Senator Bayh's retirement announcement reminds me of a point I've made before (also here) but I think is worth making again: National swings between the two parties are amplified by politicians' natural tendency to stay put when things are going well and retire when the political climate looks stormy.
Here's the long version:
One thing I learned in econ class in 11th grade was that government policy should be counter-cyclical (spending more in recessions and cutting back in boom times), but that there’s a lot of pressure to be pro-cyclical, which will tend to exacerbate business cycles. (Except I suppose they didn’t say “exacerbate” in 11th grade.) At a personal level, too, it’s natural to spend more when we have more and cut back when we aren’t doing so well. Every now and then you hear about a “rainy day fund” but my general impression is that these are never big enough to counter the business cycle.
Political parties seem to apply a similar pro-cyclical behavior in their congressional election campaigns. Consider 2008, which was expected to be a good year for the Democrats, and so should've be the time for them to make some investments in new, young candidates. They should've encouraged lots of their incumbents to retire, because in 2008, they were set to win a lot of these districts without needing the incumbency advantage (estimated to be about 10% of the vote, i.e., enough to take you from 50% to 60%). Conversely, that was the time for the Republican Party to hold on to what it had, and to keep all their incumbents in, trying to hold out until 2010 when the pendulum might swing back in their favor. [Yes, I originally wrote this back in 2008. We could see the pendulum swing coming back then!]
But this sort of strategically-planned retirement doesn't actually occur. Actually, something like 30 Republican House members retired in 2008. Republicans retiring, Democrats sticking around—that was a recipe for big Democratic gains that year. But then in 2010, or 2014, or whatever year it is when the Democrats get wiped out—then a bunch of their incumbents will probably retire, and boy will the Democrats wished they had put in younger incumbents back in 2008 when they had a chance!
One of the difficulties here is that I’m talking about the long-term goals of the parties, but “the parties” are, to a large extent, simply their officeholders. And congressmembers’ incentives can be much different from those of the party as a whole. In particular, it makes sense that an incumbent congressmember will want to quit in a year when he or she would be facing a tough reelection battle, and when the prize for winning is to remain in the minority. Conversely, why step down when you’re facing an easy reelection and the prospect of some juicy committee assignments? So the individual officeholders have an incentive for pro-cyclical behavior, even if it harms their party’s long-term interest.
Beyond the benefits or lack thereof to the individual parties, pro-cyclical behavior would seem to increase the size of political changes, making the swings in congressional representation larger than would be expected simply based on swings in public opinion. Actually, many political scientists would consider this a good thing (an increased “swing ratio”); my point here is that some of this swing is “endogenous” in the sense of arising from pro-cyclical decisions of individual congressmembers deciding whether to run for reelection. It would be interesting to see if this happens with state legislatures as well.
We also see this in the Senate. For example, 84-year-old Frank Lautenberg ran for reelection in New Jersey in 2008. This in a Democratic year when the Democrats might have done well with just about anybody. (Or maybe not; I don’t really follow New Jersey politics and am just extrapolating from national polls.) In 2014, they’re going to need to find someone new, and at that point they might wish they had an incumbent already in the slot.
This year, Evan Bayh and other swing-state Democrats are retiring, and this sort of pro-cyclical behavior is set to amplify the national opinion swing and make the swing in congressional seats even larger than it otherwise would be.
Showing posts with label retirements. Show all posts
Showing posts with label retirements. Show all posts
2.15.2010
Bayh, Relative to His State, Was Valuable to Democrats
@ 1:24 PM
In December, I prepared a post entitled 2009's Most Valuable Democrats, which evaluated Democratic members of the House in terms of the number of progressive votes they cast on key issues relative to a typical Representative from their district. One of the key takeaways was moderate, Blue Dog Democrats, while sometimes being among the party's least valuable members when they hail from fairly blue districts, can also be exceptionally valuable to the party if they come from more conservative districts but vote with their party on key issues.
