Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Republicans countin on ‘local’ factor

WASHINGTON - Veteran political pollster Charlie Cook believes that when it comes to congressional races, the old axiom that all politics are local holds true. Except in weird years, like this one, when it might not - in Nevada and a number of states.

Cook, in a talk with Washington journalists last week, said four out of five midterm congressional elections follow the wise line from late Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill: voters choose their representative based on what's happening in their own back yards.

Republicans are counting on that truth this year, and have pegged immigration and taxes as the top ballot box issues in Nevada - particularly in the state's closest House race between Republican incumbent Rep. Jon Porter and Democratic challenger Tessa Hafen in the suburban district that includes Henderson, Boulder City and parts of Las Vegas.

But Democrats are pinning their hopes on the wave - the national political uproar many observers say is coming from voters who continue to tell pollsters they worry about broad national themes, including the war in Iraq, the direction the country is headed, President Bush's performance.

Cook believes this year might be one of those years when an electoral hurricane is bearing down on the Republican Party.

"One time out of five, you get one of these really weird ones," he said during the talk at the National Press Foundation. "It's like the political laws of gravity are suspended for one night."

The country has seen it happen before, when Republicans swept 52 seats in the House in 1994 shortly after President Bill Clinton took office. Or when Democrats picked up seats in 1982 in the election two years after Ronald Reagan's election. Or in post-Watergate 1974, when Democrats swept Congress.

Cook's publication, Cook Political Report, lists 19 Republican seats nationwide as a toss-up either party has a good chance of winning. Fifteen more Republican seats, including Porter's, are ranked "lean Republican," competitive but Republicans still have the advantage.

But Cook says that if a wave hits, he could see most of the toss-up seats going to Democrats, along with maybe a handful of the second group, unheard of in a normal midterm election.

Cook lays out the numbers from his August poll - 64 percent of registered voters believe the country is on the wrong track, 55 percent disapprove of Bush's job performance and 58 percent disapprove of the job Congress is doing. Fifty-one percent would rather have Democrats control Congress.

For a pollster like Cook, the numbers are like the robot in the old "Lost in Space" television show blurting out its fateful warning.

"It's like a flashing light saying, Danger, danger," he said.

Republican analysts, however, insist that in Nevada voters have historically voted on local issues, and are likely to do so again in 2006.

In a recent talk with Nevada reporters, Rep. Tom Reynolds of New York, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman, said that voters in Nevada's 3rd District will again cast ballots on local issues.

"George Bush isn't on the ballot this fall," Reynolds said. "I am convinced that all politics is local."

He named border security and taxes as the bread-and-butter issues that will drive Nevada voters to the polls - and toward Republican candidates.

"Local issues are pocketbook issues that affect voters' checkbooks, bank accounts and perceptions of the immediate circumstances surrounding them," RNCC spokesman Jonathan Collegio said Friday. "In a suburban, Southwest district like Nevada 3, the two most prominent issues that will be debated in the campaign are taxes and border security."

As a freshman congressman in the class of 1974, former Nevada Rep. Jim Santini knows the power of the national mood after being swept into office on the post-Watergate Democratic wave. But he also knows how strong local issues can be, after having worked under O'Neill in the House and campaigned in Nevada, where voters can get to know their representatives.

He sees both theories playing out in the Porter-Hafen race - where Porter benefits from having been in public office for years, but the fast-growing district brings many newcomers who might blame the incumbent for national problems.

"I would say overall, with the traditional voters in that district, any kind of national trend isn't going to switch them away from Porter," said Santini, now a lobbyist for the travel and tourism industry, who ultimately left his party in 1986 to run unsuccessfully as a Republican. "With the new voters, I don't know."

A big question in a district like Porter's will be turnout, and Cook's analysis shows Democrats nationally are more motivated to go to the polls now than Republicans. Similarly, Porter has always relied on independent voters to swing his way, but nationally Cook's latest poll in August shows independents preferring Democrats to Republicans in Congress by 13 percentage points.

Santini says it would take a dramatic change in Iraq to flip the national anti-Bush mood in favor of Republicans. "Is that going to happen? Not likely."

Cook knows plenty of analysts don't agree a wave is possibly coming this fall and find the emphasis on macro issues "a little bit of hocus-pocus." He didn't expect the sweep in 1994 would be as big as it was.

Plus there are still two months to go before Nov. 7.

But after being around a few cycles, he said, you start to pay attention to the broader indicators. And then, he said, "You tend to hear footsteps."

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