Realignment (Continued)
BARNES, FRED
Realignment (Continued) More good news for Republicans in the South. BY FRED BARNES REALIGNING ELECTIONS don't occur in odd-numbered years like 2003. Nor do such elections provide foolproof signs...
...Democrats remain strong in urban areas, the Northeast, much of the West Coast, and college towns...
...The best new evidence of realignment comes from the Pew Research Center for The People and The Press, which has polled in virtually every state...
...in Mississippi, no Republican had ever won a down-ticket office without first being elected as a Democrat and then switching parties...
...Democrats, by the way, hold both houses in the Mississippi legislature and Barbour is only the second Republican governor since the 19th century...
...They reinforced the current political realignment that favors Republicans...
...Now it has one, Fletcher...
...in Mississippi, Democrats didn't directly target Bush, but they criticized Republican Haley Barbour as a Washington lobbyist out of sync with local concerns...
...But nationally, they're losing ground...
...But Republicans gained among Latinos, shrinking the Democrats' traditional advantage from 22 points to 14 points...
...in the counties of KenFred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...It's the next-to-last thing to reflect a change in voter sentiment...
...What's the very last thing to change...
...But the anti-NAFTA theme fizzled in Mississippi against Barbour, who, like Bush, supports the trade agreement...
...Sure, Bush won Kentucky in 2000, but perhaps Locke forgot that Bill Clinton captured the state in 1992 and 1996 without much trouble...
...And it's a state that until last week hadn't elected a Republican governor in 32 years...
...it may be small potatoes, but voter turnout was linked to Bush's campaign stops...
...one test of realignment is how a party fares in down-ticket statewide races, those below the governor's level...
...Nor do such elections provide foolproof signs of what's coming the next year—in this case, in the 2004 presidential and congressional races...
...The center's numbers, packaged in a report on the "2004 Political Landscape," show remarkable Republican gains nearly everywhere and particularly since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001...
...Millions of Democrats vote Republican without bothering to change their registration...
...Last week's election shows it's permanent...
...Until last week, not one Republican had been elected to statewide office in Kentucky, below the governorship, in modern times...
...Republicans now have governors in 29 states, including the four most populous (California, Texas, New York, and Florida...
...Democrats tried to downplay the losses...
...Now, remember the definition of a realignment...
...These party identification numbers should alarm Democrats for two reasons...
...That tack failed...
...And newly assembled polling data further substantiate a major Republican trend...
...Warner declared last week's legislative election—covering all 140 seats—to be "good" for Democrats...
...Still, Republicans won more votes statewide in New Jersey than Democrats...
...Democrats zeroed in on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for causing jobs to leave Mississippi...
...They've also gained 9 points in Michigan and 5 points in California, states Al Gore won handily, and 15 points in Arkansas and 6 points in Florida, both of which Bush won...
...Overall, Pew found that Republicans had picked up 5 points in swing states, 4 points in Republican states, and 3 points in Democratic states...
...Philadelphia and New Jersey tell a different story...
...These races measure whether a party is sinking deep political roots...
...Good in this case describes two Democratic pickups in the state assembly and the loss of one state senate seat...
...After more than a century in the wilderness, Republicans took control in Virginia in the late 1990s...
...But second, party ID is a lagging indicator...
...The draw in the Virginia legislative elections also buttressed the realignment...
...in one Kentucky county where Bush spoke, turnout soared 252 percent, and the number of votes received by Republican Ernie Fletcher equaled twice the total number of votes cast in 1991...
...Though not predictive, last week's results were more encouraging for President Bush than not...
...That's a Republican state...
...Not quite, but it is a state that's realigning in a Republican direction...
...it's a fully realigned state with only Democratic governor Mark Warner to limit Republican hegemony...
...Voter registration...
...Realignment, of course, isn't a juggernaut that lifts one party and obliterates the other...
...This is true of Lt...
...Democrats sought to make his economic policy the overriding issue in Kentucky...
...What about Virginia...
...Democratic presidential candidates and congressmen, too, have been castigating NAFTA...
...In the counties where Bush made appearances, turnout rose dramatically and the Republican candidate for governor benefited...
...Philly mayor John Street, a Democrat, was reelected, and Democrats won full control of the New Jersey legislature...
...Take the five swing states President Bush lost narrowly in 2000...
...tucky and Mississippi where Bush made appearances, turnout rose dramatically and the Republican candidate for governor benefited...
...Republicans retained overwhelming control of the legislature...
...Last week, however, Tate Reeves was elected state treasurer as a Republican...
...Now Kentucky has Republicans in the offices of lieutenant governor, secretary of state, and agriculture commissioner (the aptly named Richie Farmer...
...In other words, more Democrats are voting for Republican candidates, but haven't changed their party affiliation...
...Just look at Kentucky, where the 14-point Democratic edge in voter registration did Democrats no good last week...
...Barbour embraced the label and said he could get more out of Republican-controlled Washington than Democratic governor Ronnie Musgrove...
...But Republican victories in the governors' races in Mississippi and Kentucky were significant...
...Whatever this means, it's not bad news for Bush...
...First, they're bad by themselves...
...Amy Tuck, reelected as a Republican though initially elected as a Democrat...
...it's when there's a sudden transformation or breakthrough that becomes permanent...
...Since 9/11, Republicans have gained 12 percentage points among voters who identify with them in Iowa, 8 points in Minnesota, 6 points in New Mexico, 5 points in Wisconsin, and 2 points in Oregon...
...But Democrats control the lower house of the state legislature (65 to 35) and have a 14 percentage-point advantage in voter registration...
...Several important states, however, did see Republican losses: Ohio (-1 point), New York (-2), North Carolina (-5), and New Hampshire (-2...
...They lost seats because of Democratic gerrymandering...
...statewide turnout in Kentucky was up 50 percent over the last governor's race in 1999 and up 15 percent in Mississippi...
...Governor Gary Locke of Washington, speaking for the Democratic National Committee, dismissed the defeats as routine for "Republican states...
Vol. 9 • November 2003 • No. 10
