Establishment v insurgent: the Capitol’s new political dynamic | Harry J Enten

The old left-right ideological model for how Congress votes has lost explanatory power. Something different is afoot in US politics

Over the past few weeks, I’ve written a lot about ideology and polarization. Most of that has focused on the left-right differences. But there’s another shaping theme in politics that is also present: establishment v insurgent.

Presidential campaigns, for example, usually come down to those who are backed by the establishment and those who are not. The candidates backed by the establishment usually win, and the outsiders almost always lose. It’s the main thesis of the great book The Party Decides.

That’s why many political scientists thought that Mitt Romney winning the bulk of congressional endorsements for the Republican nomination in 2012 meant that he would almost certainly capture the nomination. His establishment support came from both left and right of the party, and was actually slightly more conservative than either Gingrich’s or Santorum’s, despite Romney donor profiles indicating that his public was moderate.

Twelve years prior, George W Bush triumphed over the moderate John McCain on the back of establishment support. Likewise, Hillary Clinton saw her 2008 hopes fade because of her inability to lock up support from establishment congressional leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

No one can doubt that this establishment v insurgent dynamic has been present in Congress for a while, but “DW-nominate” scores indicate that this dichotomy is becoming increasingly important. These scores seek to rank congressional members’ ideology in two dimensions, based on their rollcall voting record. In my previous analyses of polarization, I’ve used the first dimension, which usually does a good job at placing members on the liberal-to-conservative spectrum. The second dimension has rarely been used in recent years because it hasn’t seemed to stand for anything.

In the past Congress, however, the second dimension has begun to have more explanatory power – among Republicans, especially. That is, something beyond just being conservative or liberal is beginning to predict voting patterns of congressmen and women. The vote-view folks and I think that this dimension is along an establishment v anti-establishment axis, though one might also argue that it is geographically based – since many insurgent Tea Party members are from the American south.

Consider the debt ceiling debate of 2011. People on both the liberal and conservative side of the aisle supported the bill. Oddly, House Democrats and Senate Republicans were the two groups most likely to oppose the bill.

If the voting had been strictly along partisan lines, we’d expect the best fit line to be straight up and down. That is, the vote could easily be determined as being to the left or to the right. Instead, we have more of a diagonal line that goes from upper left to lower right in the House and upper right to lower left in the Senate. What that means is that there are liberal and conservative elements behind the voting, but there is also something else happening. You might call it a rather strange vote in which the Tea Party caucus, progressive caucus, and black caucus voted all together – though, arguably, it could be explained as establishment House Democrats and establishment House Republicans voting together. In other words, how many times can we expect John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Steny Hoyer, Kevin McCarthy, Nancy Pelosi, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz all to vote the same way on a relatively divided debate?

The coalition was slightly different with the recent fiscal cliff vote, yet it displayed a similar pattern. Again, there was a left-to-right element, with more Democrats voting in favor this time. But there was also a “second dimension” element.

The lines are, again, diagonal. The differences among Democrats largely disappeared, but they were as present as ever among Republicans. The “establishment” Republicans largely voted in lockstep with one another, while the anti-establishment folks also banded together, voting the other way. The fit is certainly not perfect, with establishment figures like Cantor and McCarthy voting no – thought that actually matches well with the press coverage afterward declaring that Cantor’s vote indicated a break with the establishment leadership, rather than the fact that he’d newly discovered a conservative soul.

This divide between establishment v anti-establishment was present throughout the 112th Congress. Whether it was the 2012 omnibus bill, or the highway and student loan funding bill of 2012, outsiders such as blue-staters Michele Bachmann and Marco Rubio voted alongside southerner Rand Paul and westerner Mike Lee. Others with similar left-to-right rankings, but who were closer to the establishment, such as Senator John Barasso, Representative Cantor, Representative Billy Long of Missouri, and, yes, even very conservative Mitt Romney-backed Representative Steve King of Iowa often voted the opposite way.

It’s necessary to note that while the insurgents seem to be rising, it was the establishment that won in all the situations. My guess is that they will continue to win, even if they need to adjust. That’s why I’m skeptical about whether we’re really likely to see a “Republican civil war” in the coming years, or even the 2016 presidential nomination season.

