Could Dianne Feinstein Lose Her U.S. Senate Seat in 2012?

Feinstein’s approval rating has dropped steadily since 2006; Senators who have never previously won with 60+ percent of the vote (like Feinstein) have lost half of their 5th term bids

Since Dianne Feinstein was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992, the state of California has certainly been a Democratic stronghold in federal elections.

During these 18 years, Democrats have carried California in all five presidential races, won all eight Senate contests, and claimed 315 of 525 general election U.S. House seats (60 percent) in the Golden State.

As a result, of the 23 U.S. Senate seats held by the Democrat caucus on the ballot in 2012, Feinstein’s is viewed by most D.C. prognosticators as one of the safest – rated as “Safe Democrat” by Stuart Rothenberg, Charlie Cook, and Larry Sabato.

Feinstein is also looking to become just the second five-term female U.S. Senator in American history, joining fellow Democrat Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, who accomplished this feat last November.

All this suggests Feinstein will be a shoo-in for a fifth term, right?

Perhaps not.

For starters, the senior Senator from California’s job approval rating has been languishing in the 40s for well over a year and has been on the decline for half a decade.

SurveyUSA’s most recent poll from February of this year found Senator Feinstein with only a 43 percent approval rating – down by more than a quarter from the 59 percent rating she received in November 2006 when she was elected to her fourth term.

That means Feinstein has suffered through a 29-point net drop in job approval from her reelection in November 2006 (+25 points; 59 percent approve, 34 percent disapprove) to February 2011 (-4 points; 43 percent approve, 47 percent disapprove).

And the February poll is not an aberration.

Feinstein enjoyed a string of 34 consecutive months from June 2005 through March 2008 of approval ratings at or above 50 percent in SurveyUSA polling.

Since April 2008, however, Feinstein has seen her job approval rating fall below 50 percent in 25 of 33 SurveyUSA polls through February 2011, including each of the last 12.

Looking at the yearly aggregation of Feinstein’s job ratings across the last six years of SurveyUSA polling finds the Senator gradually shedding support from Californians – a decline that started well in advance of the GOP surge in 2009.

Feinstein’s job approval rating has fallen from a yearly average of 55.6 percent in 2006, to 53.6 percent in 2007, to 50.3 percent in 2008, to 48.6 percent in 2009, to 43.5 percent in 2010, to 43.0 percent during the first two months of 2011.

Feinstein’s disapproval rating, meanwhile, has increased from 36.3 percent in 2006 to 39.1 percent in 2007, 41.6 percent in 2008, 43.1 percent in 2009, to 47.8 and 47.5 percent in 2010 and 2011 respectively.

Senator Dianne Feinstein Job Approval Rating by Year, 2005-2011

Year	Approve	Disapprove	Difference	# Polls
2005	53.4	35.3	18.1	8
2006	55.6	36.3	19.3	12
2007	53.6	39.1	14.5	12
2008	50.3	41.6	8.7	10
2009	48.6	43.1	5.5	12
2010	43.5	47.8	-4.3	12
2011	43.0	47.5	-4.5	2

Table compiled by Smart Politics with monthly SurveyUSA polling data.

And then there is the following historical point to consider.

While Senator Feinstein has won four consecutive Senate contests, she has failed to reach the 60 percent mark in any of them.

Feinstein notched 54.3 percent of the vote in her 1992 special election victory over John Seymoure, 46.7 percent in 1994 against Michael Huffington, 55.8 percent against Tom Campbell, and 59.4 percent in 2006 against Richard Mountjoy.

This is not the usual electoral pathway for politicians who have built long careers in the nation’s upper legislative chamber.

A Smart Politics study of U.S. Senate election results over the last century finds that of the 140 Senators who have been elected to four or more consecutive terms, only 23, including Feinstein, failed to record at least one with 60+ percent of the vote in their first four victories.

And what happened to these other 22 Senators after being elected to a fourth term?

· Two are currently serving in the Senate: James Inhofe (R-OK) is up for a fifth term in 2014 with Barbara Boxer (D-CA) up in 2016.

· Two died in office during their fourth term: Everett Dirksen (R-IL) in 1969 and Pat McCarran (D-NV) in 1954.

· Two resigned from their seat prior to the completion of their fourth term: Robert Wagner (D-NY) in 1949 and Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX) in 1993.

· Six retired and did not run for a fifth term: Theodore Green (D-RI) in 1960, Bourke Hickenlooper (R-IA) in 1968, John Williams (R-DE) in 1970, Wallace Bennett (R-UT) in 1974, John Tower (R-TX) in 1984, and Kit Bond (R-MO) in 2010.

That leaves just 10 Senators who, like Feinstein, launched a bid for a fifth consecutive term.

Only half were successful.

Two of these are Feinstein’s fellow Democratic colleagues: Carl Levin (D-MI) in 2002 and Tom Harkin (D-IA) in 2008, along with James Murray (D-MT) in 1954, Dennis Chavez (D-NM) in 1958, and Jesse Helms (R-NC) in 1996. (Levin, Harkin, and Chavez all eclipsed the 60 percent mark winning their fifth term).

Five Senators, however, failed to win a fifth straight term: William King (D-UT) in 1940, David Walsh (D-MA) in 1946, Joseph O’Mahoney (D-WY) in 1952, Alexander Wiley (R-WI) in 1962, and Jacob Javits (R-NY) in 1980.

(Note: O’Mahoney would go on to win a fifth (non-consecutive) term two years later when he won Wyoming’s other Senate seat).

