, innovation infrastructure, innovation-based growth, IT-driven, Kentucky, knowledge jobs, knowledge-based, Louisiana, low labor costs, managers, Maryland, Massachusetts, Microsoft, Mississippi, MIT, New Economy States, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Puget Sound, quality of life, R&D, recession, Route 128, South Dakota, state economies, structural economic change, The 2010 State New Economy Index, Virginia, Washington state, West Virginia, Wyoming
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Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010
Mark Reutter
PPI Fellow Mark Reutter is the former editor of
Railroad History and author of
Making Steel: Sparrows Point and the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might (2005, rev. ed.).
by Mark Reutter
Talk about a blessing in disguise. Just as the Obama administration’s high-speed rail program was running out of congressionally-appropriated cash, Governor-elects Scott Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio have come chugging to the rescue.
By vowing to kill planned passenger train lines in their states, the newly elected Midwest Republicans have potentially freed $1.2 billion in federal rail money that can be used to build “true” high-speed routes elsewhere. The windfall represents more than the $1 billion that the White House has requested from Congress in next year’s budget. It gives the administration breathing space to keep the program going even if the Republican-led House blocks rail appropriations in 2011.
Since the Wisconsin and Ohio grants are of secondary importance to the national goal of getting a 150-mph-plus rail line up and running, the governors’ anti-train stance amounts to an unintended gift to the Obama administration
To be sure, benefiting high-speed rail was not the intent of Walker and Kasich. Both politicians have a history of hostility to public transit. Walker has opposed light rail, commuter rail and other transit initiatives in his current job as Milwaukee County Executive. Kasich, a former Ohio Congressman turned Fox News host, likes to say that the only kind of train he approves of is a freight train.
Both have called on Washington to divert the rail money to state highway projects. Ray LaHood, U.S. secretary of transportation, said this isn’t permitted under the law. LaHood told a rail conference last week that he plans to reallocate the money to other states and will bill Wisconsin and Ohio for federal funds already spent on the suspended rail lines.
Poor Choices for Rail Aid
The $810 million in Wisconsin money was to extend Amtrak’s existing Milwaukee-Chicago Hiawatha line to Madison, with a top speed of 79 mph in 2013, rising to 110 mph in 2015; Ohio’s $400 million was to build a Cleveland- Columbus-Cincinnati route operating at 79 mph maximum speeds over existing freight tracks. It received a $400 million grant.
The Obama administration funded these projects largely because they were “shovel ready” (a key criteria of the stimulus act that provided $8 billion in rail aid to states) and because they represented “regional balance” for the Midwest that Congressmen from both parties demand when money is allocated for highways.
As we have argued, spreading out federal funds to too many marginal projects is a mistake operationally and politically. Operationally, intercity passenger rail will succeed only if it provides an obvious and understandable margin of superiority over highway trip times. Politically, moderate-speed lines advertised as high-speed (or as “emerging high speed,” in Obama administration nomenclature) confuses the public and opens up the federal initiative to legitimate criticism.
Studies indicate that somewhat-faster service will not create the transformational transportation that will get Americans out of their cars and jumpstart regional economies. This was underscored by a recent study of high-speed rail compared to conventional rail commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Because the up-front costs of truly modern train lines are high, the administration needs to concentrate on finishing one or two routes with state-of-the-art equipment to prove that fast rail is an efficient and even profitable venture once construction is completed.
Florida Should be Centerpiece
The administration now has the opportunity to fund true high-speed rail by reallocating the Midwest money. It can fully fund the high-speed Tampa-Orlando line in Florida as well as help get a segment of California’s proposed 200-mph railway between San Francisco and Los Angeles into revenue service. There may even be money left over to accelerate “shovel-ready” projects in busy rail corridors with proven ridership in Illinois and Connecticut.
Newly elected California governor Jerry Brown (D) is a strong supporter of his state’s rail program – as is outgoing Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Both Illinois incumbent governor Pat Quinn (D) and Connecticut governor-elect Dan Malloy (D) are also pro-train.
Florida’s Republican governor-elect, Rick Scott, initially opposed the Tampa-Orlando line (the current governor, Charlie Crist, supports the project). But Scott has recently relaxed his rhetoric and says he is in favor of high-speed rail so long as Florida taxpayers don’t pay for it.
What reportedly swayed Scott was $800 million in fresh federal funds for the project last month. Florida now has $2.05 billion to complete the $2.6 billion line, including the $1.25 billion in federal funds it received in January.
Public-Private Partnerships
By reallocating a portion of the Wisconsin-Ohio funds, the $550 million gap could be closed. Or better yet, Washington could encourage private companies to invest in the Florida line by using federal funds as an incentive. Already Siemens, the high-speed locomotive maker, has announced interest in bidding on the Florida project if government shares a portion of the operational risk.
Such a public-private partnership would appear to satisfy Scott’s objections and could go a long way to appease Rep. John Mica (R – Fla.), a fan of public-private rail partnerships who is expected to become chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in January.
All of this could leave Wisconsin’s and Ohio’s new chief executives on the wrong side of the tracks. Or as a transportation official told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week, “Expanding passenger rail is a national priority. Just because Wisconsin says no doesn’t mean it’s going away.”