In practise, the establishment tends to line up behind the eventual winner of the nomination before a war breaks out. That’s why even the hard-fought 2008 Democratic and 2012 Republican nomination winners became quite clear by the end of February in the nomination seasons. Further, if Republicans do well in 2014, which they should given the midterm landscape, then this should placate those currently calling for heads.

The ability of the party establishment to hold onto power might explain why Paul Ryan voted for the fiscal cliff package. Ryan is pretty far to the right in the left-to-right ideological rankings. He’s even been seen as fairly anti-establishment over the long term. Yet, he voted for each and every one of the “establishment” positions on the four key financial bills discussed here. Ryan may be looking to capitalize on the establishment credentials he built up during his run as vice-presidential nominee. We’ll have to see if his future voting record also supports the idea that he’s shifted toward the establishment.

In the meantime, it looks likely that this establishment v insurgent divide will continue through to the next Congress. The votes for and against John Boehner for house speaker did not split according to the liberal-to-conservative spectrum for Republicans, but rather among the second dimension: between establishment v anti-establishment forces. In short, this should looks set to be yet another unproductive and unwieldy Congress.

Harry J Enten

Mitt Romney

Americans on the fiscal cliff deal: meh | Harry J Enten

The polls say most expected a compromise – though not so many like what they got. But the deal-makers fare slightly better

The fiscal cliff was averted last week as both the House and Senate agreed on an imperfect package. What do Americans think of this legislation and those who passed it?

Many in Washington did not think a deal would be reached, but Americans expected Congress would hammer out an agreement on time.

In every single Gallup poll taken during the month of December, the majority of respondents guessed that Congress would reach a solution that avoided the cliff. That majority shrank to 50%, but still held as late as 22 December, despite pessimistic reports. The ability of the public to predict better than most pundits fits with research that shows Americans also do a very good job of forecasting the results of presidential elections.

But while most Americans expected a deal, they didn’t much like it. By a slim 45% to 43% plurality, Gallup found more Americans disapproved than approved of the fiscal cliff deal. This broadly concurs with Pew Research’s finding that 38% approved and 41% disapproved of the deal. The percentage of Americans who registered agreement is far less than the 68% of Americans who’d said they wanted “compromise” from their Washington leaders back in December.

Independents and Republicans, in particular, looked for agreement – just not this one. Only 27% of Republicans and 39% of independents approved of the passed fiscal cliff legislation per Gallup. That compares with the approximately 60% of each group who had wished Congress to pass “compromise” legislation in December. Meanwhile, the 67% of Democrats who approved of the fiscal cliff deal largely matches the approximately 70% of Democrats who wanted a bipartisan piece of legislation.

The reason for this before-and-after discrepancy, as Pew Research discovered, is that 57% of Americans think President Obama got more of what he wanted, while only 20% feel the same way about Republican leaders. That affirms the fiscal cliff legislative rollcall, in which, by a near 2:1 margin, House Republicans opposed the law, while House Democrats approved it by more than a 9:1 margin.

That’s not to say Republican leaders made a mistake compromising, in the eye of the public. The percentage of Americans who approved of generic congressional Republicans’ handling of the fiscal cliff negotiations had been stuck in the 20s throughout the process. This percentage reached a low of 25% per Gallup and 19% per Pew, after the deal was passed.

Yet, Republican House speaker John Boehner who, despite much protestation from his own caucus, managed to get the deal through the House, actually received a boost in his approvals: 31% of Americans approved of Boehner’s handling of the fiscal cliff deal in Gallup polling – higher than any other congressional leader.

For Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who played a leading role, with Vice-President Joe Biden, in crafting the final form of the fiscal cliff bill, approval of 28% was also higher than the generic Republican congressional approval. In both cases of these named Republican leaders, the net approval (approval minus disapproval) of about -20pt is about 20pt higher than the net approval of generic congressional Republicans, at -40pt per Gallup.

Some might say that named Republican leaders only have higher approval because it’s easier to hate a no-faced person, but I’m not sure I agree. Only 27% approved of Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid’s performance in Gallup’s polling, which is slightly lower than the percentage of Americans who approved of named Republican leaders. It’s also lower than the 34% who approved of the generic Democratic leaders in Congress. It does seem that Americans are willing to reward both the Democratic party they saw as more compromising and the Republican leaders who showed a willingness to compromise.

