When looking at the baseline electoral potential of the two major parties, the current balance of partisan self-identification might be the most useful metric available. If a roughly equal number of people are willing to self-identify as Democrats and as Republicans, then the two parties have a roughly equal number of potential voters. However, right now, the two parties are not equal at all. From Gallup (emphasis mine): An average of all national Gallup polling in 2006, consisting of interviews with more than 30,000 adult Americans, finds 34% of Americans identifying as Democrats, 30% as Republicans, and 34% as independents. The parties had been relatively even in terms of national strength since 2001. The most recent figures represent the largest Democratic advantage since the Clinton presidency.(...)

The increasing Democratic advantage is mainly due to declining Republican identification, rather than increasing Democratic identification. From 2004-2006, Republican identification declined from 34% to 30%, while Democratic identification increased by less than a percentage point (33.6% to 34.3%). During the last three years, the percentage of Americans identifying as independents increased from 31% to 34%.

The Democrats' advantage expands when taking into account the "leanings" of independents. In 2006, 50% of Americans identified as Democrats or were independents who said they leaned toward the Democratic Party. Forty percent identified as Republicans or leaned to the Republican Party. That 10-point advantage more than doubled the Democrats' 4-point advantage in 2005, and is the largest gap Gallup has measured in any year for either party since it regularly began tracking leaned party identification in 1991. This is the first time since 1991 that a party's support reached the 50% level.Two things. First, the current Democratic advantage is mainly due to movement within the Independent pool. Many people who previously identified as Republicans are now identifying as Independents, and many Independents who once leaned toward Republicans are now leaning toward Democrats. This means that while Democrats have gained, it is not yet a realignment. We will have achieved realignment-level success when this movement within the Independent pool moves all the way toward more people identifying as Democrats. Given the long-term trend of more people to self-identify with neither major party, this might prove exceedingly difficult.

Second, on a more positive note, the rate of change in favor of Democrats appears to be increasing. The last nine months of 2006 saw an average Democratic advantage of 11.5%, and the final three months of 2006 saw a Democratic advantage of 14.2%. This compares with a stable Democratic advantage of 6.6% from July of 2005 through March of 2006. The percentage of Democratic self-identifiers, not including Democratic-leaning independents, rose by 2-2.5% during the final nine months of 2006. This might suggest that Democrats are in fact on the verge of a very real realignment.

State level data shows even more good news: Based on their 2006 averages in leaned party identification, Gallup classifies 33 states as Democratic in orientation (the state showed a statistically significant advantage in Democratic leaning in 2006) and six as Republican (the state showed a statistically significant advantage in Republican leaning in 2006). The remaining 10 states (including District of Columbia, but not including Alaska and Hawaii since Gallup does not interview in those states) are considered competitive, because the leading party's advantage is within the margin of error for that state's data. The overall results show a net gain of six states for Democrats and a net loss of six for Republicans from 2005. The shift since 2003 has been dramatic, when Republican-leaning states outnumbered Democratic-leaning states 20-14. Over the past three years, Republicans have lost their advantage in 14 states, and Democrats have gained a statistically significant advantage in 19 states. Since 2003, the individual gains and losses were as follows:

• States where Republicans no longer have an edge: Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee
  
  
• States where Democrats have gained an edge: Delaware, Florida, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin
  
  
• States where both took place: Arizona, Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Virginia
  
  
• States where Democrats lost an edge: Louisiana

With the exception of Colorado and Gore's home state of Tennessee, both of which are now "competitive" and actually recorded slightly more Democrats than Republicans in 2006, every single state in the country that was considered a "swing state" in either the 2000 or 2004 Presidential election now leans toward Democrats in terms of partisan self-identification. In most cases, that is a change from 2003. So, while we have not achieved realignment yet, we certainly appear to be putting the pieces in place. And the fifty-state strategy marches forward.

Harvard University's Elaine Kamarck has produced a paper that tries to quantify the impact of the fifty state strategy on House races in the 2006 elections, "Assessing Howard Dean's Fifty State Strategy and the 2006 Midterm Elections". You can read the paper here, and guest access is not hard to get in order to peruse the entire text. It is worth a read for anyone interested in the debate over narrow targeting and television air time versus the fifty state strategy and on the ground organizing. From page four of the paper:By the end of Dean's first year in office, the fifty state strategy was in full swing. The DNC was paying for 183 people working for state parties as part of their coordinated campaigns. Most of this work went on below the radar screen. I admit I was unaware of the wide scope of the fifty-state strategy--183 paid organizers is quite a large amount. It is certainly a very expensive electoral and party-building strategy that shifts a huge amount of funds away from television advertising during the final few weeks of the campaign in selected, narrowly targeted districts. Assessing the effectiveness of this strategy with an objective eye thus becomes increasingly important, since tens of millions of campaign dollars are at stake, and both those within the Democratic party infrastructure who favor the fifty-state strategy, such as state party chairs, as well as those who oppose it, such as consultants for Democratic campaign committees, stand to either gain or lose a huge amount of money depending on the scale to which the strategy is implemented. After a detailed explanation of her methodology and why she had to focus on House races instead of statewide contests, Kamarck offers the following analysis (p. 7-8): As Table 1 indicates, those congressional districts where the DNC had paid organizers on the ground for over a year more than doubled the Democratic vote over what would have happened due to forces outside the control of the Party, such as the war in Iraq and the unpopularity of a Republican President. This is a powerful testament to the value of a long-term party building approach. Gains in the Democratic vote occurred where the Democrat won and where the Democrat lost. The Democratic candidate won in 20 of the 39 districts where the DNC had organizers but this should not detract from the accomplishment of dramatically increasing the vote in those districts. In some places the organizer's initial and primary responsibility was to increase the vote in order to impact statewide races. In others the Democrats created a swing district where there had been none before.

