Nov. 9, 2006 - Democrats may be celebrating their sweep of both the House and the Senate, but they shouldn't rest too comfortably in their new committee chairs. The exit polling data indicates that much of their election edge came from independents and swing voters who could very well swing back again if they're disappointed by Democratic policies. And while public opinion has moved left on the war in Iraq, most of the country is still divided and voted along staunchly partisan lines according to Gary C. Jacobson, professor of political science at University of California, San Diego and an expert on congressional elections. NEWSWEEK's Susanna Schrobsdorff spoke to Professor Jacobson about why there has not been a fundamental change in the American electorate, despite the Democrats' historic wins. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: The Democrats have retaken both houses of Congress. How similar is this election to 1994, when the Republicans turned the tables on the Democrats?

Gary Jacobson: This was a national referendum, just as 1994 was a national referendum. They were both elections where you had one party in charge of all the major institutions and that gives people a very clear target if they are unhappy. They used their vote to express their feelings about national politics and issues-primarily dissatisfaction with the war and the policies of the Bush administration. There was general discontent with all things Republican.

Does the Democrats' victory indicate a nationwide shift to the left?
There was a national trend towards the Democrats, but this election doesn't portend any fundamental reordering of people's political preferences. It's much more of a short-term reaction to a current administration and a current set of policies. There are a still a lot of partisans who vote that way down the line. Democrats and Republicans each voted with their party by margins of 90 percent or more.  The real difference was the independents and moderates. They went strongly Democratic by more than 55 percent. About 22 percent of voters call themselves independent, and of those, only 5 or 6 percent are truly independent, the others lean toward one party or another but are persuadable.

Was there any demographic group, other than independents, that helped tip the election for the Democrats?
It was more of an accumulation of small shifts of a few points that added up to a larger trend, rather than one group. If Democrats did a few points better among white men, or late-deciders, it helps, but you can't say any one of those groups was decisive. Democrats were a little more loyal, and Republicans slightly less loyal, which contributed, but Independents and moderates were the key.

Were Independents decisive in the highly contested Senate races?
To win the Senate, Democrats needed to get six out of those seven highly contested states and it's remarkable that it looks like they only lost one. And in that one, Tennessee, [Democrat] Harold Ford Jr. didn't get enough independents. There were more Republicans than Democrats in that electorate with both Democrats and Republicans voting along party lines. So the only way Ford could win was is to get a disproportionate share of the Independents, which he didn't. He broke even. Virginia was tight in part because the advantage for Jim Webb [the Democrat] among independents wasn't huge. But these are still very closely contested states and they'll continue to be closely contested because there's a high level of party loyalty there.

What was most striking to you in the exit polling data?
The shift to the Democrats by young voters. [Democrats won 60 percent of voters aged 18-29 in 2006 while Republicans got 38 percent. In 2004 the spread was 55 to 45.] Bush and the war have been more unpopular among young people than in older people and that's a continuation of a pattern. Young voters tend to be less anchored in partisanship, they're going to be more responsive to current events rather than their party history. If you look at the 1980's and the Reagan administration, young people tended to be more Republican then because they were going along with that zeitgeist. People who came of age during the Nixon and Ford administrations are much more Democratic than those who came of age during Reagan because that's when they formed their party identity.

So the dissatisfaction with the Bush administration may have created a new generation of Democratic voters? Too bad for Karl Rove.
[laughs] Yes.

White evangelicals and born-again Christians shifted to the Democrats by about two points—72 percent voted Republican in 2004, versus 70 percent in 2006—according to initial exit polls. Is that significant?
I'd want to wait and see more complete surveys, which some of my colleagues are doing now. Apparently white evangelicals were still overwhelmingly Republican this time around, but if there was a small shift, it was part of an accumulation of small shifts among a lot groups that helped the Democrats.

The Democrats took much of the Midwest for the first time in a decade. Was that because of the economy?
Republicans clearly had trouble in Ohio and Indiana and part of that was probably economic. That region has enough economic diversity to have a partisan balance and that's why races there are always close. And in the upper Midwest where the economy isn't good, if you're running around, like the Republicans were, telling people whose jobs are disappearing that things are going great, it's not going to get you very far. The Republicans had to tread a fine line on the economy there so it was hard to exploit that advantage some of these in the key states.

Some polls indicated that Republicans only had a four-point advantage among married men compared to 2004 when they had an 18-point lead. What do you make of that?
It's interesting but it's not earth shaking. And if you consider the large margin of error in the exit polls, it's not too far from the national shift toward the Democrats.

Black voters seemed to hold steady with a large proportion going to Democrats as they did in 2004.
It was not a great year for the Republicans to expand their base. The Republican strategy of nominating conservative African Americans didn't work in the Pennsylvania and Ohio governor's races or in the Senate race in Maryland.

Was immigration a decisive issue in any of the tight races?
Interestingly, the two candidates from a border state who made immigration a central issue lost. [Rep. J.D. Hayworth in Arizona and Randy Graf in Arizona]. It was supposed to be a strong issue, but it wasn't. I was surprised by Hayworth's loss. It was a Republican district and wasn't a natural Democratic target. It does seem to indicate that that immigration is not a magic bullet for Republicans.

Did contentious ballot initiatives like the ones banning gay marriage or involving stem-cell research increase turnout or sway voters?
Only a small minority are really passionate enough about gay marriage to go out and vote based on that issue, so I don't think that made a big difference. As to stem-cell research, it goes both ways. Both parties are divided on that and the country is, too. It's a part of the ongoing cultural conflict. I think it helped the Democrats in Missouri but I don't think it was a decisive, compared to the war and overall performance of the Republicans.

Polls going into the election showed a dramatic shift to the Democrats, but the actual numbers were less dramatic. Why was that?
The national generic polls always exaggerate the Democratic advantage. If you average them out, going back to 1998, they always run about three or four points higher for the Democrats than the actual numbers. That's because Republicans usually turn out at higher rates, and you generally get an over representation of Democrats in the polls. If you averaged the pre-election polls, there was a 12-point Democratic advantage. Even if you knocked three or four points off those numbers, it was still good news for the Democrats.

Are there any clues to the 2008 winners in these results?
This election doesn't tell you much about 2008 because we don't know what the issues will be then. The Democratic takeover does raise the issue of whether they can hold on to the House next time. They'll have to win in some Republican seats that will be open and vulnerable. It will all depend on whether they are moderate and centrist or more liberal.
© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.

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