By Tim Curran
Monday, Feb. 19, 1996
© Roll Call
In just two weeks, the 1996 Congressional election season begins with Maryland's first-in-the-nation primary, and already 12 Senate seats and 41 House seats are too close to call, according to a Roll Call survey of the contests.
These battleground races will determine the fate of the GOP majorities in both chambers of Congress as Republicans enter an election cycle defending their supremacy on Capitol Hill for the first time since 1954.
While the race for the White House occupies center stage, the Congressional election season is shaping up to be as hotly contested as the historic 1994 cycle that swept the GOP to power. Republicans look as if they hold an early advantage, but strategists on both sides agree any outcome is possible come Nov. 5.
The GOP currently holds a 236-195 edge in the House (through party switches and special election defeats Democrats have already lost six House seats this Congress) and a 53-47 majority in the Senate.
According to Roll Call's survey, some 87 House races are already very competitive in 1996 -- 44 currently held by Democrats and 43 by Republicans. Of those, 41 are "toss ups," 26 "lean Republican," and 20 "lean Democratic." In the Senate, seven seats held by Democrats are "toss ups," while five GOP-held seats are in that category. Five other seats, including a Democratic vacancy in Alabama, lean to the GOP, and three seats lean to Democrats.
With those numbers as the starting point for what Republicans see as a new era of political dominance, GOP political handicappers believe they have an outside chance at winning a 60-seat, filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and are confident they can add substantially to last year's 52-seat gain in the House.
There are reasons to think they may be right.
In the Senate, eight Democratic incumbents -- including four in the Deep South, a region shaping up as the Achilles' heel of Democrats -- are retiring at the end of the 104th Congress, and Republicans have excellent opportunities to seize six of them. The bulk of Senate gains made in recent elections have come in open-seat contests, with a total of only seven incumbents falling in the last three election cycles.
In addition, at least 25 House Democrats are also heading for the exits, and Republicans will be very competitive in at least two-thirds of those open seats.
With control of both houses of Congress, the GOP has also seized the advantage in the money chase. Last year, Republican House incumbents raised an average of $246,000, while the average Democrat took in just $185,000, according to a recent Citizen Action study.
Democrats have their own facts and figures to throw around. After landslide elections, they like to point out, the trend is usually reversed in the next voting round. And while Democrats were reeling and disorganized for much of 1995, the debate over Medicare and Medicaid rallied their constituencies and raised serious doubts about GOP initiatives with many voters.
The "generic" Congressional ballot has fluctuated, standing at 42 percent Democratic, 41 percent Republican in the latest bipartisan "Battleground" survey, but Democrats enjoyed a greater edge in two other recent surveys, 52 to 43 percent in a January ABC/ Washington Post survey and 47 to 40 percent in a CBS/New York Times poll.
Democrats plan to continue their coast-to-coast campaign of demonizing Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga) in the hopes that his high negatives will rub off on some of his GOP allies.
On top of that, Republicans hold 77 House seats carried by Bill Clinton in 1992, including those held by 33 of the 73 GOP freshmen. With Clinton leading all declared challengers in current independent polls, Democrats see more reason for good cheer: In the five elections since 1948 in which a sitting president won, his party picked up an average of 27 seats.
The picture was very bleak for Senate Democrats until late 1995. They lost two seats to party-switchers, were trailing in the race to capture ex-Sen. Bob Packwood's (R) seat in Oregon, and only one GOP Senator had announced his retirement. But by the end of January, Rep. Ron Wyden (D) had surged ahead to capture Packwood's seat, and four Republican Senators abruptly called it quits, two of them presenting excellent pickup opportunities.
Regaining the Senate may be a stretch for Democrats, but a crop of recruits with the potential to augment funding for their own races with fat wallets will make them competitive in some races where they were expected to barely contend.
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