The ability to compromise is also probably part of the reason that President Obama has consistently received the highest ratings on the fiscal cliff negotiations from Americans: 46% of Americans approved of Obama’s handling of the fiscal cliff negotiations, while 48% disapproved. That approval is slightly down from earlier, though the -2pt net split is about 20pt better than those of our named congressional leaders. Given that Pew Research has the split at 48-40 for the president, I’m guessing that this is mostly statistical noise. Obama, of course, had been hounded from some on his own side for being too compromising on the fiscal cliff deal. Vice-President Biden, who took the lead with McConnell on final negotiations, also had a -2pt approval/disapproval split, with approval at 40% and disapproval at 42% per Gallup.

Indeed, Americans may be split on the overall bill and may not love those who compromised – but they like the compromisers more than those who stuck to their guns. In other words, voters expect their leaders to be adults and make deals. Further, American “optimism” in avoiding the fiscal cliff was rewarded. We will have to wait to see whether Americans will be as positive when it comes to predicting the outcome of the political battle over the debt ceiling in the next few months.

Harry J Enten

Why ‘gerrymandering’ doesn’t polarise Congress the way we’re told | Harry J Enten

Biased redistricting is commonly held up as the culprit for America’s increasingly partisan politics. If only it were that simple

You ever hear a point of view that is so infuriating that you want stick your head out the window and yell? I go bananas when I hear an opinion that goes against well-established political science literature.

That happened this past weekend when respected television journalist Tom Brokaw said the House of Representatives is becoming increasingly polarized because of gerrymandering.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Brokaw. It just so happens that he is wrong, and posts about the effect of gerrymandering on redistricting have been written over and over again in past months.

It could be that Brokaw doesn’t quite understand what gerrymandering is. For those who don’t, gerrymandering is the manipulation in the drawing of House districts to ensure a desired result. Brokaw’s assumption is that politics is becoming more polarized as the result of gerrymandering in districts in which Democrats and Republicans are increasingly safe from worrying about a competitive challenger from the other party.

While it is true that House districts are increasingly “safe”, this is the case even when controlling for redistricting. Last week, Nate Silver noted that there was an 8% increase in polarization independent of any effects of redistricting in 2012.

Much of this change is because states themselves are becoming more polarized. As I pointed out in my last article, the number of swing states in presidential elections is at an all-time low. The number of Democratic and Republican senators from states that lean Democratic and Republican on the presidential level respectively is way up. Partially as a result, there is an increasingly large gap in ideology between Democratic and Republican senators, which has tracked with the ideological gap in the House. So unless, we are, all of a sudden, redistricting state lines, then gerrymandering can’t possibly be the cause of what we’re seeing at the state level.

Part of what’s going on in the House is that there is a natural inclination for Democrats to crowd into cities and Republicans to spread themselves out in suburban and rural areas. In New York City alone, there were five Democratic members of Congress re-elected with at least 90% of the vote. Jowei Chen and Jonathan Rodden ran redistricting simulations on the precinct level and still ran up against a natural bias that prevents Democrats being able to win more seats because of their urban concentrations. There really isn’t any way to fix this issue – at least, not by redistricting.

Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal computerized redistricting with the aim of creating “fair” non-gerrymandered districts. Even when they tried their best to have “many heterogeneous and competitive districts”, the predicted level of polarization didn’t differ much from what we have today. Keep in mind, of course, that this sort of redistricting also would reduce the number of minority members of Congress because it neglects the Voting Rights Act. I get the feeling that wouldn’t be particularly popular.

We see this in Nicholas Goedert examination of the 2012 House results, too. Goedert looked at seats in which redistricting was controlled by Democrats, by Republicans, by bipartisan committees or by courts. Controlling for past-vote-to-seat curves, Goedert determined that when redistricting was nonpartisan or bipartisan, Democrats underperformed by an average of 7pt (that is, they only take 50% of seats when projected to get 57%).

This is absolutely key. Fair redistricting just doesn’t have the impact you might think. Once we control for incumbency, as Eric McGhee does in the chart below, Democrats are at an inherent disadvantage that dates back to the 1950s – long before Republicans controlled a majority of the redistricting processes.

