The Still Very Long Odds of an Oberstar (or Walz) Defeat in November

Less than 4 percent of Minnesota U.S. House incumbents have been defeated out of more than 200 who won at least 60 percent of the vote during the previous election cycle

Despite seemingly being unable to capitalize on the national GOP momentum in the state’s gubernatorial race thus far, Republicans in Minnesota are nonetheless buoyed of late by polling results suggesting DFL incumbents Tim Walz from the 1st CD and D.C. mainstay Jim Oberstar from the 8th CD could be vulnerable this November.

In Walz’s case, a SurveyUSA poll released last week found the two-term incumbent with only a 47 to 42 percent advantage over Republican state Representative Randy Demmer.

For Oberstar, the hullabaloo came not from a public poll but from one conducted by a GOP pollster, funded by the campaign of his challenger, Chip Cravaack.

Both polls provoked significant statewide and national interest in these Minnesota races, with several D.C. prognosticators shifting their ratings of these congressional seats to more competitive as a result.

Tim Walz’s seat is now rated as ‘leans Democrat’ by both Congressional Quarterly and the Cook Political Report, while Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball and the Rothenberg Political Report rate it one notch safer for the incumbent (‘likely Democrat’ and ‘Democratic favored’ respectively).

Jim Oberstar’s district, which had previously not been on any of the analysts’ chalkboards of seats in play in 2010, is now rated as ‘likely Democrat’ by Congressional Quarterly and Cook Political Report and the Rothenberg equivalent of ‘Democratic favored.’

But if these two seats are in fact ‘in play,’ what are the odds they could actually flip on November 2nd, even in a Republican wave election year?

Smart Politics analyzed each of the more than 550 general election Minnesota U.S. House matchups conducted since statehood and finds there is only scarce historical precedence that either Oberstar or Walz can be defeated in 2010.

Overall, incumbents have appeared on the general election ballot in 487 out of 552 U.S. House races in the Gopher State, winning 425 of these, or 87.3 percent of the time.

But the fact there is an incumbency advantage in Congressional elections is not news.

Oberstar and Walz, however, are not ordinary incumbents.

Oberstar won his 18th term with 67.7 percent of the vote in 2008, while Walz won his second term with a nearly as impressive 62.5 percent.

Why is this important?

Only 8 of 203 Minnesota U.S. House incumbents have been defeated in the general election after receiving at least 60 percent of the vote during the previous election cycle, or just 3.9 percent.

(Note: the data above excludes four incumbents who were defeated during the 1932 election, in which the Gopher State elected all nine Representatives to the U.S. House as at-large representatives. This resulted in 32 candidates appearing on the ballot for nine seats, with the winning representatives carrying only between 4.0 and 5.0 percent of the vote. Six Republicans who had won election in 1930 were defeated, with four of these having earned more than 60 percent of the vote in their respective district races).

So what does this mean for the prospects of a GOP upset in MN-01 or MN-08 in 2010?

For starters, it means Minnesota Congressmen who reach the 60 percent plateau are more than five times less likely to get defeated at the ballot box (3.9 percent) than those incumbents who fall short of the 60 percent mark (21.1 percent).

For Oberstar, the numbers are even more striking.

Only one incumbent in Minnesota history has ever been defeated after winning as large a percentage as Oberstar’s 67.7 percent tally during the previous election cycle.

And the one time such a defeat did take place, it involved an incumbent who had just been out-districted.

In 1982, Arlen Ehrdal was out-districted from the 1st to the 6th district, and saw his 71.8 percent vote total in 1980 over DFLer Russell Smith fall to just 49.2 percent in defeat to DFLer Gerry Sikorski, running in a district with many new faces.

For Walz, who won 62.5 percent of the vote in 2008, this means only four incumbents in history have ever been defeated after winning as large a percentage of the vote as he did during the previous election cycle: Erdahl (71.8 percent in 1980), Republican Melvin Maas (65.1 percent in 1942), Sikorski (64.6 percent in 1990), and Republican James McCleary (64.1 percent in 1904).

In short, the vast majority of the already small universe of incumbents who have been defeated at the ballot box were not nearly as successful as Oberstar or Walz during the previous election cycle – averaging just 53.1 percent of the vote overall.

This means many of these incumbents were already involved in competitive races just two years prior to their defeat:

· Three incumbents had not won even 40 percent of the vote
· Another 10 incumbents earned between 40 and 50 percent of the vote
· Nearly three-dozen incumbents earned between 50 and 60 percent of the vote.