We did not apply the Most Valuable Democrat analysis to the Senate. But Evan Bayh, rest assured, would not have been a finalist for the award. Of the 59 Senate Democrats in the current Congress, he was the 2nd most conservative after Ben Nelson, according to the DW-NOMINATE database. Nevertheless, because he comes from a fairly red state, Bayh was reasonably valuable to his party, ranking about in the middle of the pack among all Democratic Senators based on his roll call votes.
The following chart details the DW-NOMINATE scores for each current Senator, which run from -1.0 for extremely liberal to +1.0 for extremely conservative. This is compared against the Partisan Voting Index in each district based on the results of the 2004 and 2008 Presidential elections. Bayh is indicated by the yellow diamond.
The further a Democrat is above the line that runs diagonally throughout the chart, the more valuable he is to his party relative to a typical Senator from his state. This line represents the expected DW-NOMINATE score for a Senator from a state with a given PVI. The way that the line is calculated is a tiny bit complicated: I first use logistic regression to estimate the chance of a Democrat having been elected from a state with the given PVI over the course of the last four Congresses (i.e. since 2000). I then calculate the Senator's expected DW-NOMINATE score conditionally upon his being a Democrat and a Republican, respectively, and these numbers are combined together.
In Bayh's state of Indiana, for example, which has a PVI of R+5, the chance of a Democrat being elected is about 40 percent. If the Senator is a Democrat, we would expect his DW-NOMINATE score to be -.322; if he is a Republican, we would expect it to be +.389. The expected DW-NOMINATE score of a Senator from Indiana, then, is:
The positive score indicates that we'd expect a Senator from Indiana to be slightly more conservative than average. Bayh's score is -.171 instead, meaning he is slightly more liberal than average. In total, he's .274 DW-NOMINATE "points" further to the left than we'd typically expect of a Senator from Indiana. This almost exactly matches the value-added for an average Democratic Senator, which is .278 points.
Note that, conditionally upon his being a Democrat, Bayh is conservative, even relative to his fairly conservative state. Other Democrats like Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln, for instance, are slightly more liberal than Bayh, even though they hail from more conservative states. And some other red-state Democrats like Mark Begich and Jon Tester are much more liberal than him. Nevertheless, a Republican from Indiana would probably also be at least reasonably conservative, and would rarely align with the Democrats on key votes. And, without Bayh holding the seat, we'd expect a Republican to get elected in Indiana the majority of the time. On balance, then, Bayh was a decent trade-off for the Democrats. Although he is not as liberal as he could be, he had a lot of value as a placeholder in preventing a conservative Republican from being elected in his place.
The rankings for all 59 Democratic Senators are listed below; Bayh ranks 25th.
While I am reasonably fond of this metric, there are obviously reasonable ways to define a particular Senator as being valuable or not valuable to his party, other than his voting record as narrowly construed. Perhaps Bayh unhelpfully shifts the Democrats' Overton Window to the right, for instance, or perhaps he forms alliances with other Senators in such a way as to make the overall caucus more conservative. And unlike, say, in North Dakota, there is some upside to the Democrats here. Whereas it's rather unlikely that a Democrat materially more liberal than Byron Dorgan could get elected in North Dakota, Indiana is probably capable of electing a more liberal, populist Democrat than Bayh.
Nevertheless, the fact is that over time, the median voter theorem tends to prevail, and that electing someone slightly to the left of center is usually a win for the liberal party in a slightly-to-the-right-of-center jurisdiction. (Democrats may have gotten somewhat spoiled by the elections of 2006 and 2008, during which they were winning virtually every competitive seat, but that environment no longer holds.) Although Democrats have every reason to continue to fight for Indiana, the odds in the current environment are that a Republican will prevail in the race to replace Bayh and Democrats will go from having an uncertain vote for their agenda to one who almost never aligns with them.
We did not apply the Most Valuable Democrat analysis to the Senate. But Evan Bayh, rest assured, would not have been a finalist for the award. Of the 59 Senate Democrats in the current Congress, he was the 2nd most conservative after Ben Nelson, according to the DW-NOMINATE database. Nevertheless, because he comes from a fairly red state, Bayh was reasonably valuable to his party, ranking about in the middle of the pack among all Democratic Senators based on his roll call votes.