Tags: 110 mph, 200-mph, 79 mph, Amtrak, Arnold Schwarzenegger, California, Charlie Crist, Cleveland- Columbus-Cincinnati, Connecticut, Dan Malloy, Florida, Fox News, high-speed rail, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, HSR, Illinois, Jerry Brown, John Kasich, John Mica, Los Angeles, Madison, Midwest republicans, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee-Chicago Hiawatha, Obaa administration, Ohio, Pat Quinn, Public Transit, public-private partnerships, Rail Aid, Ray LaHood, regional balance, Republican Governors, Rick Scott, San Francisco, Scott Walker, shovel ready, Tampa-Orlando, Transportation, U.S. Conference of Mayors, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, White House, Wisconsin
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Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
So Election Day 2010 has finally arrived, after what may have seemed to progressives like the longest midterm election cycle ever, dominated as it was (certainly in media coverage) by raging Tea Partiers determined to take America back to the prelapsarian paradise that was ruined by the New Deal.
Election Day itself isn’t quite what it used to be, thanks to the steady rise of early voting, especially in the West. Michael McDonald of George Washington University estimates that nearly 29 percent of all ballots will have been cast early (in person or by mail), with particularly high rates in all-mail-ballot Washington and Oregon, but also in Colorado, Arizona and California.
Election Night won’t necessarily end tonight, either, since both Washington and Alaska—both of which have potentially crucial Senate races—allow mail ballots postmarked by today to be received and counted later—sometimes much later. An additional issue is Lisa Murkowski’s viable write-in candidacy for the Senate in Alaska, since write-in votes are usually counted much later, and challenges to individual ballots are certain if it matters.
Since turnout is invariably important in midterm elections, it’s worth noting that the weather today is unusually good in most of the country, with the exception of heavy rain predicted in the lower Mississippi River Valley and parts of the Gulf Coast of Florida.
I’ve written a pretty elaborate Election Night Guide for The New Republic, which you can find here. It begins with the restive period before polls close, and concludes with what late-night insomniacs can expect to see and hear. But here’s a brief overview:
- Ignore just about everything you hear during the day that purports to tell you what is happening. The days of leaked “early exits” that were exchanged (and often distorted) ended with the new security measures enacted in 2008. Now media outlets won’t get data from the exit poll consortium (which will cover statewide races only in 26 states) until 5:00 EDT, and won’t make any calls based on this data until the relevant polls are closed. You may also hear or read anecdotal assessments of turnout, usually from local media or state election officials; they often turn out to be wrong. Finally, given the Tea Party Movement’s paranoia about “voter fraud” (which has not, in reality, been a significant problem since the 1960s), there will undoubtedly be reports during the day of alleged pro-Democratic chicanery in heavily minority areas. Conservative media will fan the flames, in part to counter or cloak the often very-real incidents of voter intimidation or polling-place chaos engineered by local GOP operatives in these same locales. Be forewarned.
- At roughly 5:30-5:45 EDT, turn on your television and watch as the networks begin carefully releasing exit poll “findings” that don’t related to specific contests; they are sometimes quite revealing, and the official network analysts often drop broad hints in reporting them. One obvious number to pay attention to is the president’s job approval/disapproval ratio; if it’s negative by more than a few points, that’s not good news for Democrats. Another key set of numbers involve the demographic breakdown of the electorate. Democrats hope that the percentage of voters over age 50 does not exceed 60 percent, and non-Hispanic whites aren’t over 80 percent. If partisan-ideological self-identification numbers are released, note carefully whether independent “leaners” are assigned to each party. If the percentage of conservatives significantly exceeds the percentage of moderates, that, too, is a bad sign for Democrats.
- The first poll closings are at 6:00 EDT in the Eastern Time Zone portions of Indiana and Kentucky, where there’s a pretty good assortment of bellwether House races. Even if there seems to be a clear trend (e.g., Baron Hill is winning, or Ben Chandler is losing), be aware that regional trends don’t always hold sway elsewhere. The first inkling we will have about a highly competitive Senate race is at 7:30 EDT, when West Virginia closes its polls.
- If you decide to watch the whole show on the tube, keep in mind that the networks are going to spend a lot of airtime reporting the results of non-competitive races (some of which, like the Senate races in Kentucky and Delaware, involve colorful personalities on which they probably have a lot of footage in the can), and letting their highly paid pundits and “guest commentators” have their say. This will be particularly true at 8:00 EDT, when nineteen states close their polls. If you want to keep up with what’s happening in real time, go online, and consult a cheat-sheet of key races (if you don’t like mine, which I mentioned above, there are many others available, including Nate Silver’s very precise hour-by-hour analysis of House races). Avoiding the tube will also enable you to postpone listening to massive quantities of spin until tomorrow.
- Given the natural horse-race obsessions of the chattering classes, there will be a major emphasis in coverage on who “won” or “lost,” and in that connection, context is everything. The conventional wisdom is that Republicans will narrowly win the House while Democrats narrowly hold the Senate. But expectations are being distorted by the unusually broad range of final generic congressional ballot findings by major polling outlets, which has enabled spinmeisters in both parties to make a case that Republican gains will be larger or smaller than originally anticipated. Keep in mind as well that raw Republican gains must be assessed in light of the large majorities Democrats currently hold in Congress (known as the “over-exposure” phenomenon); the near-universal history of the party controlling the White House losing seats in the first midterm after a new administration takes office (the only recent exception being the post-9/11 midterm of 2002); and the normal midterm turnout patterns that create an older and whiter electorate. There will be plenty of time for analysis later, so take claims made tonight with a large grain of salt.
