November 2, 2004 appeared to be a bleak day for the Democratic Party. Presidential nominee John Kerry was defeated by three percent in the popular vote, though the Electoral College tally was closer, the party lost a net of five seats in the Senate, its worst showing in a decade. Even in the House of Representatives, in which the Democrats were favored to pick up a handful of seats, the party lost a net of four seats (though much of the loss came from the Texas re-redistricting).

Federal elections were not the only contests on November 2, however. In what political analyst Tim Storey calls a “hidden election,” voters across the nation selected new governors and state legislatures, often sending a conflicting message from their Presidential and Congressional votes. As Storey notes, “the oddity was that the most successful party in local races was beaten so thoroughly at the top of the ticket.”

Voters have split their tickets since they were able to with the introduction of the Australian ballot in the late 19th century, but the significance of such voting patterns has not always been clear. Often, however, realignments in voting begin below the federal level and do not become apparent nationally until subsequent cycles. If this is indeed true, 2004 could be a prime example of local-level elections foreshadowing a future realignment of the electorate on the national level.

Paul R. Abramson, John H. Aldridge, and David W. Rohde write in Change and Continuity in the 2000 and 2002 Elections of a number of basic characteristics shared by partisan realignments in the United States. Two of these include: changes in the regional bases of the parties and the emergence of new issues which create new cleavages within the electorate. Although it is clearly too early to tell, preliminary signs indicate that these two characteristics of realignment may indeed have begun to occur during the 2004 election cycle.

Two states, in particular, split their tickets and exhibited the two aforementioned attributes of realignment: Colorado and Montana. Both states went for President Bush; both states rejected Republican-dominated state legislatures in favor of the Democratic Party. Specifically, in Colorado Bush won by a comfortable five point margin, while at the same time Democrats picked up a Senate seat, a Congressional seat, and both houses of the state legislature. Additionally, Democratic-backed initiatives – with the exception of the Electoral College reform – were passed overwhelmingly over GOP opposition [link]. In Montana, where Bush won even more handily, Democrats took the Governorship, the state Senate (and possibly the state House) and four of five statewide elective offices [link].

Although Colorado, Montana and other Mountain West states had been Democratic states as late as the 1970s and early 1980s, for the past two decades they had been trending strongly to the GOP. In the past two Presidential elections, for example, only one state in the region voted for the Democrats, New Mexico in 2000, and only by 366 votes. The GOP accordingly viewed it as a solid section of its base.

One reason why the GOP might have to fear that 2004 was not merely an aberration is the emergence of an issue with newly increased salience: conservation. Although hunters and fishermen have often been aligned with the Republican Party in the past as a result of issues of gun control and environmental regulations, with the GOP moving to complete deregulation through the restriction of laws such as Montana’s Stream Access Law, these two groups have increasingly found themselves isolated from the rest of the GOP base. In a state like Montana in which 723,000 of the 971,000 residents hunted, fished or watched wildlife in 2001, such a shift could prove disastrous for the Republican Party [link].

Brian Schweitzer, the successful Democratic gubernatorial nominee, alleged the Republican Party was attempting sell off public lands to the highest bidder; this theme became a central part of his campaign. As David Sirota writes in the December issue of Washington Monthly,

First, it helped Schweitzer make inroads with the constituency of outdoorsmen that is normally Democrat-averse.

Second, it let us speak to both left-leaning environmentalists, who wanted public lands and wildlife herds maintained, and right-leaning outdoorsmen, who wanted a place to recreate and a steady population of game to hunt.

Check Denowh, the executive director of the Montana Republican Party, echoed this sentiment, saying that “people who normally vote Republican on the gun issue are straying. Whenever we’re allied with the extractive industries, timber and mining, we have a hard time defining the issue to show we also support conservation” [link]. By being unable to effectively address one of the region’s most salient issues – conservation – the Republican Party risks losing a number of voters; furthermore, it provides the Democrats with an opening to a new base of support on the federal level.

In a December 7 interview, former Colorado Democratic Senator and two-time Presidential candidate Gary Hart let me know that he felt one of the keys to Democratic resurgence on the national level was a focus on the West. In the interview, he stated,

In the east coast corridor, all the analysts and the commentators and pundits talk about what the Democrats have to do to recapture the South and "NASCAR Dads" and all this kind of nonsense. I've argued for an East-West strategy for the Democratic party in which the Democratic states east of the Mississippi combine with potential Democratic states in the west, and I think Colorado is a prime example of what can be done out here. Now we win California and often win Washington and Oregon, but you can combine with that New Mexico, Colorado, possibly Arizona--which is a winnable state for Democrats--and then recapture Montana, which we used to win, and make gains in other parts of the Midwest and the West.

In the interview, Hart also indicated that one of the major keys for Democratic Party success in the region is to address the issues of the environment and land usage in a progressive way to distinguish itself from the development-minded Republicans.

If the Democrats can indeed reframe the issue of conservation and ensure that it maintains the same level of salience that brought success to Schweitzer, Ken Salazar and others, they can win in the Mountain West. Abramson, Aldridge and Rohde note that “in both 1992 and 1996 Clinton won some southern electoral votes, but in both elections he could have won with no southern support. As long as Democrats continue to do well in the Northeast, the Pacific Coast, and the Midwest, they can win.” If they can add on the Mountain West to these three regions using the methods laid out by Schweitzer, Hart and others, realignment might only be a presidential election away.

Posted by: Jonathan Singer / 8:46 PM | Basie! Home