The following chart details the DW-NOMINATE scores for each current Senator, which run from -1.0 for extremely liberal to +1.0 for extremely conservative. This is compared against the Partisan Voting Index in each district based on the results of the 2004 and 2008 Presidential elections. Bayh is indicated by the yellow diamond.
The further a Democrat is above the line that runs diagonally throughout the chart, the more valuable he is to his party relative to a typical Senator from his state. This line represents the expected DW-NOMINATE score for a Senator from a state with a given PVI. The way that the line is calculated is a tiny bit complicated: I first use logistic regression to estimate the chance of a Democrat having been elected from a state with the given PVI over the course of the last four Congresses (i.e. since 2000). I then calculate the Senator's expected DW-NOMINATE score conditionally upon his being a Democrat and a Republican, respectively, and these numbers are combined together.
In Bayh's state of Indiana, for example, which has a PVI of R+5, the chance of a Democrat being elected is about 40 percent. If the Senator is a Democrat, we would expect his DW-NOMINATE score to be -.322; if he is a Republican, we would expect it to be +.389. The expected DW-NOMINATE score of a Senator from Indiana, then, is:
(40% x -.332) + (60% x +.389) = +.103The positive score indicates that we'd expect a Senator from Indiana to be slightly more conservative than average. Bayh's score is -.171 instead, meaning he is slightly more liberal than average. In total, he's .274 DW-NOMINATE "points" further to the left than we'd typically expect of a Senator from Indiana. This almost exactly matches the value-added for an average Democratic Senator, which is .278 points.
Note that, conditionally upon his being a Democrat, Bayh is conservative, even relative to his fairly conservative state. Other Democrats like Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln, for instance, are slightly more liberal than Bayh, even though they hail from more conservative states. And some other red-state Democrats like Mark Begich and Jon Tester are much more liberal than him. Nevertheless, a Republican from Indiana would probably also be at least reasonably conservative, and would rarely align with the Democrats on key votes. And, without Bayh holding the seat, we'd expect a Republican to get elected in Indiana the majority of the time. On balance, then, Bayh was a decent trade-off for the Democrats. Although he is not as liberal as he could be, he had a lot of value as a placeholder in preventing a conservative Republican from being elected in his place.
The rankings for all 59 Democratic Senators are listed below; Bayh ranks 25th.
While I am reasonably fond of this metric, there are obviously reasonable ways to define a particular Senator as being valuable or not valuable to his party, other than his voting record as narrowly construed. Perhaps Bayh unhelpfully shifts the Democrats' Overton Window to the right, for instance, or perhaps he forms alliances with other Senators in such a way as to make the overall caucus more conservative. And unlike, say, in North Dakota, there is some upside to the Democrats here. Whereas it's rather unlikely that a Democrat materially more liberal than Byron Dorgan could get elected in North Dakota, Indiana is probably capable of electing a more liberal, populist Democrat than Bayh.
Nevertheless, the fact is that over time, the median voter theorem tends to prevail, and that electing someone slightly to the left of center is usually a win for the liberal party in a slightly-to-the-right-of-center jurisdiction. (Democrats may have gotten somewhat spoiled by the elections of 2006 and 2008, during which they were winning virtually every competitive seat, but that environment no longer holds.) Although Democrats have every reason to continue to fight for Indiana, the odds in the current environment are that a Republican will prevail in the race to replace Bayh and Democrats will go from having an uncertain vote for their agenda to one who almost never aligns with them.
1.07.2010
The Retirement Paradox: What's Strategic for the Politician is Not So Good for the Party
@ 4:57 PM
One thing I learned in econ class in 11th grade was that government policy should be counter-cyclical (spending more in recessions and cutting back in boom times), but that there’s a lot of pressure to be pro-cyclical, which will tend to exacerbate business cycles. (Except I suppose they didn’t say “exacerbate” in 11th grade.) At a personal level, too, it’s natural to spend more when we have more and cut back when we aren’t doing so well. Every now and then you hear about a “rainy day fund” but my general impression is that these are never big enough to counter the business cycle.
Political parties seem to apply a similar pro-cyclical behavior in their congressional election campaigns.