In short, four-term Senators with Feinstein’s only quasi-dominant electoral track record have been quite vulnerable in their appeal to voters for a fifth term.

To be sure, Feinstein’s 54.1 average vote percentage across her four victories is historically low for long-serving members of the Senate.

Overall, Feinstein holds the sixth lowest career percentage of the vote won in election victories among the 87 Democrats who have won at least four consecutive terms since popular elections were first introduced a century ago.

Among Democrats only Thomas Walsh of Montana (48.9 percent average), Harry Reid of Nevada (52.1 percent), Robert Wagner of New York (52.5 percent), fellow delegation member Barbara Boxer of California (52.7 percent), and William King of Utah (53.5 percent) have notched a lower average percentage of the vote won across their respective U.S. Senate victories.

Lowest Average Career Percentage of the Vote Won in U.S. Senate Elections by Democrats with 4+ Consecutive Term Victories

Rank	State	Senator	Ave.
1	Montana	Thomas Walsh	48.9
2	Nevada	Harry Reid	52.1
3	New York	Robert Wagner	52.5
4	California	Barbara Boxer	52.7
5	Utah	William King	53.5
6	California	Dianne Feinstein	54.1
7	Montana	James Murray	54.2
8	Nevada	Key Pittman	54.3
9	California	Alan Cranston	54.5
10	Washington	Patty Murray	55.0
11	Massachusetts	David Walsh	55.2
12	New Mexico	Dennis Chavez	55.4
13	Iowa	Tom Harkin	55.7
14	Wyoming	Joseph O’Mahoney	56.0
15	Rhode Island	Theodore Green	56.3
16	Idaho	Frank Church	56.8
17	Nevada	Pat McCarran	56.9
18	Kentucky	Alben Barkley	57.0
18	New Jersey	Harrison Williams	57.0
18	Texas	Lloyd Bentsen	57.0
21	Nevada	Howard Cannon	57.1
22	Michigan	Carl Levin	57.2
23	Oregon	Ron Wyden	57.4
23	Connecticut	Joe Lieberman	57.4
25	Nevada	Alan Bible	57.7
26	Washington	Warren Magnuson	57.8
26	New Mexico	Clinton Anderson	57.8
28	West Virginia	Jennings Randolf	58.2
29	North Dakota	Quentin Burdick	58.8
30	Delaware	Joe Biden	59.2
31	Arizona	Henry Ashurst	59.3
32	Missouri	W. Stuart Symington	59.5
33	Wisconsin	Herb Kohl	59.8
34	South Carolina	Fritz Hollings	59.9
35	North Dakota	Kent Conrad	60.2
36	New York	Daniel Patrick Moynihan	60.4
37	Oklahoma	Elmer Thomas	60.5
38	Vermont	Patrick Leahy	60.6
39	New Mexico	Jeff Bingaman	60.7
40	Maryland	Paul Sarbanes	60.8
41	Montana	Max Baucus	60.9
42	Ohio	John Glenn	61.7
43	Massachusetts	John Kerry	62.0
44	Wisconsin	William Proxmire	62.3
44	Connecticut	Chris Dodd	62.3
44	Maine	Edmund Muski	62.3
47	Montana	Michael Mansfield	63.0
48	Montana	Burton Wheeler	63.1
49	Maryland	Millard Evelyn Tydings	63.4
50	Tennessee	Kenneth McKellar	63.8
51	Kentucky	Wendell Ford	64.0
52	West Virginia	Jay Rockefeller	64.2
53	Arizona	Cary Hayden	64.3
54	Massachusetts	Ted Kennedy	64.9
54	Hawaii	Daniel Akaka	64.9
56	Maryland	Barbara Mikulski	65.8
57	Arkansas	Dale Bumpers	66.1
58	Rhode Island	John Pastore	66.2
59	Rhode Island	Claireborne Pell	66.4
60	Washington	Scoop Jackson	69.8
61	North Carolina	Samuel Ervin	71.9
62	West Virginia	Robert Byrd	72.1
63	Virginia	Harry Byrd, Sr.	73.4
64	Georgia	Sam Nunn	73.8
64	Virginia	Absalom Robertson	73.8
66	Hawaii	Daniel Inuoye	74.9
67	Alabama	John Sparkman	76.5
68	Florida	Spessard Holland	78.4
69	Arkansas	J. William Fulbright	79.2
70	Alabama	J. Lister Hill	82.6
71	Mississippi	John Stennis	82.8
72	South Carolina	Olin Johnston	83.1
73	Virginia	Carter Glass	84.7
74	Florida	Park Trammel	84.9
75	Louisiana	Russell Long	85.1
76	Mississippi	James Eastland	85.2
77	Florida	Duncan Fletcher	86.9
78	Georgia	Herman Talmadge	87.3
79	Texas	Morris Sheppard	87.9
80	Arkansas	Joseph Robinson	89.4
81	Texas	Tom Connally	90.2
82	Arkansas	John McClellan	92.3
83	Louisiana	Allen Ellender	96.6
84	Georgia	Walter George	98.0
85	Mississippi	Pat Harrisson	98.8
86	South Carolina	Cotton Ed Smith	99.3
87	Georgia	Richard Russell	99.5

Note: Table compiles average vote won in election victories only in popular vote elections. Data compiled by Smart Politics.

Among the 140 Democratic and Republican senators who have won at least four consecutive terms via popular vote elections, Feinstein has the 18th lowest career average.

The clock is now ticking for Republicans to find a strong candidate and begin fundraising to make a competitive run for this seemingly ‘safe’ Democratic seat.

Follow Smart Politics on Twitter.