Speaking of the effect of incumbency (that is, incumbents run ahead of what the national house vote would indicate), you’ll notice that it had a major effect the last few cycles. According to Think Progress, Democrats would have needed to have taken the national house vote by 7pt in 2012 to have won a majority of seats. The author, Ian Millhiser, blames this on gerrymandering.

Here’s the problem. After the 2008 House election, which was fought under Republican-gerrymandered district lines of 2000 district lines seats, the Democrats, who were already the majority party in the House, actually controlled more seats than they should have – given a 10.5pt victory in the national House vote.

The vote-to-seat curve will likely bounce closer to equal when incumbent Republicans sense a wave and retire, as they did in 2008.

None of this is to say that partisan gerrymandering doesn’t have any effect. Sam Wang believes Republicans are far more likely to gain seats than Democrats when they control the redistricting process. Goedert’s analysis, which includes more states, agrees, but also shows that Democrats are likely to take more seats than they should if they gerrymander as well. Goedert demonstrates that Republicans gain more seats by about 18 percentage points in a state when they control redistricting. Democrats pick up only about 9pt more when they draw the lines. This difference is, in my opinion, likely a reflection of the natural disadvantage Democrats have in redistricting – as seen in the 7pt Democratic underperformance in the non- and bipartisan states.

Overall, even if all the states redid their lines under “fair” rules, and given the Democratic win by 1pt in the 2012 House popular vote, Republicans would likely still maintain about 225 seats in the new Congress.

To correct for this imbalance, you would have to gerrymander. That is, you would have to manipulate the drawing of House districts to ensure the desired result. You’d need to have weird lines that snake from neighborhood to neighborhood, ignoring geographical integrity. That’s not only against the law in many states, it would also make congressmen and women unrepresentative of at least part of their long, winding districts.

Yet, this doesn’t tell the entire story. All of this analysis is based on the idea that the partisanship of the district causes the partisanship of the legislator. However, the difference in ideology between Republicans and Democrats in competitive districts and Republicans and Democrats in uncompetitive districts respectively is actually relatively small.

The real difference is how Republicans and Democrats differ ideologically in similarly partisan districts. McCarty and Boris Shor found that even in 50/50 districts (that is, those split evenly between Democrats and Republicans), the ideological divergence between Democratic and Republican representatives has climbed much higher in the past 40 years. So, even if you were to gerrymander evenly competitive districts, you would not likely see everyone coming together in Congress.

Anyway you put it, Democrats and Republican legislators have greater ideological differences than ever. Gerrymandering probably doesn’t help, yet it’s not the major cause of the problem. Natural geographic divisions on the state and local level between Democrats and Republicans are a big cause in this growing polarization. Both of these, though, fail to account for the fact that even when controlling for district partisanship, there are increasing ideological differences between Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

Harry J Enten

How polarisation in Washington affects a growing feeling of partisanship | Harry J Enten

Legislators may no longer feel they have reason to play to the middle making Washington seem more divided than ever

“Can a divided House stand?” is a question that Nate Silver posed in a blogpost Thursday.

The basic premise of Silver’s article is that House districts have been more polarized of late. That is to say, there are fewer swing districts. In addition, fewer districts are voting for one party for House and another for president.

The conclusion one might draw is that many legislators have little reason to play to the middle, and that’s why Washington seems more partisan than it used to be.

A further analysis of statewide results reflects a similar trend.

Back in 1976, there were near 25 states that came within three points of the nationwide margin and well over 30 that were within five points of the nationwide vote. In , it was eight states within three points of the nationwide margin and 10 within five points.

Both of these totals are lower than 2008 and indeed the lowest in the past 50 years. Heck, there were only 14 states out of 50 where the statewide margin came within 10 points of the nationwide margin! Any way you slice it, there are fewer swing states than there used to be.

This increased polarization has translated to the Senate makeup. After the 1992 elections, when Republicans won 43 seats, 49% of the Democratic caucus came from states that voted more Republican than the country as a whole, while about 28% of the Republican caucus came from states where Bill Clinton won by a greater margin than he did nationwide. After the 2012 elections, in which Republicans won a slightly higher 45 seats than 1992, only 25% of the Democratic caucus comes from states where Obama underperformed his national margin, and only 16% of the Republican caucus comes from states Obama won by a greater margin than he did nationally.