Consider 2008. As expected, it was a good year for the Democrats, and so it was a logical time for them, as a party, to make some investments in new, young candidates. 2008 was the time they should've encourage lots of their incumbents to retire, because in that year they could win a lot of these districts without needing the incumbency advantage (estimated to be about 10% of the vote, i.e., enough to take you from 50% to 60%). Conversely, 2008 was the time for the Republican Party to hold on to what it had, and to keep all their incumbents in, trying to hold out until 2010 when the pendulum might swing back in their favor. But we didn’t see that—actually, something like 30 Republican House members retired in 2008. Republicans retiring, Democrats sticking around--that was a recipe for big Democratic gains. But then in 2010, or 2014, or whatever year it is when the Democrats get wiped out—then a bunch of their incumbents will probably retire, and boy will the Democrats wished they had put in younger incumbents back in 2008 when they had a chance!
This election cycle we've been seeing this happen from the other direction:
What makes sense for the individual officeholder--stay in when you think you'll have an easy win, and wait to quit when the going is getting tough--isn't so helpful for the national party.
One of the difficulties here is that I’m talking about the long-term goals of the parties, but “the parties” are, to a large extent, simply their officeholders. And congressmembers’ incentives can be much different from those of the party as a whole. In particular, it makes sense that an incumbent congressmember will want to quit in a year when he or she would be facing a tough reelection battle, and when the prize for winning is to remain in the minority. Conversely, why step down when you’re facing an easy reelection and the prospect of some juicy committee assignments? So the individual officeholders have an incentive for pro-cyclical behavior, even if it harms their party’s long-term interest.
Beyond the benefits or lack thereof to the individual parties, pro-cyclical behavior would seem to increase the size of political changes, making the swings in congressional representation larger than would be expected simply based on swings in public opinion. Actually, many political scientists would consider this a good thing (an increased “swing ratio”); my point here is that some of this swing is “endogenous” in the sense of arising from pro-cyclical decisions of individual congressmembers deciding whether to run for reelection. It would be interesting to see if this happens with state legislatures as well.
Political parties seem to apply a similar pro-cyclical behavior in their congressional election campaigns.
Consider 2008. As expected, it was a good year for the Democrats, and so it was a logical time for them, as a party, to make some investments in new, young candidates. 2008 was the time they should've encourage lots of their incumbents to retire, because in that year they could win a lot of these districts without needing the incumbency advantage (estimated to be about 10% of the vote, i.e., enough to take you from 50% to 60%). Conversely, 2008 was the time for the Republican Party to hold on to what it had, and to keep all their incumbents in, trying to hold out until 2010 when the pendulum might swing back in their favor. But we didn’t see that—actually, something like 30 Republican House members retired in 2008. Republicans retiring, Democrats sticking around--that was a recipe for big Democratic gains. But then in 2010, or 2014, or whatever year it is when the Democrats get wiped out—then a bunch of their incumbents will probably retire, and boy will the Democrats wished they had put in younger incumbents back in 2008 when they had a chance!
This election cycle we've been seeing this happen from the other direction:
Democratic Senators Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota announced this week that they would retire from their long-held seats rather than face uphill battles in this year’s midterm elections. Several House Democrats from conservative districts have said they will step down. The Democratic governor of Colorado, Bill Ritter, has made the same decision.The flip side of this was in 2008, when 84-year-old Frank Lautenberg ran for reelection in New Jersey. That was a Democratic year when the Democrats might've done well with just about anybody. (Or maybe not; I don’t really follow New Jersey politics and am just extrapolating from national polls.) When 2014 rolls around, they’re going to need to find someone new, and at that point they might wish they had an incumbent already in the slot.
What makes sense for the individual officeholder--stay in when you think you'll have an easy win, and wait to quit when the going is getting tough--isn't so helpful for the national party.
