Republican Scott Brown wins an election by about 100,000 votes out of more than 2.2 million cast and folks suddenly start worrying that the GOP is about to seize control of the Legislature, the Tea Partiers are taking over town meetings, and the Bay State is turning into Sweet Home Alabama.
Don’t believe it. When the dust settles on Election Day, November 2, politics in Massachusetts will look an awful lot like it always has. We might have a Republican governor (the normal state of affairs for the last two decades, by the way), but otherwise Democrats will still dominate the Legislature and the state’s congressional delegation.
Some of this simply has to do with the numbers. The best shot for Republicans would be to mount strong campaigns in districts where seats are open (incumbents are always harder to dislodge, especially in local elections where they are measured less by ideology than by constituent services).
In the giddy wake of Brown’s election, many politicians began announcing they were leaving their jobs, making it appear as if Democrats were on the run. Indeed, according to one recent count (by the excellent political blog MassBeacon.com), a strikingly high 10 Senate and 25 House seats in the Massachusetts Legislature are now open.
Big deal. There are 40 senators and 160 representatives. Even if every one of those open seats (seven of which are GOP anyway) turned or stayed Republican, Democrats would still hold sizable majorities: 78 percent of the House and 65 percent of the Senate. And, of course, no one expects a Republican sweep. Many of those seats (such as former state senator Anthony Galluccio’s Cambridge district) veer left and hence are safely Democratic. The same is true at the congressional level, where Democrats hold all 10 seats and only one representative, William Delahunt, is retiring. A GOP victory would still leave a 9-to-1 Democratic advantage.
But perhaps, one might argue, it’s not only open seats that are in play. Unenrolled voters – the so-called independents – account for half the electorate, and while election returns make it clear that they traditionally vote Democratic, they were widely credited for Brown’s victory margin. Couldn’t even incumbents be imperiled by this new political groundswell? Couldn’t that turn Massachusetts red?
It’s a hypothetical born of the belief that Brown’s win was a harbinger of some permanent shift in the allegiance of independent voters. But it wasn’t. The election was instead an aberration, a singular confluence of a weak campaigner and voter anger over a seemingly corrupt and ineffectual Legislature, one controversial issue (health care), and a bad economy. It’s unlikely to be repeated.
Much has been written about Martha Coakley’s failings on the political trail. It’s sad that not knowing Curt Schilling’s baseball loyalties trumped her work as attorney general, but that is the nature of elected politics: You need to be good at sales.
But take Coakley out of the equation and all you have left is anger, an emotion that does not make for a sustained political movement and that, even now, just a few months after Brown’s win, seems to be dissipating.
For one, the Legislature (and even the governor!) looks to have regained its footing, delivering some major accomplishments (education reform, anti-bullying legislation) and taking a business-like approach to a difficult budget. There’s even been – cross your fingers – a lull in major scandals. Meanwhile, passage of the national health care bill seems, at least locally, to have taken much of the steam out of reform animus; if anything, Democrats have gotten a boost.
And then there is, per James Carville, the great driver of elections: the economy. The Brown-Coakley election was a creature of the recession. November’s election will be, too, but in a way that could help incumbents. Massachusetts is growing again – the turning point was January – and over the summer we’ll start to see tangible signs of that: new jobs, rising incomes, and an improved state budget.
So what are the prospects for a political makeover in Massachusetts now that the economy is getting better, health care has become a less potent issue, and the Legislature is lying low? Pretty slim. Whether it’s gay marriage, worker protection, women’s rights, or many other issues, Massachusetts is fundamentally a liberal state, and Democrats more than Republicans represent those values. We’re not red yet – and not for the foreseeable future.
Originally published in The Boston Globe Magazine, April 25, 2010. Illustration by Alex Nabaum.