Republicans and Democrats: A Tale of Two Bases
By Michael Barone
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
On Capitol Hill, Democrats are much more beholden to their base than are Republicans.
Our representative government is also an electoral democracy, and the actions and decisions of elected representatives usually have some relationship to the districts which have elected them and which, in most cases, they hope will re-elect them. Much of the analysis of the relationship between members of the House of Representatives and their districts focuses on marginal districts and politically vulnerable members, who in some situations cast decisive votes on legislation. But results in the House are more often determined by the leadership of the majority party, which controls the House Rules Committee and thus which measures and amendments come to the floor. And the decisions of the leadership of the majority party can be affected by the decisions of the leadership of the minority, which can adopt the accommodationist posture associated with Robert Michel, the House minority leader from the 1980 to 1994 elections, or the more confrontational posture adopted by Nancy Pelosi, the current Speaker, when she was minority leader between the 2002 and 2006 elections.
Party leaders typically come from districts that are safe for their parties; this enables them to accumulate seniority and concentrate on rising in the leadership hierarchy or in committees, rather than on tending to local constituency matters and adjusting their voting records to local proclivities, as those with marginal districts often do. It is exceedingly rare to see a leader defeated for re-election in his own district, as Speaker Thomas Foley was in 1994; the last incumbent speaker defeated was William Pennington in 1860. But even safe constituencies have some effect on party leaders. Such constituencies tend to affect leaders' views on national issues, even if they remain aware that their districts are unusual, and opposition in party primaries, while unusual, is always possible. The current Ways and Means chairman, Charles Rangel, won his seat in 1970 by defeating former Education and Labor Chairman Adam Clayton Powell in the Democratic primary.
To understand the workings of the House, and to understand particularly the political situations facing House leaders, it is worth analyzing safe districts, those that support the presidential candidates of one party by wide margins. So it is useful to look at the districts that voted 60 percent or more for Barack Obama and those that voted 39 percent or less for him in November 2008, with a view toward delineating the constituencies that tended to produce House leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties in the 111th Congress.
Currently there are 256 Democrats in the House of Representatives (with one vacancy in a heavily Democratic seat) and 178 Republicans. In November 2008, Barack Obama carried 242 congressional districts and John McCain carried 193. Republicans were elected to the House in 34 Obama districts; Democrats were elected to the House in 49 McCain districts.
Although Obama won 53 percent of the popular vote, more than the 51 percent George W. Bush won in 2004, Obama carried fewer congressional districts—242 to Bush’s 255. Some will ascribe this to partisan districting plans, and Republicans did have the edge in partisan districting in the 2000 census cycle. They dominated the redistricting process in Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Texas; Democrats passed highly partisan redistricting plans only in Georgia (which were overturned) and Maryland. The redistricting process was bipartisan in other large states with many districts in play, including California, New York, Illinois, and Ohio.
But partisan districting does not explain the result, because some districts designed to elect Republicans moved enough toward the Democrats in 2006 and 2008 for Obama to carry. The main reason Obama carried fewer districts than Bush is because many districts are overwhelmingly Democratic, while few or none are overwhelmingly Republican. Obama carried 28 districts with 80 percent or more of the vote; John McCain did not get 80 percent in any district. Similarly in 2004, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry carried 22 districts with 80 percent or more of the vote, and Bush carried none.
The makeup and dynamics of the House of Representatives are affected not only by the political realities facing members in marginal districts, but also the political realities facing those with very safe seats, since they tend to have greater seniority and to occupy leadership positions. If we sort the districts by the percentage of Obama vote, we find 69 districts in which Obama received 70 percent or more of the vote (rounded off) and another 66 districts in which Obama received between 60 percent and 69 percent of the vote. There were only 11 districts in which Obama received between 20 percent and 29 percent of the vote and another 60 districts in which Obama received between 30 percent and 39 percent of the vote.
