Grandma Pelosi
Speaker of the U.S. House Nancy Pelosi is 82 years old. Her top deputy, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, is 83. Number three in the organization, Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, is 82. While the three are political barons of Capitol Hill, all three of them should consider themselves retired from politics in a matter of a few months, even if they win their own congressional seats in November.
Bold statement. Maybe. But if the three of them and their aging leadership talents (over 110 years of combined congressional experience) land the Democrats in "minority" status next year, you can be certain that AOC and the other Democratic House youngsters will insist on new leadership – meaning Speaker Pelosi transforms into Grandma Pelosi, instantly.
Currently the U.S. House is composed of 220 Democrats and 211 Republicans, with four seats vacant. The number it takes to get to majority is 218 – a razor-thin division heading into the 2022 midterms.
The political party that holds the White House traditionally has trouble in congressional midterms elections. In recent political times, this has been especially true of first-term Democrat presidents. In the 1994 congressional midterm election, two years into Bill Clinton's presidency, the Democrats lost 54 seats and Newt Gingrich and the Republicans took control of the U.S. House.
In the 2010 congressional midterm election, two years into Barack Obama's presidency, the Democrats lost 64 seats and John Boehner and the Republicans took control of the House.
Will 2022 be the kind of landslide election and rejection of the current incumbent president that both 1994 and 2010 were? That's the question.
When trying to predict the November election, only two numbers really matter. The first is the president's approval number and the second is the congressional generic ballot test between the two parties.
The first number looks ominous for Democrats. As of late July, Real Clear Politics lists President Biden's approval number at 37.4% and his disapproval number at 56.8%. This does not compare well to either Bill Clinton's approval number in 1994 – 46% – or Barack Obama's number in 2010 – 45%. Both elections were complete wipeouts for the Democrats.
The better number for the Democrats is the generic ballot test, which, as of this week, shows voters narrowly favoring Republicans in the midterms by 44.3% to 42.6%. A mere point and a half. This is good news for the Democrats and suggests that voters may choose congressional Democrats no matter how much they dislike the incumbent president. But even in this number, there is caution for Democrats. In late April, before the Roe v. Wade opinion was leaked to the public, Republicans held a generic ballot advantage of closer to five points. And the five-point range is significant because it comes close to being consistent numerically with a landslide election victory by the minority party in past midterms.
So what will matter more to voters – their anger toward the U.S. Supreme Court and its recent decisions or their frustration with the economy and the utter ineptness of the Biden administration?
If voter anger toward the Supreme Court is only temporary, the Democrats are in big, big trouble in the fall. And Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn won’t stay around to rebuild their careers as 80-somethings in the minority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Yes, Henry Clay and Sam Rayburn went on to become Speaker of the U.S. House on three separate and distinct occasions. But that's not going to happen for Nancy Pelosi should the Democrats lose in November. She will be retiring from politics in a nanosecond this January, as will her two top deputies, Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn, who we remember for delivering the South Carolina primary and consequently the presidency to Joe Biden in 2020.
What a shock it will be to NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC and CNN, when Pelosi and her leadership team have been, after all these years, summarily removed from the national stage, first by the voters and then by the House Democrats.
What makes this all so interesting for sleepy Oregon is that for the first time in a long time what happens in Oregon congressional races could have an impact on who controls the U.S. House or by how much. And for the first time in a long time, a Republican wave year could extend to the Left Coast – painting the Left Coast not “red,” but at least a little shade of “purple.”
The Cook Political Report lists three Oregon congressional house races amongst the most competitive of the four dozen or so most closely fought races across the country. Those congressional districts are Oregon’s 4th, 5th and 6th districts.
Both the Cook Report and Politico list Oregon’s fifth district, which now runs from Lake Oswego to Bend, as a toss up. Republican and former Happy Valley mayor Lori Chavez-DeRemer faces Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who defeated seven-term incumbent, Kurt Schrader in the Democratic primary. In a Republican wave year, Chavez-DeRemer has the edge over the progressive McLeod-Skinner, whose politics aren't much different than the members of the AOC Squad.
Oregon’s fourth congressional district matches Republican Alek Skarlatos against Democrat Val Hoyle. Hoyle is the head of Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries. Skarlatos helped prevent a terrorist attack on a Paris train in 2015 and starred in Clint Eastwood's movie about the incident. The Cook Report lists this race as likely Democrat, though competitive, mostly because more Democrats turned out for a contested primary than in the Republican primary where Skarlatos ran unopposed. While the southwest Oregon district has a decent Democrat voter registration edge of nine points, the district could easily go to the younger and more charismatic Skarlatos in a Republican wave year.
Oregon’s sixth district, our new congressional district that runs from Beaverton to Salem, is a true toss up. The candidates are Republican businessman Mike Erickson and Democrat State Rep. Andrea Salinas. Neither of the candidates are household names. The Cook Report lists the race as “Likely Democrat” based on primary voter turnout and conventional wisdom that Salinas appears to be a stronger candidate than Erickson. Politico makes the same judgment.
But why? The dissing of the Erickson candidacy has in part to do with some “old dirt” most recently dug up by Willamette Week's Rachel Monahan:
“Plenty of Republicans have written off the district, which might otherwise be up for grabs given how close party registration numbers are. Their pessimism stems from a notable scandal Erickson faced in his last run for Congress in 2008. The allegation: He drove a woman he dated to get an abortion and paid for it. The woman and her friends spoke to the media, and Erickson denied knowing anything about the pregnancy.”
As voters face a shrinking economy and double-digit inflation, will the 2008 sins of Mike Erickson’s be foremost on their minds? Not sure. And in a Republican wave year, GOP insiders, as well as voters, haven’t yet conceded this new Oregon congressional district to the Democrats.
If Oregon ends up with three or four Republicans out of six in their congressional delegation, and if Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn suddenly choose early retirement, the media will report shocking news that no one saw coming – even though the numbers are fairly clearly trending toward “shocking news.”
In John Boehner’s autobiography, “On the House,” he wrote about how Nancy Pelosi removed John Dingell from his chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee: “She gutted Big John Dingell like a halibut she found floating around the San Francisco Bay, and then calmly sat back and had a cup of coffee.”
The Pelosi family might soon get to discover if grandma is a little nicer than she was portrayed by Boehner. For the sake of the grandkids, let’s hope so.