The question that arises is how this increased polarization impacts on the seemingly growing partisanship of Washington. One would expect that it would, given that elected officials care most about getting re-elected and without fear of losing re-election in the general they play to the base to avoid a primary challenge.

One way we can test this hypothesis is to look at roll call votes. The DW nominate score method puts legislators on a scale from -1 for most liberal to 1 for most conservative. The folks who maintain the system at Voteview have plotted both the House and the Senate over the past 130 years.

You would think that House Democrats may have become more liberal over the past 20 years, given that they are increasingly safe districts. In 1992, only 51% of the Democratic caucus came from seats that were five points or more Democratic than the nationwide presidential vote. In 2012, 88% of Democrats came from districts won by Obama by five points or more – a 37-point increase.

Interestingly, the scores don’t indicate that House Democrats have really become any more liberal.

The average Democrat was a little north of -0.4 after the 1992 elections and right at -0.4 in the last congress. This percentage has been fairly constant for the past 20 years even when the Democrats won more swing and red districts when they won back the majority from 2007 to 2011.

There has, however, been an increase in partisanship in the house, and it truly is “asymmetrical”. The Republican House caucus has been becoming more conservative every year since 1977, whether or not House Republicans are winning or losing elections. Republicans have climbed from 0.4 on the DW nominate scales after the 1992 elections to near 0.7 in the last congress. That type of charge towards polarization is historically unusual over data that stretches back 130 years.

The fact that it is House Republicans who have become more partisan is somewhat surprising given that the party caucus is representing only slightly more Republican territory than it did 20 years ago. The percentage of Republicans representing seats that went for the Republican presidential candidate by five or more points than nationwide only increased from 74% to 90% – a 16-point increase. That is far less than the 37-point increase that House Democrats, who aren’t much more partisan than used to be, experienced during the same timeframe.

The Senate picture matches that of the House.

Senate Democrats, like their House counterparts, are hovering around that -0.4 score – as they were 20 years ago. This levelness comes despite the Democratic caucus going from being 50/50 in the percentage of Democratic senators from Democratic-leaning states versus Republican-leaning states to 75/25.

Republicans, on the other hand, have slowly and become more conservative in their roll call votes by moving from about 0.3 to 0.5 on the scale. You might expect this trend given Republicans are representing more Republican leaning states, but the magnitude is quite noticeable given that the average Democratic ideology during the same period didn’t move under polarization.

Yet, in the Senate, these roll call votes don’t tell the whole story. Much of the perception that the Senate is home to partisan gridlock is that many bills can’t get an up-or-down vote. We can measure this inability by looking at cloture votes to end debate. One must get 60 votes for cloture. When cloture attempts go up, it means that increasingly 60, not 51, votes are needed to pass a bill. Cloture doesn’t equal filibuster, but the two are correlated.

The number of cloture motions since the Democrats took over the Senate in 2007 is 391, an average of 130 per Senate. It would take the last six Senates combined before 2007, that is to say those from 1995 through 2007) to match this total. In the final Senate before the Republicans took over in 1995, there were 80 cloture motions.

It’s not just that Republicans aren’t allowing bills to be voted upon in an up-or-down vote, it’s that they are blocking bills in far greater numbers than they did 20 years ago.

When Democrats were in the minority for of the 1995 to 2007 time period, the most cloture motions that were filed in a Senate was 82. Since 2007, the fewest number of clotures in a Senate has been 115. The average number per Senate when Democrats were in the minority was 70 – some 50 less than when Republicans were in the minority the past six years.

Yes, Democrats block bills, but Republicans block many more. This is gridlock at its finest (or worst).

When you put all these statistics together, the portrait painted becomes rather clear. Polarization is definitely up on the congressional district and state level. Yet, the feeling that Democrats and Republicans are further apart than they used to be is upon inspection of the evidence more because of Republicans than Democrats.

Harry J Enten

Margin of Σrror

Category Archives: US House of Representatives

Establishment v insurgent: the Capitol’s new political dynamic | Harry J Enten

Americans on the fiscal cliff deal: meh | Harry J Enten

Why ‘gerrymandering’ doesn’t polarise Congress the way we’re told | Harry J Enten

How polarisation in Washington affects a growing feeling of partisanship | Harry J Enten