By Charlie Cook Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2002
Perhaps the most pertinent question in American politics today is: What did last Tuesday's midterm elections really mean? In my judgment, the 2002 midterm election is one of the most over-interpreted, or perhaps even misinterpreted, elections I have ever seen. I should add that my strong competitor and close friend Stu Rothenberg, editor and publisher of the Rothenberg Political Report, feels very much the same.
We both have seen "wave" elections. In the 1974 Watergate midterm election, when Democrats gained 49 House and four Senate seats, that was a wave. In 1980, when former California Gov. Ronald Reagan led Republicans to a sweep, netting 12 Senate seats, control of the Senate for the first time since 1955 and 34 House seats, that was a wave. In 1982, when a recession hit and unemployment reached 10 percent just weeks before the midterm election, Democrats won 26 House seats, recaptured more than two-thirds of their losses in the previous election and came within 34,000 votes of capturing five Senate seats and retaking control of the Senate -- that was a smaller wave. In 1994, when Republicans took 52 House seats and control of the House for the first time in 40 years, along with eight Senate seats, that was a wave.
The common characteristic of these "wave" elections was that the winning party not only virtually won all of the races expected to be close, but they also pulled off upsets, impressive upsets. Some of their own incumbents, who had seemed destined to be defeated, actually survived, while long-shot challengers and open-seat candidates, facing enormous odds in very difficult districts, won or came very close as well.
That did not happen last Tuesday. Not one House seat in the country that had been rated leaning, likely or solidly Democratic in the Oct. 20, final post-election issue of the Cook Political Report went Republican. (For that matter, no leaning, likely or solidly Republican seat went Democratic, either.) Republicans simply won seven out of 11 of the toss-up races. Only one Senate seat that was leaning, likely or solidly Democratic in our final issue went Republican, and that was freshman Georgia Sen. Max Cleland's. We had moved his race to the toss-up column on our Web site and in speech handouts during the week before the election, as polls indicated that his challenger, GOP Rep. Saxby Chambliss, had begun to surge. We also had moved the Republican North Carolina open-seat race and freshman Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu to toss-up status during that final full week.
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