Happy (or as the case may be, unhappy) election watching. This campaign cost a total of $4 billion, so let’s hope tonight is at least as entertaining as the alternative cable offerings.
photo credit: dailyinvention
Tags: 2010 midterm election, Alaska, Arizona, Barin Hill, Ben Chandler, California, Campaigns and elections, Colorado, Congress, conservatives, Deleware, demographic breakdown of the electorate, early exits, Election Day, Election Night, exit polls, George Washington University, Gulf Coast of Florida, independent leaners, Inidiana, Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski, Michael McDonald, midterm election cycle, Missisippi River Valley, moderates, Nate Silver, New Deal, non-Hispanic whites, older electorate, Oregon, over-exposure phenomenon, partisan-ideological self-identification, prelapsarian paradise, progressives, Senate race, Senate races, Tea Partiers, Tea Party Movement, The New Republic, Virginia, voter fraud, Washington, White House, whiter electorate
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Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010
Mark Reutter
PPI Fellow Mark Reutter is the former editor of
Railroad History and author of
Making Steel: Sparrows Point and the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might (2005, rev. ed.).
by Mark Reutter
Give Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson credit – he’s a strong believer in recycling. Last year, he loudly derided the “mirage” of high-speed rail as “the triumph of fantasy over fact.” Yesterday, he denounced the “absurdity” of fast trains as “a triumph of politically expedient fiction over logic and evidence.” OK, he’s gotten a bit wordier, but you can see that once his mind is made up, it’s fixed in stone.
The same kind of thinking comes from nearly all critics of high-speed rail who bunker at the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, and other right-leaning groups – they have a curiously static view of transportation. To them, investing in future high-speed rail is an extravagant and illogical expenditure of public money because the lack of prior investment in high-speed rail has done little to change our travel patterns.
By that logic, America should never have built a transcontinental railroad. Consider that only a handful of wagon trains made it to California in 1862. Had Samuelson been writing then, he probably would have criticized President Lincoln’s proposal to spend taxpayer money on a steam railroad to San Francisco as a plan that “would subsidize a tiny group of travelers and do little else” – to borrow a phrase from yesterday’s column.
What’s missing from Samuelson’s worldview is that major advances in transportation drive economic growth. They have throughout human history. The joining of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads in 1869 ushered in what economic historian Walt Rostow called the “takeoff period” of American industry.
Likewise, President Dwight Eisenhower did not justify interstate highways on the basis of established transportation patterns. U.S. railroads – not roads – carried the bulk of interstate freight, military personnel, and civilians during World War II. Instead, he warned that our national security in the Cold War 1950s depended on our ability to establish fast new highways to transport supplies throughout the country.
So when Samuelson denounces high-speed rail by citing today’s Amtrak ridership levels, he’s forgetting that rail traffic is far below what it would be if our passenger trains were remotely up to world standards. When we begin opening 200-mph railroads, a new level of traffic will appear very rapidly. It’s been dormant, waiting for a chance to move.
It is impossible to predict how much dormant traffic is waiting for a truly modernized rail system. Economic models don’t tell us, and Samuelson fails to even pose the question amid his attacks on high-speed rail as government “pork barrel.”
What’s remarkable (though not surprising, if one reads Cato’s Randal O’Toole and other rail critics) is Samuelson’s utter blindness to the fact that highways and airports require massive government “pork” to build and maintain. They don’t pay for themselves through fuel or ticket taxes, as their backers like to assert.
A Texas Department of Transportation study found that a new section of highway in Houston would generate only 16 percent of its total lifecycle cost from gas taxes. Texas DOT estimated a gas tax of $2.22 per gallon – nearly six times the present state and federal tax of 38.4 cents – reflected the actual cost of building and maintaining the highway.
Constructing 800 miles of high-speed rail in California is liable to cost more than $40 billion. Constructing and operating all 13 corridors proposed by the Obama administration could easily approach $200 billion. But these dramatic headline figures need context. The current transportation act allots $300 billion to highways – not for new construction since the interstate system is completed, but just for maintenance and rebuilding.
Huge costs loom as America’s highways reach the end of their productive life. Replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York State is estimated to cost $17 billion. That figure is guaranteed to rise.
If interstate thoroughfares and vital bridges paid their way, private investors would be clamoring to commit funds to refinance them. They aren’t.
All modes of transporting people require subsidies. Amtrak’s direct subsidies of about $1.5 billion a year are transparent and highly publicized. Subsidies for cars and airlines are hidden in trust fund appropriations, user tax breaks, and local and state programs paid for by all taxpayers, including those who rarely drive and never fly.
In portraying himself as a hard-nosed realist free of the “fashionable make-believe” of rail advocates, Samuelson would do well to explain how he’d fix congestion, advance mobility, lessen pollution, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil by jettisoning an infrastructure program that directly addresses these issues.
photo credit: arbyreed
Tags: 200-mph, airlines, airports, Amtrak, California, cars, Cato Institute, Cold War, Dwight Eisenhower, fast trains, gas taxes, hard-nosed realist, Heritage Foundation, highly publicized, highways, Houston, HSR, interstate freight, Lincoln, military personnel, mobility, modernized rail system, national security, New York, Obama Administration, pollution, pork barrel, public money, Randal O'Toole, recycling, Samuelson, San Francisco, subsidies, Tappan Zee Bridge, tax breaks, taxpayers, Texas Department of Transportation, transcontinental railroad, Transportation, travel patterns, U.S. railroads, Washington Post, World War II
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Friday, October 29th, 2010
Mark Reutter
PPI Fellow Mark Reutter is the former editor of
Railroad History and author of
Making Steel: Sparrows Point and the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might (2005, rev. ed.).
by Mark Reutter
Hats off to the Obama administration. The $2.4 billion in high-speed-rail grants announced yesterday by the U.S. Department of Transportation not only helps fix deficiencies in the original round of rail awards back in January, but shows welcome political moxie.