One of the difficulties here is that I’m talking about the long-term goals of the parties, but “the parties” are, to a large extent, simply their officeholders. And congressmembers’ incentives can be much different from those of the party as a whole. In particular, it makes sense that an incumbent congressmember will want to quit in a year when he or she would be facing a tough reelection battle, and when the prize for winning is to remain in the minority. Conversely, why step down when you’re facing an easy reelection and the prospect of some juicy committee assignments? So the individual officeholders have an incentive for pro-cyclical behavior, even if it harms their party’s long-term interest.
Beyond the benefits or lack thereof to the individual parties, pro-cyclical behavior would seem to increase the size of political changes, making the swings in congressional representation larger than would be expected simply based on swings in public opinion. Actually, many political scientists would consider this a good thing (an increased “swing ratio”); my point here is that some of this swing is “endogenous” in the sense of arising from pro-cyclical decisions of individual congressmembers deciding whether to run for reelection. It would be interesting to see if this happens with state legislatures as well.
1.06.2010
Dodd Joins Dorgan on Sidelines; Blumenthal Enters as Heavy Favorite
@ 9:17 AM
UPDATE: 9:39 AM EST. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal will seek Chris Dodd's seat, reports the New York Times.
As a result, Connecticut has been demoted further to 15th on our Senate race rankings. Public Policy Polling had a poll in the field this weekend, which has yet to be released but which will report that Blumenthal's entry will make the seat "uber safe" for Democrats. In addition, previous polling from Quinnipiac had found Blumenthal with exceptionally strong numbers -- a 79/13 (!) approval rating as of July -- and running well in prospective horse-race match-ups.
Original story, revised as of 9:30 AM EST. FiveThirtyEight had an early bedtime last night, and since senior Democrats are retiring at a rate of approximately one every three hours, we missed the news that Chris Dodd would also be retiring. But obviously, this news is of a vastly different character than the earlier announcement that Byron Dorgan would not seek re-election.
Dodd's problems were mostly his own, and pre-dated any issues that the Democrats were having with the national environment. I had suggested way back in April, at which time Dodd's approval ratings were already in the red, that the Democrats ought to consider primarying or Bunninging him. Although there had seemed to be some chance that Dodd's problems were mostly attributable to the AIG bonus scandal, a matter over which public anger has somewhat dissipated and for which Dodd was somewhat unfairly blamed, his approval ratings had yet to really recover and his problems now appear to be more general, stemming from a variety of controversies relating to his roles and relationships with companies tied to the financial bailout, as well as perhaps an ill-advised run for President in 2007-08 that most Connecticutians found pointless.
The remaining Democratic challenger for the moment is Merrick Alpert, who has quietly run a competent campaign but lacks experience and had only achieved 4 percent name recognition with Connecticut's voters. However, the Democrats have a deep bench in Connecticut, including attorney general Richard Blumenthal, who according to an upcoming poll by Public Policy Polling, would make the seat "uber safe" for Democrats, as well as Joe Lieberman foil Ned Lamont (who was thought likely to run for governor, but could re-consider), as well five U.S. Representatives, most notably the popular progressive Rosa DeLauro.
Any of those people, as well as possibly Alpert, would be a favorite against the Republican field, which consists of a decent-to-good candidate in former U.S. Rep Rob Simmons, as well as a number of vanity candidates who would likely be problematic nominees.
Connecticut drops, for the time being, to 12th on our Senate rankings list; it may drop another couple positions if someone like Blumenthal or DeLauro enters, and it may drop or rise depending on the performance of Martha Coakley in neighboring Massachusetts in the special election later this month.
It would be too convenient to suggest that Democrats are better off than they were 24 hours ago -- although it's somewhat close. I had thought that Democrats had a 50-60 percent chance of losing the Connecticut seat; I would now put those odds at more like 20-30 percent, pending further developments (EDIT: with Blumenthal's entry, probably more like 10-20 percent). On the other hand, while I had thought that they only had about a 20 percent chance of losing in North Dakota (much higher if John Hoeven had entered, but that was highly uncertain), those odds would now seem to be 75-80 percent or higher.
As a result, Connecticut has been demoted further to 15th on our Senate race rankings. Public Policy Polling had a poll in the field this weekend, which has yet to be released but which will report that Blumenthal's entry will make the seat "uber safe" for Democrats. In addition, previous polling from Quinnipiac had found Blumenthal with exceptionally strong numbers -- a 79/13 (!) approval rating as of July -- and running well in prospective horse-race match-ups.
