The Polls: Presidential Referendum Effects in the 2006 Midterm Elections

Many commentators saw the 2006 midterm elections as a referendum on George W. Bush's presidency, especially his unpopular Iraq War policy. Presidential referendum effects may be highly likely given the degree of party polarization and the concomitant attachment of large numbers of voters to the Democratic and Republican parties. But local factors, especially incumbency effects, may also have affected the outcome of the 2006 midterm contests. Using state-level presidential approval polls, analysis finds that Bush's approval, an indicator of referendum voting, had little impact on voting in Senate contests, once applying controls for the ideological and partisan composition of state voting populations. In contrast, even with these controls, Bush's approval influenced voting in gubernatorial contests. But Iraq War battle deaths affected voting for senators, suggestive of another type of referendum effect. Battle deaths, however, did not affect the gubernatorial races. ********** Democrats decisively defeated the Republicans in the 2006 midterm elections, unseating Republicans across the nation and for all types of offices up for grabs. Overall, the Democrats realized seat gains in both houses of Congress and the state governorships. For instance, Democrats gained 6 Senate seats out of 33 contested, increasing their representation in the upper chamber from 45 to 51, thereby assuming control of that chamber. Similarly, a gain of 30 seats led to Democratic control of the House, after Republican control that dated back to 1995. And 2006 saw Democrats control a majority of governorships, increasing from 22 to 28. In each of these cases, the Democrats entered the 2006 races as the minority and emerged with the majority. Democratic party fortunes also improved in the state legislatures. Prior to the midterm, the Democrats held 21 state houses, the Republicans 19, 9 were split, with 1, Nebraska, nonpartisan. Coming out of the midterm, Democratic control of state houses rose to 23, with a decline of 2 for the Republicans, while 9 still remained under split control. Moreover, in all cases of U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races, the Republicans were unable to take any seats that the Democrats held going into the election. Another indication of the decisiveness of the Democratic victory was that almost all closely contested races fell into the Democratic column, such as the Senate seats in Virginia and North Dakota; Republicans could win only a smattering of close contests. The consistent Democratic electoral showing in all regions and for all types of races led many postelection accounts to argue that national factors worked to the Democrats' advantage. In other words, the 2006 midterms, unlike many other midterms, was a national election, a referendum on President George W. Bush, especially his Iraq War policy. Yet local conditions might still have mattered; national affairs were not necessarily the whole story of the 2006 midterm. For instance, local scandals, such as those associated with Ohio's Republican Governor Robert Taft, presumably affected the race for governor in that state, in which Democrat Ted Strickland beat Republican John Blackwell by a hefty 60 to 37 percent margin. This was in a state that had for the past several election cycles been the quintessential battleground state, with Republicans and Democrats usually in close contests, but with the Republicans often edging out the Democrats. In addition, some Republicans running for election possessed a personal popularity that allowed them to buck the national tides in 2006. For example, Republican incumbent governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was highly popular. His popularity had recovered from dips of the past year, and he managed to win a comfortable election victory in a state that has been decidedly Democratic in recent years. As another example, Richard Lugar, Republican incumbent senator from Indiana, won approximately 90 percent of the vote; the Democrats did not field a candidate to run against him. …