By allocating the bulk of its FY 2010 investment to California and Florida, the administration has thrown its support behind true “bullet train” service, or trains running on dedicated rights of way at more than 150 mph. It now appears possible that high-speed segments could be open in California’s Central Valley and between Tampa and Orlando, Fla., by 2016.
That’s a big change from the first round of grants last January, which we argued was flawed by a scattershot approach of approving projects that only marginally increased passenger train speeds on upgraded freight track. What was needed, we believed, was funding focused on “do-able” 150-mph-plus links that would serve as templates for an emerging state-of-the-art passenger train initiative.
For the most part, the administration has done just that. To be sure, it has not come up with a way to finance HSR over the long haul and it still faces multiple challenges in Congress, especially if Republicans take over one or both chambers. But what’s striking about yesterday’s awards is the administration’s firmer grasp of how to get HSR segments up and running in the face of local obstacles.
Consider California, which received the biggest grant yesterday, $902 million. The DOT award requires the state to primarily focus on rail development in the Central Valley between Merced and Bakersfield, where land acquisition costs are low and trains could reach their full speed, rather than build costly urban segments through greater Los Angeles and between San Francisco and San Jose that have stoked Nimby opposition.
That’s a shrewd way to get a workable segment built and in revenue service to make the case that HSR is an attractive choice of transportation for Californians. Kicking off construction in the Central Valley also gives a political boost to Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), a strong HSR backer who is in a tough race with Andy Vidak, a Republican with Tea Party backing.
Likewise, the administration took a decisive step toward fully funding the Tampa-Orlando HSR line (which we’ve repeatedly supported) by awarding $800 million to the project yesterday. Florida now has $2.05 billion in the kitty to complete the $2.6 billion project, including the $1.25 billion it received in January.
The new grant has already softened criticism by Republican gubernatorial hopeful Rick Scott. In the last few days Scott has dialed down his rhetoric against the rail line as an example of federal overreach. With groundbreaking scheduled for early 2011 and the Obama administration hinting at more money from discretionary funds, it appears unlikely that Scott would sacrifice thousands of construction jobs by scrapping the project outright. The Democratic candidate, Alex Sink, is a strong supporter.
Two other projects awarded grants yesterday, while not strictly high speed, will improve rail service in critical corridors. DOT gave Connecticut $121 million to help double track the Amtrak line between New Haven and Springfield, Mass., and upgrade service to 110 mph.
As part of the agreement, Connecticut agreed to release $260 million in state funds to rebuild other infrastructure, which will eventually increase train service from six daily roundtrips to 25 or more. This would make the Springfield segment an integral part of the Northeast Corridor and eventual route of a proposed “inland” corridor between New York and Boston.
A flaw of past federal policy was its failure to flag rail lines abandoned by freight carriers as potential passenger routes. As a result, thousands of miles of secondary lines between major cities, considered duplicative by freight railroads, were torn up between 1970 and today.
A similar fate now threatens 135 miles of rail line between Kalamazoo and Dearborn, Mich., owned by Norfolk Southern (NS). The track, used for Amtrak’s Chicago-Detroit trains, was downgraded this summer, a preliminary step toward a petition for abandonment by NS.
Yesterday, DOT stepped in with a $150 million grant to fund Michigan’s purchase of the line. Since Amtrak already owns 97 miles adjacent to this section, the proposed purchase would result in public ownership of nearly 80 percent of the Chicago-Detroit corridor, laying the foundation for a high-speed passenger route.
Yesterday’s awards include the remaining funds in the $8 billion stimulus package as well as money allocated for FY 2010 by the Democratic Congress. Funding for HSR has yet to be agreed upon by Congress for FY 2011. Outside of discretionary funds within DOT, yesterday’s announcement represents the last definite federal distribution for high-speed rail.
For a full list of DOT grants, see http://www.fra.dot.gov/rpd/passenger/2243.shtml
Tags: 110 mph, 150 mph, Alex Sink, Amtrak, Andy Vidak, Bakersfield, Boston, bullet train, California, California’s Central Valley, Chicago-Detroit, Connecticut, Dearborn, DOT, federal policy, Florida, freight track, FY, high-speed rail, HSR, Jim Costa, Kalamazoo, Los Angeles, Merced, Michigan, New Haven, New York, Nimby, Norfolk Southern, Obama, Obama Administration, Orlando, Rick Scott, San Francisco, San Jose, Springfield, Tampa, Tampa-Orlando, Tea Party, Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation
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Friday, October 22nd, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
The title of this piece might seem a bit counterintuitive given the presumed certainty of Republican gains on November 2, but within that context, there really is a surprising amount of uncertainty about which party is likely to get the late breaks in this cycle.
On the one hand, state polling is showing some good signs for Democrats in Senate and some gubernatorial races. Two left-for-dead candidates, Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, have rebounded into highly competitive positions, according to some polls. Joe Manchin of WV seems to have recovered from a near-fatal swoon. Poll numbers for Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut have stabilized, as they have (at a lower level) for Patty Murray of Washington and Barbara Boxer of California. At least one poll shows Robin Carnahan of Missouri with a mini-surge, and Michael Bennet of Colorado seems to have drawn even with Ken Buck. The brief period of hysteria about a possible Tea Party takeover of New York politics has ended in derision. And at the moment, Democrats are optimistic about winning at least one southern governorship, in Florida, and believe they have an outside shot in Georgia and (surprise, surprise) South Carolina as well (polls are showing Nikki Haley losing support and making the race competitive).
