Election day's high stakes - November 1994

Nation's Business, Oct, 1994 by David Warner

The sign above the first-floor conference room in the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the National Republican Senatorial Committee reads: "Think Majority." The battle cry of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which focuses on House races, is the same.

While the Grand Old Party is given only the slightest chance of winning control of both houses of Congress this November, many experts expect Republicans to capture enough seats in both chambers on Election Day to be able to form working majorities with conservative Democrats in both houses in 1995.

All 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats will be filled Nov. 8.

Democrats currently control the House with 256 seats against the 178 held by Republicans. The single Independent member of that body generally votes with the majority. In the Senate, the Democratic margin is 56-44. To gain control of Congress, the Republicans would have to pick up 40 seats in the House and seven in the Senate.

Politicians from both parties and political pollsters and consultants generally agree that the 1994 elections are likely to produce 15 to 30 additional GOP seats in the House and three to six in the Senate.

Rep. Bill Paxon, of New York, chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee, won't forecast the number of GOP victories in House races. He's optimistic about Republicans' chances, however. "I've said from Day One, since taking over as NRCC chair, that I believe strongly that we will win the majority by '96," he says. "And there's very much a growing chance that that could happen this year."

Like Paxon, Sen. Phil Gramm, of Texas, head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, won't predict how many Senate seats he expects the GOP to gain. But he says that "everything is in place for us to win a Republican majority in the Senate."

A significant part of the basis for that optimism is the record of an individual who is not even on the ballot this year-- President Clinton.

"We are running against the record of this administration and the [Democratically controlled] Congress," says Paxon. "The public clearly is not happy with what they've seen the Democrats do. Certainly, personally, the president is not popular with many people. But it's his policies that have drawn that clear line and that clear distinction [between the parties]."

David Dixon, political directory at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, rejects the view that the election will be a referendum on Clinton or his policies. Most of politics is about local issues and local candidates, Dixon says, and the committee is happy with the candidates it has recruited and their ability tO address local issues, such as crime and economic development.

Republicans are also heartened by political developments since they lost the White House in 1992 after winning it in five of the previous six presidential elections. In a series of major victories since Clinton's election, Republicans defeated Democratic candidates in Senate races in Georgia and Texas, in gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey, and in contests for mayor in the nation's two largest clties--New York and Los Angeles. And in an election with special significance for the White House, a Republican was elected to replace the lieutenant governor of Arkansas, who had become governor when the incumbent resigned to become president of the United States.

In addition to the trend of Republican election victories and to a Clinton record that his political opponents consider a plus for them, the numbers involved in the congressional elections provide further cause for Republican expectations.

Democrats face the challenge of defending more seats, including those in districts long considered safe for the party because of the way the district lines were drawn. But the redistricting that followed the 1990 census eliminated much of that advantage and, in Paxon's words, "leveled the playing field, which was very uneven [for Republicans] for the past 10 years."

In the House, where all 435 seats--256 Democrats, 178 Republicans, one Independent--are at stake, there are 50 open seats where the incumbent is not a candidate, and Democrats must defend 30 of them. In the Senate, 22 of the 35 seats on the ballot are now held by Democrats, who must defend six of the nine open seats.

Democrats also have more first-term House members to try to re-elect than Republicans have. There are 64 freshman Democrats and 50 freshman Republicans. In addition, Democrats have only 12 House races where their candidates have drawn no Republican opposition; in comparison, there are 35 races in which GOP candidates have no Democratic opponents.

Historical precedent points to GOP gains, says Victor Kamber, a Democratic consultant and president of The Kamber Group, a public-relations and public-affairs firm in Washington. In the first election cycle after the president takes office, the president's party generally loses congressional seats. Kamber, who notes that "Ronald Reagan lost 25 seats in the House in '82," says he expects Republicans to gain 20 to 25 House seats and three or four Senate seats.