Original story, revised as of 9:30 AM EST. FiveThirtyEight had an early bedtime last night, and since senior Democrats are retiring at a rate of approximately one every three hours, we missed the news that Chris Dodd would also be retiring. But obviously, this news is of a vastly different character than the earlier announcement that Byron Dorgan would not seek re-election.
Dodd's problems were mostly his own, and pre-dated any issues that the Democrats were having with the national environment. I had suggested way back in April, at which time Dodd's approval ratings were already in the red, that the Democrats ought to consider primarying or Bunninging him. Although there had seemed to be some chance that Dodd's problems were mostly attributable to the AIG bonus scandal, a matter over which public anger has somewhat dissipated and for which Dodd was somewhat unfairly blamed, his approval ratings had yet to really recover and his problems now appear to be more general, stemming from a variety of controversies relating to his roles and relationships with companies tied to the financial bailout, as well as perhaps an ill-advised run for President in 2007-08 that most Connecticutians found pointless.
The remaining Democratic challenger for the moment is Merrick Alpert, who has quietly run a competent campaign but lacks experience and had only achieved 4 percent name recognition with Connecticut's voters. However, the Democrats have a deep bench in Connecticut, including attorney general Richard Blumenthal, who according to an upcoming poll by Public Policy Polling, would make the seat "uber safe" for Democrats, as well as Joe Lieberman foil Ned Lamont (who was thought likely to run for governor, but could re-consider), as well five U.S. Representatives, most notably the popular progressive Rosa DeLauro.
Any of those people, as well as possibly Alpert, would be a favorite against the Republican field, which consists of a decent-to-good candidate in former U.S. Rep Rob Simmons, as well as a number of vanity candidates who would likely be problematic nominees.
Connecticut drops, for the time being, to 12th on our Senate rankings list; it may drop another couple positions if someone like Blumenthal or DeLauro enters, and it may drop or rise depending on the performance of Martha Coakley in neighboring Massachusetts in the special election later this month.
It would be too convenient to suggest that Democrats are better off than they were 24 hours ago -- although it's somewhat close. I had thought that Democrats had a 50-60 percent chance of losing the Connecticut seat; I would now put those odds at more like 20-30 percent, pending further developments (EDIT: with Blumenthal's entry, probably more like 10-20 percent). On the other hand, while I had thought that they only had about a 20 percent chance of losing in North Dakota (much higher if John Hoeven had entered, but that was highly uncertain), those odds would now seem to be 75-80 percent or higher.
1.05.2010
North Dakota: #1 With a Bullet
@ 6:35 PM
If I'd applied my Most Valuable Democrat methodology to the Senate rather than the House, Byron Dorgan would have been a pretty good candidate for the #1 position. Although he's not quite a rank-and-file liberal, he's more progressive than his colleague in the Senate, Kent Conrad, and way more progressive than you'd ordinarily expect of a Senator from a Prairie State, Democrat or otherwise. But today, he announced his intention to retire.
This is un-spinnably bad news for the Democrats, and North Dakota advances to the #1 position in our Senate race rankings. Perhaps this means that John Hoeven was going to challenge Dorgan for the Senate seat anyway and perhaps it doesn't. But in either case, Hoeven's entry into the Senate race would now seem likely and Democratic hopes are probably contingent upon Hoeven not running and Earl Pomeroy, North Dakota's at-large representative, so doing, a rather dicey parlay in what will likely be a bad national environment for the Democrats.
This is un-spinnably bad news for the Democrats, and North Dakota advances to the #1 position in our Senate race rankings. Perhaps this means that John Hoeven was going to challenge Dorgan for the Senate seat anyway and perhaps it doesn't. But in either case, Hoeven's entry into the Senate race would now seem likely and Democratic hopes are probably contingent upon Hoeven not running and Earl Pomeroy, North Dakota's at-large representative, so doing, a rather dicey parlay in what will likely be a bad national environment for the Democrats.
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