But at the same time, certain meta-indicators are ominous for Democrats. Gallup’s last two generic congressional ballot tracking polls have shown Republicans with double-digit leads among likely voters, an unprecedented phenomenon. Worse yet, in a low-turnout scenario, Gallup has Republicans up by 17 percent, which if accurate would produce House gains well above what most analysts have been talking about. And Gallup’s not alone: another highly respected research firm, Pew, put out its own generic ballot poll this week giving Republicans a ten-point advantage among likely voters.
So how can we explain the macro-micro disconnect in polling at this moment? It’s possible that Gallup and Pew just have it wrong (Alan Abramowitz of Emory University has charged Gallup with making crucial errors), and that other generic polls will soon demonstrate that those results are outliers. Another common theory is that statewide races operate according to different dynamics than overall partisan preferences, and that while Republicans may make big House gains, that doesn’t necessarily translate into victory in close statewide races.
At RealClearPolitics today, Sean Trende suggests it’s the state polls that may be off, thanks to inadequate likely voter screens that are modeling the electorate’s partisan composition too favorably to Democrats. Using a partisan composition model based on the two 2009 gubernatorial contests, Trende hypothesizes that Republicans statewide candidates may on average perform better than their polling by a 3-4 percent margin, which would, of course, throw many close races to the GOP.
Complicating all this analysis of public opinion research, of course, is the fact that the two parties’ ground games are just now really kicking in, which could change turnout patterns, along with the phenomenon of very heavy early voting. On this latter front, the preliminary data indicates that Democrats seem to be doing a relatively good job of early voting mobilization, but don’t have the sort of advantage they enjoyed in 2008, and may not have an advantage at all in certain key states (e.g., Colorado, Nevada and Florida).
Then you get into some really hazy phenomena that may affect particular races. The most discussed is California’s Proposition 19, which would legalize small-scale cultivation and use of marijuana. There is a persistent belief among California Democrats that Prop 19 will turn out younger voters (and perhaps African-Americans and Latinos) at higher levels than in other states, giving Democrats a crucial boost in close contests.
But overall, the varying indicators of late trends (unless unanimity suddenly emerges between now and November 2) are providing some real mystery and drama in this bitter cycle, and plenty of questions to mull over in the post-election rumination period that will ensue.
Photo credit: bjornmeansbear
Tags: 2010 midterm election, African-Americans, Alan Abramowitz, Barbara Boxer, California, California’s Proposition 19, Colorado, Connecticut, Democrats, electorate’s partisan, Emory University, Florida, Gallup, Georgia, GOP, Gubernatorial races, heavy early voting, Joe Manchin, Ken Buck, Latinos, left-for-dead, macro-micro disconnect, marijuana, Michael Bennet, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Nikki Haley, November 2, oe Sestak, partisan preferences, Patty Murray, Pennsylvania, Pew, Public opinion, RealClearPolitics, Republican gains, Richard Blumenthal, Robin Carnahan, Russ Feingold, Sean Trende, Senate, South Carolina, southern governorship, state polls, Tea Party, voting mobilization, Washington, Weatherman, Wisconsin, WV
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Thursday, October 7th, 2010
Mark Reutter
PPI Fellow Mark Reutter is the former editor of
Railroad History and author of
Making Steel: Sparrows Point and the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might (2005, rev. ed.).
by Mark Reutter
America’s transportation infrastructure is enfeebled, Washington’s transportation policy is broken, and we need to start building fast trains.
While that might be old news to readers of Progressive Fix, what is news is who’s saying it this week: Samuel Skinner, Secretary of Transportation under George H.W. Bush, and Norman Mineta, DOT Secretary under George W. Bush, were co-chairs of a conference at the University of Virginia behind a new report making this case. Mary E. Peters, Mineta’s successor under Bush, and a smattering of ex-DOT undersecretaries filled out the roster of 80 transportation experts.
Describing government spending on transportation as woefully underfunded, the report estimated that between $134 billion and $267 billion more is needed each year from now to 2035 to make U.S. roads, rail, and air transportation competitive with other countries.
The report lamented the “pork and political opportunism” in the current transportation reauthorization act, SAFETEA-LU, and advocated the setting up of core national priorities for transportation such as high-speed rail networks.
“High-speed rail has the potential to provide a fast, efficient and integrated alternative to driving and flying,” the report said. The best approach for genuine high-speed rail would be rights of way separate from existing freight lines – a policy strongly advocated by PPI (see here and here).
A major increase in the federal gas tax, which has remained unchanged at 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993, would help pay the bill for getting America’s transportation systems back to state-of-the-art standards.
Derailing High-Speed Rail
The group’s “call for action” comes at a time when Republican leaders have steered the GOP in a completely different direction. Extending the Bush tax cut has become their top national priority. The White House’s plan last month for $50 billion in infrastructure spending on highways and rail was met with open contempt by House Republican Leader John Boehner.
Several state races are shaping up as tests of whether President Obama’s higher-speed rail initiative can survive Republican hostility. In Wisconsin and Ohio, Republican candidates for governor have called federal stimulus money awarded for train improvements a major waste of taxpayer funds.
Scott Walker, the Republican candidate for governor in Wisconsin, has launched a website called notrain.com. He’s ahead in the polls, as is John Kasich, the former House Republican who vows to kill a $400 million federal stimulus project to link Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati by rail if elected the next governor of Ohio.
The anti-rail contagion has spread to New Jersey, where Republican Gov. Chris Christie is threatening to scuttle a train tunnel to Manhattan – and forfeit $6 billion in pledged funds from the federal government and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey – citing concerns of large cost overruns.
Christie yesterday postponed his announcement of whether he will back out of the agreement to build the tunnel – which would create 6,000 long-term construction jobs – in part so that he could campaign for other Republicans in the Midwest.
