Who Are The Swing Senators?

[ccharles000]

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/12/who-are-swing-senators.html

With Jim Martin's loss in Georgia, we now know that the Democrats will not achieve a 60-seat senatorial caucus once the 111th Congress convenes next month. In practice, however, the line between 59 (or 58) votes and 60 was never so bright as it seemed. Moderate Republicans are an endangered species these days, but there are still a few of them left, as well as several other quasi-moderates who either get along with Obama or are under some form of electoral pressure in their home states. Conversely, there are more than a couple of Democrats in the chamber whose votes Obama can't take for granted.

In practice, there will be a group of four or five senators in each party who line up just to either side of the 60-seat threshold and will find that they're suddenly very much in demand. If Obama's approval ratings are strong, he should have little trouble whipping the couple of Republican votes he needs into shape, and should clear 60 comfortably on key issues. But, if Obama proves to be unpopular, there remain enough conservative, red-state Democratic senators to deny him a simple majority on key issues, much less 60 votes.

Let's start with the Republicans, ranking the senators based on their likelihood of crossing party lines to vote with Obama. We'll begin counting upward from the number 59, which assumes that Norm Coleman will win the recount in Minnesota, and that the first Republican vote that Obama gets is his 59th overall. If Al Franken wins instead, add one to each of the numbers below.

This ordering is based on a combination of objective and subjective considerations, and should be considered rough -- among other things, it will diverge based on the particular issue at hand.

Swing Republicans

59. Snowe (ME). Obama won Maine by 18 points, making it the bluest state to be home to a Republican senator -- and in fact, it has two of them. Per Voteview, Olympia Snowe is incrementally more liberal than Susan Collins; she's also up for re-election two years sooner. It will be very interesting to see how the two of them will legislate under an Obama administration.
60. Collins (ME). See above.
61. Specter (PA). Under re-election pressure in a state that Obama carried by double digits. Mitigating factor: possible that he'll be under pressure from the right too in the form of a primary challenge.
62. Lugar (IN). On good terms with Obama, who (barely) won his state. Voteview has him becoming slightly more liberal over the past several Congresses.
63. Voinovich (OH). Under serious re-election pressure. Has often been moderate -- or even slightly left of center -- on pocketbook issues, and increasingly so on other ones.

...the preceding five senators will be under the most pressure to side with a popular Obama, but several others may come into play on occasion:

64. Coleman (MN). If he beats Franken by 50 votes or something, will that chasten him into being more bipartisan? Possibly not, but he's been relatively moderate, and Minnesota remains a solidly blue state.
65. Hagel (NE). Friendly with Obama, has no problem bucking his party, but this vote may be largely confined to foreign policy.
66. McCain (AZ). Hard to know where his headspace will be for a variety of reasons, particularly as he's legislated all over the spectrum (from authentically moderate to strongly conservative) in different Congresses. Obama may have sent him something of an olive branch by appointing Janet Napolitano, his potential rival in 2010, to head of Homeland Security.
67. Grassley (IA). Up for re-election -- although he'll probably win easily if he doesn't retire. Still, something like an aging Supreme Court justice, Grassley has moderated in recent years, particularly on good government issues. Iowa is turning bluer.
68. Murkowski (AK). Up for re-election in 2010, although it's unclear if she'll face a serious challenge. Pro-choice. At heart, her politics might not be that different than Snowe or Collins, although she faces less electoral pressure to moderate.
69. Gregg (NH). Fairly conservative really, but under significant enough re-election pressure that he may assist Obama outside of his hallmark issue of taxation.
70. Bond (MO). See above, although Bond's bugaboos are in foreign policy rather than fiscal policy.

[me b zola]

1. Swing, or most likely to vote with the repubs when it's important?

The Nelson twins, Bill of FL & Ben of NE. They don't just vote with the republicans, they speak like them too.

Landry of LA often votes with the republicans.



There are others, but it's early so I don't want my keyboard to get ahead of my brain.

[slick8790]

2. Take off 65. Hagel's retired. n/t

[Proud Liberal Dem]

3. Who won Hagel's seat?

I don't recall hearing (although I wasn't really paying attention to that race) although I assume that a Republican replaced him?

[karynnj]

4. Interesting question

(aside: you need to remove Hagel - he did not run for re-election)

I think that Snowe, Collins, and Specter are the three most likely. (Specter is currently the Republican sponsor for a big high speed rail bill that Kerry introduced in the lame duck session. Snowe is a co-sponsor. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/25/95822/061)

I think Lugar will be better on foreign policy stuff - he is an internationalist like Obama - than on economic stuff, where he is more of an old school Republican.

Coleman, maybe because he was up for re-election, did vote with the Democrats more often than most - and yeah, I realize that comparison is akin to dividing by zero in the case of Inhofe and others. I think he is an opportunist - and he will see which way the wind is blowing and may vote with us. (He was a 70s radical and a Democrat before he ran for the Senate.)