Almost all the heavily pro-Obama districts elected Democratic congressmen, while nearly one-fifth of the heavily anti-Obama districts also elected Democrats. Only two of the 135 districts in which Obama got 60 percent or more of the vote have a Republican congressman—Louisiana 2, in which Republican Joseph Cao won the seat held by the disgraced Rep. William Jefferson, and Illinois 10, represented by Mark Kirk, who is running for the Senate in 2010. In contrast, 12 of the 71 districts in which Obama got 39 percent or less of the vote have Democratic congressmen, some of them long-serving members such as Ike Skelton of Missouri 4 and Gene Taylor of Mississippi 4, and some of them newly elected members like Bobby Bright of Alabama 2 and Travis Childers of Mississippi 1, who benefited from robust black turnout in November 2008. In other words, there are 134 Democrats—more than half the Democratic Caucus—from strong Obama districts and only 59 Republicans—about one-third of the Republican Conference—from strong McCain districts.
What kind of voters predominate in these heavily pro-Obama and anti-Obama districts?
Democrats. I have attempted to characterize the heavily pro-Obama districts as dominated by voters who are black, Hispanic, white working-class, ethnic, Asian (the two Hawaii districts), or gentry liberal. I have borrowed that last term from Joel Kotkin of Chapman University and the New Geography blog—it refers to relatively high income liberal voters such as those who predominate, to take two well-known examples, in the Upper West Side of Manhattan and the West Side of Los Angeles. I have used my judgment rather than some statistical formula for characterizing each district, and reasonable people will differ in some cases, but I think the overall picture of heavily pro-Obama districts is accurate. The following table shows the distribution of districts that voted 70 percent or more for Obama and those which voted between 60 percent and 69 percent for Obama. I list the districts in each category at the end of this article, so you can revise these numbers if you disagree with my characterizations.
The main reason Obama carried fewer districts than Bush is because many districts are overwhelmingly Democratic, while few or none are overwhelmingly Republican.
In fact, a preponderance of the House Democratic leadership are elected from gentry liberal districts. Representatives of such districts include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (who might argue that his district belongs in the working/ethnic category; I think it’s a close call), Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman, and Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank. Representatives of black districts include Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Edolphus Towns, Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, and Majority Whip James Clyburn. Representatives of working-class/ethnic districts include serious subcommittee chairmen such as Edward Markey and Sander Levin and ousted Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell, but only one committee chairman, Rules Chairman Louise Slaughter. Representatives of Hispanic districts include Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes (whom Pelosi installed in preference to Jane Harman, who represents a gentry liberal district) and Small Business Chairman Nydia Velazquez.1
Republicans. As you might expect, none of the districts where Obama got less than 40 percent of the vote resemble those in which he got 60 percent or more of the vote. Also, 13 of the 71 districts in which Obama got 39 percent or less are represented by Democrats. I have categorized these districts as Rural South, Suburban South, Rural North, and Suburban North, and I expect that few will disagree with my characterizations. I have characterized the three Missouri districts as Southern, even though Missouri is usually considered a Midwestern state; these are Southern-accented, culturally Southern territory. The Republican, or at least the anti-Obama base, is heavily Southern and rural: 57 of these 71 districts are Southern; 51 of the 71 are rural and small-town rather than suburban in character.
Here are the overall numbers and the numbers represented by Republicans and Democrats.
The Republican base in the House is thus tilted heavily to the rural South, but note that these heavily anti-Obama districts represented by Republicans account for only 58 of the 178 House Republicans (33 percent). Historically, of course, the rural South was anything but the base of the Republican Party, just as blacks, Hispanics, and gentry liberals were historically anything but the base of the Democratic Party. But today this current-but-not-historic base amounts to a smaller proportion of the House Republican Conference than of the House Democratic Caucus: Southern Republicans from 39 percent or less pro-Obama districts account for 45 of the 178 House Republicans (25 percent), while black, Hispanic, and gentry liberals from 60 percent or more pro-Obama districts account for 108 of the 256 House Democrats (42 percent). House Republicans are more likely to come from districts that were, at least in the 2008 presidential election, relatively marginal, 40 percent to 59 percent pro-Obama, than those which were lopsidedly in favor of their party’s presidential candidate. Thus, House Republicans are not as heavily dominated by their party base as House Democrats.