In California and Florida, where full-scale high-speed train networks have been awarded federal stimulus grants, GOP candidates are suggesting that they would delay or disrupt the projects.
Meg Whitman, running as the Republican candidate in California, says the state cannot afford “at this time” the costs associated with new high-speed rail. Rick Scott, Republican candidate for governor in Florida, has jumped on the same bandwagon, questioning whether the state can afford a rail line between Orlando and Tampa that has been awarded $1.25 billion in federal stimulus money.
Ironically, the current governors of California and Florida, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Charlie Crist, gained office as Republicans and have been big rail supporters. “To say ‘now is not the time’ shows a very narrow vision,” Schwarzenegger’s communications chief told the New York Times in response to Whitman’s tepid support for California’s rail investment.
The Eisenhower Model
“We’re going to have bridges collapse. We’re going to have earthquakes. We need somebody to grab the issue and run with it,” Mineta told reporters on Monday.
His earnest tone, delivered at the Rayburn House Office Building, was at odds with the anti-tax, anti-government vitriol coming from those of the same political stripe occupying nearby offices.
Advocates of infrastructure spending must offer specific data and concrete examples of the damage that continued underfunding of transportation projects could inflict on America’s standard of living and economic security. A starting point would be America’s dangerous overdependence on gasoline coming from unstable or hostile foreign countries. Add to this the lost productivity for U.S. drivers stuck in traffic jams, which the Mineta-Skinner report estimated at $87 billion in 2007, or $750 for every driver.
And consider that our population is expected to grow by 90 million in the next 40 years. These citizens will need to move, and high-speed rail is cheaper to build and causes much less environmental damage than new highways and airports.
A role model for such educational outreach is Dwight Eisenhower. The Republican president launched the Interstate Highway System by articulating a vision of top-quality roads benefiting all citizens and secured bipartisan support in Congress. It was part of his crusade to win the Cold War.
There’s a new battle out there – in the form of competition from emerging economic powerhouses like China, which plans to spend over $1 trillion in the next 10 years on a comprehensive 220-mph train system. While China builds its future, many of our politicians welcome gridlock as a way to wrest short-term partisan gains.
Photo credit: aussiegal
Tags: 220-mph train system, air transportation, America’s standard of living, anti-government, anti-rail, anti-tax, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bush tax cut, California, call for action, Charlie Crist, China, Chris Christie, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Cold War, Columbus, DOT Secretary, earthquakes, economic security, Eisenhower Model, environmental damage, fast trains, federal gas tax, federal stimulus, Florida, freight lines, gasoline, George H.W. Bush, GOP, government spending, high-speed rail, high-speed rail networks, highways, House Republican, HSR, Infrastructure, infrastructure spending, Interstate Highway System, John Boehner, John Kasich, Mary E. Peters, Meg Whitman, Midwest, Mineta-Skinner, national priority, New Jersey, New York, New York Times, Norman Mineta, notrain.com, Ohio, Orlando, political opportunism, Port Authority, PPI, Progressive Fix, rail, Rayburn House Office Building, Republican leaders, Rick Scott, SAFETEA-LU, Samuel Skinner, Scott Walker, Secretary of Transportation, short-term, state races, Tampa, traffic jams, train tunnel to Manhattan, Transportation, U.S. drivers, U.S. roads, underfunded, University of Virginia, Washington’s transportation policy, White House, Wisconsin
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Tuesday, October 5th, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
As spin wars continue over polling assessments of the two parties´ prospects nationally and in individual contests, the overall situation remains relatively stable, with a lot of the fireworks in the national news coming from California, where a controversy regarding Meg Whitman´s employment of an illegal immigrant is not exactly helping her gubernatorial campaign.
The most ominous news for Democrats came yesterday, when Gallup’s weekly tracking poll offered a likely voter sample for the first time this year. It showed Republicans with a 13 percent margin among likely voters, much larger than the three percent margin among registered voters.
At 538.com, Nate Silver offers a useful analysis Likely Voter/Registered Voter numbers from all pollsters, showing the Gallup “gap” to be unusually high. But it bears close watching, since likely voter estimates tend to become more accurate the closer you get to election day.
Our regional roundups continue today with the Northeast, the most pro-Democratic region in 2008, and a source of considerable residual Democratic strength today. According to Gallup´s tracking polls, the northeast region gives President Obama his only majority job approval numbers, currently at 51 percent.
There are eight Senate seats currently at stake in the Northeast, seven currently held by Democrats. Two of them—held by Vermont´s Pat Leahy and New York´s Chuck Schumer—are completely safe. Among the other five Democratic seats, Democrats have a robust if not invulnerable lead in three (Gillibrand of New York, Blumenthal of Connecticut, and Coons of Delaware); Republicans have held a steady lead in one (Toomey over Sestak in Pennsylvania); and one is dead even (Manchin versus Raese in West Virginia). Republicans have a strong but not insurmountable lead to hold on to the one (open) Republican seat, in New Hampshire, where Kelly Ayotte leads Paul Hodes.
The best-case scenario for Republicans, which would include Linda McMahon`s dollars making Connecticut truly competitive, is a gain of three seats. Democrats would be happy with a net loss of one.
In the gubernatorial races, Democrats currently hold six governorships that are up this year (Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland) and Republicans three (Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut). According to the Cook Political Report, all but two of these nine gubernatorial races are currently tossups, with Democrats heavily favored to hold onto New York and Pennsylvania being rated “lean Republican.” Polling shows Republicans leading in Maine as well as Pennsylvania, and Democrats leading in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maryland; Vermont appears to be very close. The range of possible outcomes is very broad, but in gubernatorial races, the northeast appears to rival the West as the most promising Democratic region, in no small part because Dems are likely to pick up some Republican seats.
