Pitts: Do presidential elections affect state races?

by William O. Pitts
September 15, 2008

If a recent poll commissioned by Oklahoma City television station KWTV is even reasonably accurate, the race for Oklahoma’s seven presidential electors is over with a big victory for Republicans.

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According to the poll of 1,100 voters, the Republican presidential ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin has 65.9 percent of the vote to the Democrat ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden of 27.9 percent, with only 6.2 percent of the voters undecided.

Similarly in the U. S. Senate Race incumbent Republican James Inhofe has a lead of 28 percentage points over Democrat Andrew Rice, with only 10 percent undecided. In both instances the small percentage of undecided voters is a problem for Democrats

 Assuming Obama/Biden and Rice got all of those votes it would not change the outcome of either election. That leaves a lot of voters actually to be switched in a seven-week period. It could change some but it is unlikely to alter the eventual outcome.

Since 1950, Oklahomans’ yen for Republican presidential nominees has occurred every four years except in 1964 when Lyndon B. Johnson carried the state over Republican Barry Goldwater.

Gubernatorial races are not affected because they occur in alternate four-year cycles, but how much affect have presidential elections had on legislative races since then? In 2000, President George W. Bush carried Oklahoma with 60 percent of the vote and Republicans made gains in the legislature. In 2004 Bush again won Oklahoma by a 65 to 35 percent margin over Democrat John Kerry. That was the first time in 80 years the state House of Representatives has been controlled by Republicans, and in the State Senate they made strides toward gaining control of that body.

That Bush’s margin of victory contributed to those gains seems obvious, but legislative term limits that came into effect that year also was a major factor and until recently Oklahoma voters’ preference for Republican presidential candidates did not translate into votes for legislative candidates.

At the 1996 presidential election Republican Bob Dole defeated Democrat Bill Clinton in Oklahoma by nearly 100,000 votes, and Oklahoma’s entire Congressional delegation (two U.S. senators and six congressmen) was Republican. The state had a governor, lieutenant governor, state labor commissioner, insurance commissioner and three corporation commissioners all of whom were Republicans.

That is quite impressive, but at the same time in the Oklahoma House of Representatives and State Senate Democrats had a two-to-one majority. A political anomaly, it continued through the 1998 election.

Today, Republicans hold two of the three corporation commission posts and apparently the Republican nominee is leading substantially over the incumbent Democrat appointee to the third, but no other statewide elected posts. Democrats have all of the statewide elected executive branch offices from governor to state superintendent of public schools. Republicans control the House and split control of the evenly divided Senate.

Their congressional numbers include four of the state’s five members of the U. S. House of Representatives, all of whom are likely to be reelected, and two U.S. senators, one of whom is leading substantially in the KWTV poll.

With the presidential margin so great, the possibility of substantial Republican gains in the legislature would seem to exist but there are reasons why it may not. There are far fewer House seats open this year than there were in 2004.

Redistricting in this decade more clearly delineated areas of Republican and Democrat strength, meaning fewer chances for Republican gains than in the past. In 2006 Republicans held onto their House margin of 57 to 44. Little change is expected this year.

The state Senate is a different story. Democrats lost sole control of that body in 2006 for the first time when it was split evenly 24 to 24. There are indications Republicans can gain the majority this year.

The McCain-Palin coattails/skirt may not materially affect the legislative races, but they certainly will not hurt.

William O. Pitts may be reached by phone at 405-278-2880 or by e-mailing bill.pitts@journalrecord.com.