The historic Republican Party base, in the Yankee diaspora areas running from New England through upstate New York and the Great Lakes, is almost entirely absent from this list of heavily anti-Obama districts, which include only three districts north of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Mississippi (PA-9, OH-4, OH-8). Similarly, the historic Democratic Party base, in the Deep and Border South and in working-class/ethnic districts, is only lightly represented in the list of heavily Obama districts.
This is reflected in the relatively small number of holders of top leadership or ranking majority members from these districts. Representatives from these districts include Minority Leader John Boehner, Financial Services Committee ranking member Spencer Bachus, and Science and Technology ranking member Ralph Hall, both from suburban districts, but no other ranking members. They also include former party Whip Roy Blunt, who is running for the Senate, former Resources and Transportation Chairman Don Young, and two current Democratic committee chairmen, Ike Skelton of Armed Services and Bart Gordon of Science and Technology.
The political character of heavily Democratic and Republican constituencies in the early 21st century is substantially different from those prevailing for most of the 20th century. House Democratic leaders for most of the last century tended to come from the South or from working-class/ethnic districts in big cities, as is suggested by the succession of Democratic party leaders for the half-century from 1936 to 1989: William Bankhead (AL-7), Sam Rayburn (TX-4), John McCormack (MA-9), Carl Albert (OK-3), and Thomas O’Neill (MA-8). The territory represented by Bankhead, Rayburn, and Albert voted heavily against Barack Obama in 2008; the territory represented by McCormack and O’Neill voted heavily in his favor. Similarly, the House Republican leaders (with one exception) during this period came from the North, and more specifically from the lands of the New England diaspora, settled by New England Yankees or their descendants before the Civil War, and the bedrock of the Republican Party during the Civil War and for a century afterwards: Joseph Martin Jr. (MA-14 and MA-10), Charles Halleck (IN-2), Gerald Ford (MI-5), John Rhodes (AZ-1), and Robert Michel (IL-18).
The constituencies of party leaders today are quite different. Democratic leaders tend to be elected most often from gentry liberal constituencies, some of them historically Republican (much of Nancy Pelosi’s CA-8 elected a Republican congressman from 1952 to 1972 and much of Barney Frank’s MA-4 was once represented by Republican Speaker Joseph Martin). A large number also are elected from predominantly black districts, with only about half as many elected from Hispanic and working-class/ethnic districts. This results in a Democratic leadership that tends to represent urban or urban-minded districts, some of them decidedly upscale and very liberal on cultural issues, some of them lower-income and while very liberal on some cultural issues (racial quotas and preferences) decidedly less so on others (same-sex marriage, an issue the Democratic House has not brought up).
Heavily Republican districts are concentrated in the rural and suburban South. But a significant number of these rural South districts elected Democrats—not as many as did before the 1994 election, but more than during the period of House Republican majorities from 1994 to 2006. As a result, they do not produce as large a share of Republican leaders as the gentry liberal and black districts do for the Democrats. Neither do the suburban South districts—many newly created after the 1990 and 2000 censuses because of rapid population growth—whose members tend not to have great seniority. But such districts did produce earlier Republican leaders, including Speaker Newt Gingrich (first elected in 1978 when GA-6 was a rural South district) and Majority Leaders Dick Armey (TX-24) and Tom DeLay (TX-22). The current Republican leadership thus has reason to focus less on the political realities of heavily anti-Obama districts and more on districts that in the 2008 presidential election were more marginal. That tendency is probably increased by awareness of the party’s current minority status, which gives them an incentive to appeal to voters in districts not currently represented by Republicans.
These constituency realities may help to explain why the House Democratic leadership has supported a solidly liberal agenda and has concentrated on whipping enough members from marginal districts to produce majorities on the floor—the large majority on the stimulus package in February or the narrow majority on cap-and-trade in June. It may also help to explain why the Republican minority has not coalesced around any coherent opposition program, and has avoided taking stands that appeal primarily to the party’s current base.
Michael Barone is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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