In House races, New York and Pennsylvania seats make the northeast a potential source of major Republican gains. Two New York and four Pennsylvania Democrats are in races considered toss-ups by Cook; four more New York districts and another in Pennsylvania are rated “lean Democratic,” vulnerable to a last-minute pro-GOP wave. Both New Hampshire seats, now held by Democrats, are also tossups, along with an open seat in West Virginia and Frank Kratovil`s seat in Maryland. The region does include a rare probable Democratic House pickup, in Delaware. In general, the Northeast is the region where the size and scope of Republican House gains will most be determined.
Photo credit: Peter Miller
Tags: 538.com, Blumenthal, California, Campaigns and elections, chuck schumer, Connecticut, Cook Political Report, Coons, Delaware, Frank Kratovil, Gallup, Gillibrand, governorships, illegal immigrant, Kelly Ayotte, lean Democratic, lean Republican, linda McMahon, Maine, Manchin, Maryland, Massachusetts, Meg Whitman, Nate Silver, New Hampshire, New York, Northeast, Pat Leahy, Paul Hodes, Pennsylvania, Politics and politicians, pro-Democratic, Raese, Rhode Island, Toomey, tossups, Vermont, West Virginia
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Tuesday, September 28th, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
With five weeks to go until Election Day, the national political environment seems to have stabilized enough to conduct some regional analysis of what’s likely to happen on November 2. Let’s start today with the West, where highly competitive gubernatorial and Senate contests are occurring in at least seven states.
Much of the Pacific Coast seems relatively impervious to the Tea Party movement. In California, hard-core conservative activist Chuck DeVore finished a relatively poor third in the Republican Senate primary, and gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner, who tried to run to the right of Meg Whitman, was beaten badly. Conservatives could not even mount a strong challenge to the much-derided RINO, Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado. In Washington state, another TP favorite, former pro football player Clint Didier, barely broke double figure percentages in a Senate Republican primary challenge to Dino Rossi. And in the same state, one of the more moderate new House candidates in the country, Jaime Herrera, won her primary easily. Alaska, of course, is the exception on the coast, since its long-powerful conservative movement knocked off Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who is now running as a write-in candidate in the general election.
In any event, Republicans have at best mixed prospects for major gains on the Pacific coast. In CA, recent polls have given Barbara Boxer a significant lead over Carly Fiorina for the Senate seat, and despite Meg Whitman’s unprecedented spending, Jerry Brown is at worst tied with her as he begins his own media campaign in the governor’s race. Republicans have a realistic shot at just one Democratic House seat in California, and Democrats are sure to hang onto control of both chambers in the state legislature.
In Washington state, Patty Murray appears to be opening up a modest but consistent lead over Rossi, who led her in some early polls. While Herrera has a good shot at picking up an open Democratic House seat, only one incumbent Democrat, Rick Hansen, seems to be in jeopardy. In Oregon, former Gov. John Kitzhaber is in a close race with Republican Chris Dudley for the governorship.
In Hawaii, Democrats have a better than even chance of flipping control of the governorship, with former congressman Neil Abercrombie a solid favorite over Lt. Gov. Duke Aoina, and of retaking Abercrombie’s House seat, which was lost in a special election earlier this year thanks to multiple Democratic candidates.
In Alaska, Democratic Senate candidate Scott McAdams remains underfunded and little-known; his fate almost certainly depends on the viability of Murkowski’s write-in campaign down the stretch.
Moving eastward from the Pacific, Colorado is another hotly disputed state. Tea Party favorite Ken Buck has been leading Sen. Michael Bennet in early general election polls, but this race is likely to tighten up. John Hickenlooper is almost certain to hold the governorship for Democrats thanks to the conservative split between Republican nominee Don Maes and former congressman Tom Tancredo, who is running on the Constitution Party ballot. Republicans think they have a shot at taking two Democratic House seats, though their best chance is against freshman congresswoman Betsy Markey. Turning south to New Mexico, Republican gubernatorial candidate Susana Martinez has recently taken a steady lead in the polls against Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, who once looked invincible, and two Democratic House members, Harry Teague and Martin Heinrich, in some peril. In Arizona, Sen. John McCain and Gov. Jan Brewer look safe to hold onto their seats for the GOP, and though Republicans have visions of picking up as many as three House seats, all three Democrats—Gabby Giffords, Anne Kirkpatrick and Harry Mitchell, are in reasonably strong condition.
Finally, in Nevada, one of the top national races looks almost certain to go right down to the wire, with Sen. Harry Reid and Tea Party champion Sharron Angle running neck and neck in virtually every post-primary poll. Reid would probably be doomed against any other Republican opponent, but Angle’s long history of eccentric issue positions has given him a new lease on life.
All in all, the West could prove to be a national bellwether. A true Republican tsunami in the region could produce a net gain of four Senate seats (Washington, California, Colorado and Nevada), two governorships (Oregon and New Mexico), and nine House seats. On the other hand, a stronger-than-expected Democratic performance could keep Republicans from gaining any net Senate seats, and could actually give Democrats a net gain of one gubernatorial seat (Wyoming looks to be a certain Republican gubernatorial pickup, but that could be offset by a Jerry Brown win in California and an Abercrombie win in Hawaii). None of the Western House races in which Republicans now look strong is a slam-dunk.