And of those eight incumbents who were defeated after earning at least 60 percent of the vote, half had to run during a year with brand new district lines (years ending in ‘2’): Erdahl in 1982, Republican Loren Fletcher in 1902, Republican Walter Judd in 1962, and Sikorski in 1992.

Of course, it is unlikely Walz will let up on the accelerator during the final two weeks of the campaign as he tries to stave off Randy Demmer. Two years prior to Walz’s defeat of GOPer Gil Gutknecht in 2006, Gutknecht had notched 59.6 percent of the vote, or about three points shy of Walz’s 2008 tally.

Percentage of Vote Received by Minnesota U.S. Representatives During the Election Cycle Prior to Defeat

Year	U.S. Rep.	Party	Terms	Percent
1982	Arlen Erdahl*	GOP	2	71.8
1944	Melvin J. Maas	GOP	8	65.1
1992	Gerry Sikorski	DFL	6	64.6
1906	James T. McCleary	GOP	7	64.1
1962	Walter H. Judd	GOP	10	60.9
1868	Ignatius Donnelly	GOP	3	60.8
1982	Tom Hagedorn**	GOP	4	60.6
1954	Harold C. Hagen	GOP	6	60.5
2006	Gil Gutknecht	GOP	6	59.6
1902	Loren Fletcher	GOP	5	59.4
1948	Harold Knutson	GOP	16	57.4
1920	William L. Carss	Democrat	1	57.1
2000	David Minge	DFL	4	57.0
1926	Knud Wefald	Farmer-Labor	2	56.8
1938	John T. Bernard	Farmer-Labor	1	56.4
1928	William L. Carss	Farmer-Labor	3	55.4
1990	Arlan Stangeland	GOP	7	54.6
1890	Samuel P. Snider	GOP	1	53.8
1892	William H. Harries	Democrat-Farmer’s	1	53.6
1896	Charles A. Towne	Democrat-People’s	1	53.3
1886	John B. Gilfillan	GOP	1	53.2
1890	Solomon G. Comstock	GOP	1	52.7
1958	Coya Knutson	DFL	2	52.7
1922	Halvor Steenerson	GOP	10	52.6
1878	Horace B. Strait	GOP	2	52.5
1888	Edmund Rice	Democrat	1	52.4
1888	Thomas Wilson	Democrat	1	52.0
1946	William A. Pittenger	GOP	7	51.9
1946	Frank T. Starkey	DFL	1	51.8
1966	Alec G. Olson	DFL	2	51.8
1892	James N. Castle	Democrat	1	51.8
1918	Clarence B. Miller	GOP	5	51.6
1960	Roy W. Wier	DFL	6	51.6
1948	Edward J. Devitt	GOP	1	51.5
1948	George MacKinnon	GOP	1	51.5
1890	Darwin S. Hall	GOP	1	51.4
1970	Odin Langen	GOP	6	51.2
1890	Mark H. Dunnell	GOP	6	50.4
1888	John L. MacDonald	Democrat	1	50.3
1880	Henry Poehler	Democrat	1	50.0
1938	Paul John Kvale	Farmer-Labor	5	49.7
2002	Bill Luther***	DFL	4	49.6
1944	Richard P. Gale	GOP	2	49.0
1938	Dewey W. Johnson	Farmer-Labor	1	47.8
1922	Andrew J. Volstead	GOP	10	47.5
1938	Henry G. Teigan	Farmer-Labor	1	46.3
1940	John G. Alexander****	Ind-Republican	1	45.3
1894	Osee M. Hall	Democrat	2	44.8
1940	Elmer J. Ryan	Democrat	3	43.6
1894	Melvin R. Baldwin	Democrat	1	43.4
1914	Frederick C. Stevens	GOP	9	36.8
1936	William A. Pittenger	GOP	3	35.7
1894	Haldor E. Boen	People’s	1	35.6
	Average		3.6	53.1

* Arlen Erdahl was outdistricted from the 1st to the 6th District in 1982. ** Tom Hagedorn was outdistricted from the 2nd to the 1st District in 1982. *** Bill Luther was outdistricted from the 6th to the 2nd District in 2002. **** Republican John Alexander failed to win the nomination of his Party so ran on the Independent-Republican ticket instead. Data excludes the seven incumbents in state history who have been defeated in at-large elections (in 1859 and 1932) as well as the two incumbents defeated in a district race in 1934 after having been elected in a statewide election (in 1932). Data compiled by Smart Politics.

Follow Smart Politics on Twitter.