History's Tea Leaves Point to Bush's Reelection
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 18, 2003; Page A23
More than 2,500 casualties in Iraq. Some 2.5 million jobs lost. Nearly half a trillion dollars in federal budget deficits.
And George W. Bush could still be a solid bet to win reelection next year.
The day-to-day news about violence in Iraq and lingering economic worries at home obscure a fundamental reality about next year's election: Historically speaking, it should belong to President Bush. Since the presidential primary system became influential in 1952, an incumbent president has never lost a reelection bid if he did not face significant opposition in the primaries.
This is no nugget of political trivia. Political strategists and historians say an incumbent president's lack of primary opposition is a measure of how much support he has from his base of core supporters -- and therefore how much leeway he has in appealing to the political center, the key to general election victory. Of course, historical patterns do not always repeat themselves, but Bush's strength among his base means the Democrats will have extraordinary difficulty dislodging him from office.
The pattern has repeated itself perfectly. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton all ran for reelection without major challenges from within their own parties -- and all easily won second terms. Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush faced primary challenges while seeking reelection -- and all were ousted in the general election.
Bush appears to be comfortably in the former category. "The biggest thing he's got going for him is near-unanimous support from his base," said Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego. Jacobson said that is a main reason the election "is his to lose."
"He's not unbeatable, but he's in pretty solid shape," Jacobson said.
Princeton University presidential scholar Fred I. Greenstein concurred that the lack of primary opposition is an important determinant. "It's a pretty good indicator of whether the president has his own shop in order," Greenstein said. "One of the geniuses of this administration and of Bush's whole career is he manages to have general appeal without seeming to antagonize the base."
Bush's campaign strategists, while predicting a close outcome next year, agree that the lack of a primary opponent is a significant source of strength for the president, allowing him unchallenged access to GOP donors and unrivaled freedom to embrace swing voters. "The president's views and swing voters' views are much more aligned" than the Democrats are with such voters, said Matthew Dowd, a campaign strategist.
Democrats, by contrast, are vying with one another to appeal to their party's core supporters, far from the voters who usually decide election victories. "They're basically making a choice today that is going to cause them significant trouble in achieving a majority of the electorate," Dowd said.
A review of opinion polls shows that the absence of primary opposition is closely correlated to an incumbent president's standing among partisans. At the moment, Bush enjoys the support of 87 percent of those who identify themselves as Republicans. That puts him in the company of two-termers such as Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and Clinton, and safely away from failures such as Ford, Carter and the first Bush.
William Mayer, a professor at Northeastern University, calculated from Gallup polling data that incumbent presidents with more than 80 percent support in their party a month before the first primary (Reagan had 91 percent, Clinton 83 percent and Nixon 81 percent) were essentially uncontested whereas those below 80 (Bush at 72 percent, Carter at 67 percent and Ford at 63 percent) had a more difficult time.
Although it is difficult to tell whether a president's popularity discourages primary challenges or a lack of challengers increases his popularity, Mayer said, this much is clear: "The odds would certainly favor Bush's reelection." With neither the economy nor Iraq registering as a major problem, "if it continues this way, it will be extraordinarily difficult for Democrats to beat him -- and I'm not sure they realize that yet."
History, of course, never repeats itself precisely, and unknown factors -- new terrorist attacks, a shock to the economy or continued deterioration of security in Iraq -- could yet overpower historical trends. And even Bush's boosters hasten to point out that the country remains evenly divided politically. "We think this election's going to be decided within four or five points," Dowd said. "Getting 50 percent of the vote, to be honest, would be significant because it hasn't happened since 1988 for either side."
That said, Bush advisers believe his strength with his core supporters gives him a huge advantage over his Democratic opponents. "Democrats running for president appear to have made the decision that they can't appeal to their base and ticket-splitting swing voters," said Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager.
This, in turn, has strengthened the Republican electoral hold from the evenly split 2000 race. Mehlman points out that Republicans have made gains both in their own "red" southern and border states, with gubernatorial wins this year in Mississippi and Kentucky, and in Democratic "blue" states of the coasts, with a GOP win in the California governor's race and continued control of New York's governorship and mayoralty. "You have red states that are getting redder and blue states that are becoming purple," he said.
Mehlman and Dowd point to a range of favorable indicators: Democratic weakness in Florida, an approval rating for Bush that is consistently above 50 percent, Bush's popularity among young voters and a much-improved Republican get-out-the-vote operation.
Democrats, naturally, dispute these indicators. But neither side can deny that history has been kind to presidents who have unified parties -- a point Bush's main political thinker, Karl Rove, observed long ago. "That was one of Karl's primary things: Avoid a primary challenge at all cost," said Charlie Cook, a political handicapper. "Not being forced to do things to curry favor with your base before an election is very important. It means they're not distracted, and they can single-mindedly focus on the other team."
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