One regional factor that use to bedevil strategists is now of declining importance: the hope or fear that early returns from the eastern and central times zones could influence final turnout in very close races. That’s because voting by mail is increasingly important in the West, with all ballots in OR and WA; most in Colorado; and over half in California, now being cast by mail. The dominance of voting by mail will also significantly limit the impact of very late campaign activity in many states. If Meg Whitman’s going to hit her target of spending $150 million in personal funds in the CA gubernatorial race, she’ll probably hit it well before November 2.
Photo credit: Michael R. Swigart
Arizona
Tags: Abel Maldonado, Alaska, Anne Kirkpatrick, Arizona, Barbara Boxer, Betsy Markey, California, Campaigns and elections, Carly Fiorina, Chris Dudley, Chuck DeVore, Clint Didier, Colorado, conservatives, Constitution Party, Diane Denish, Dino Rossi, Don Maes, Duke Aoina, Election Day, Gabby Giffords, GOP, Harry Mitchell, Harry Reid, Harry Teague, Hawaii, Jaime Herrera, Jan Brewer, Jerry Brown, John Hickenlooper, John Kitzhaber, John McCain, Ken Buck, Lisa Murkowski, Martin Heinrich, Meg Whitman, Michael Bennet, Mid-Term Elections, moderate, Neil Abercrombie, Nevada, New Mexico, November 2, Oregon, Pacific Coast, Patty Murray, Republican Party, Republican Senate primary, Republican tsunami, Rick Hansen, RINO, Scott McAdams, Sharron Angle, Steve Poizner, Susana Martinez, Tea Party, Tom Tancredo, Washington state, Wyoming
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Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
Mark Reutter
PPI Fellow Mark Reutter is the former editor of
Railroad History and author of
Making Steel: Sparrows Point and the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might (2005, rev. ed.).
by Mark Reutter
A report in the Wall Street Journal that freight railroads are balking at sharing their tracks with high-speed passenger trains highlights a long-standing dispute that threatens to stall the progress of high-speed rail. It’s an issue that needs to be resolved, and resolved soon.
The railroads fear that the high-speed program will hamstring freight operations at the very time when freight traffic is undergoing a renaissance and track capacity on many mainlines is limited.
While some of the posturing by the railroads has bordered on “public-be-damned” insolence, the bottom line is that they are right. Fast passenger trains are not compatible with slow freight trains on the same track. They have different track dynamics, different acceleration and braking ratios, and different weight characteristics.
What’s more, even if freight trains were banished from some routes, the existing rail plant, with its sharp curves, meandering river routes and tight clearances, is incompatible with high-speed (more than 150 mph) train service.
As PPI pointed out last January, the reality is that if we are going to get serious about high-speed rail, we need new, dedicated lines. We can learn from elsewhere: High-speed lines developed overseas all require a self-contained right of way free from interfering traffic.
Yet only California and Florida have proposed construction of dedicated new lines that would allow true high speeds; the other 31 projects awarded federal stimulus money involve upgrades of existing rail infrastructure.
The freight railroads – which own 99 percent of America’s 140,000 miles of line – are mindful of a potential backlash if they walk away from “stakeholder agreements” negotiated with state transportation officials to facilitate federal stimulus spending. But public promises of cooperation that mask private bickering and lengthy delays are a poor way to get the administration’s ambitious rail program up and running.
Amtrak’s Troubled History
This clash should come as no surprise. We already know from 40 years of Amtrak that sharing lines does not work well. Freight railroad executives have complained that passenger trains disrupt operating practices, delay freight traffic, and present safety risks. And from Amtrak’s perspective, a government report found that poor performance by freight railroads, including sidelining passenger trains to let freight trains pass, was a major cause of late-arriving Amtrak trains.
A clash became almost inevitable last May when the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) issued guidelines that included penalties for railways failing to meet performance standards dependent on improved speeds for future passenger traffic.
Freight rail executives were stunned by what they perceived as federal interference with their private property, according to transportation analyst Ken Orski. Although Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood tried to paper over the uproar by saying the FRA would be flexible, the die was cast as rail executives reconsidered the worth of cooperating with Washington.
So far, friction between railroad and government has taken place mostly on the state level, where railroads are negotiating the stakeholder agreements with state transportation officials needed to release federal stimulus funds.
But slow progress on these agreements means that FRA has distributed just $597 million of $8 billion in stimulus funds awarded in January to jumpstart the high-speed program, the Journal reported. Even when states and freight railroads have signed agreements, disputes remain over the speeds at which future passenger trains will be allowed to run.
For the most part, the freight rail industry wants upgraded service at no more than 90 mph. That’s less than half the speed trains travel in Europe and China and only marginally faster than the present 79 mph limit.
Seeking a Solution
Surely there’s a better way to untangle this problem. One approach would be for the rail industry to come clean. Through the Association of American Railroads, the industry could announce its support of dedicated passenger lines as a better use of public investment and throw its lobbying clout to achieve that end in Congress.
What’s more, the industry could back up its words by offering capital to facilitate construction of at least a demonstration line. After all, the American railroad wasn’t built by faint-hearted entrepreneurs who followed existing rights of way, which in the 19th century were old Indian trails. It was built by those who lit out for the new territory.
Photo credit: David Sherret
Tags: Amtrak, Association of American Railroads, California, demonstration line, Federal Railroad Administration, Florida, FRA, freight railroads, high-speed passenger trains, high-speed rail, Indian trails, Journal, Ken Orski, late-arriving Amtrak trains, Obama’s Rail Plans, passenger traffic, performance standards, PPI, rail infrastructure, rail plant, Ray LaHood, safety risks, Secretary of Transportation, track dynamics, Transportation, Wall Street Journal
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