This finding, while an impressive testament to the value of campaign activity in a district, does not settle the argument over the 50 state strategy. Many of the districts that had the benefit of a DNC organizer were also districts that were targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and received significant national attention. So the next step in trying to determine what matters is to arrange the districts targeted by Dean according to the amount of money the DCCC contributed to the Democrat in those districts. I did this in Appendix B, which shows how much the DCCC contributed in each of these seats and the percentage change in Democratic vote share for that district. Clearly, there is not a simple linear progression: more money is not necessarily related to greater increases in the Democratic vote.

For the sake of brevity, Table 2 summarizes the results of the analysis. It suggests that, in the absence of significant amounts of DCCC money, the presence of a DNC organizer in a congressional district puts the average Democratic increase in the vote significantly above what would be expected simply given the anti-Republican currents in the country in 2006. Districts that had less than $10,000 from the DCCC still exceeded the average national increase by nearly 3 percentage points. Districts that received between $10,000 and $100,000 exceeded the average national increase by nearly 4 percentage points. Not surprisingly, those districts that received between $100,000 and $200,000 in DCCC contributions exceeded the national average by over 8 percentage points. These districts also exceeded the average increase for the districts with a DNC organizer. Obviously money matters. But what is interesting about this table is how much can be accomplished with organization. Since there were only two districts that were targeted by the 50 state strategy that received more than $200,000 I would not make too much of this finding. Keep in mind that it is often argued that there are diminishing returns to money in politics. While I am not convinced by the amounts of money she lists as independent expenditures by the DCCC in the districts in question (her figures seems very low), overall, the message is clear: the paid organizers in these key districts led to a substantial increase in the Democratic vote share over 2002. Some may question whether a gain of three to eight percentage points is worth the huge amounts of money the DNC spent to employ these organizers, but I think it definitely was. I believe that field organizing has much longer-term effects than television-based forms of voter contact, which will benefit Democrats in the targeted areas for many election cycles to come almost no matter who the future Democratic candidates in those districts may be. Also, in the event that the country reverts back to a state of nearly even polarization, a three to eight percent advantage in key districts could easily mean the difference between being on the right side of trifecta governance and the wrong side. After the 2004 elections, we learned that only 4.7% of the country changed its mind during the 2004 campaign, but the many small campaign advantages Republicans held outside of the airwars consistently allowed them to govern with an iron fist and a 50%+1 "majority."

I doubt that this paper will settle the question over the effectiveness of the fifty-state strategy anymore than it already has been settled, but I do believe that this paper offers some much needed factual overlays to the debate. If anyone wishes to argue that the fifty-state strategy hurt Democrats in key congressional districts, they should first have to answer to the analysis presented in this paper.

I really like Ed Kilgore. I always have, even before I met the guy and had breakfast with him last year. During my four years in the netroots, I have become a firm believer in coalition politics, and that it takes a wide range of people to form a governing majority. I also think that the conservative movement's belief in an all-powerful conservative base presents us with a tremendous opportunity to realign the national political landscape into an Indycrat, progressive-moderate governing consensus. All members of this consensus can get a lot of what they want a lot of the time, and its opposition will be an extremist conservative movement that finds itself with nothing because it believed it could stand alone.

One of the keys to building this coalition is that we work together, and not have the desire to throw each other under the bus for personal benefit. This is a problem I long viewed with the triangulation strategy, but it there is certainly a small, though real, minority element within the progressive movement that would like to see all moderate "DLC" types expelled from the party. A second key to pulling this off is to realize that the conservative movement, while having a higher concentration of adherents in the southern part of the country, is ultimately a diaspora spread throughout the country. Thus, while some regions may be more difficult than others, we don't throw any regions of the country under the bus either. The point is that we are opposing conservative extremism, wherever it may be, not that we are opposing the region with the highest number of conservative extremists. After all, the electoral and ideological difference between states as seemingly red as Alabama and as seemingly blue as Massachusetts are the views of only about 20-25% of the population.

Ed Kilgore is someone who recognizes these needs, and who leaves the bombastic declarations of some school of triangulation Democrats, such as Al From or Jams Carville, on the sidelines. Right now, he has a good piece in Salon that I think level-headedly explains how Democrats should approach the South:

There's more...

Here are eleven House seats where the progressive movement should have played more of a role this year:OH-06, IL-17, OH-13, MD-03, HI-02, FL-11, TN-09, MN-05, GA-04, NJ-13, and NY-11 What do these eleven House seats have in common, you might ask? All eleven were held by Democrats before the election, but all eleven are now held by different Democrats after the election. These were our eleven open seats, at least eight of which can be considered safe blue districts (OH-06 is a swing district, and IL-17 and OH-13 are both about the same as CT-04, the district held by Republican Chris Shays). For people who are interested in helping to build a Democratic majority that is responsive to the interests of the people-powered progressive movement, these are exactly the type of seats where you should be directing your resources. Beyond Republican-held seats, beyond primary challenges to safe Democratic incumbents, the open, safe Democratic seat is exactly the sort of district we need to pay more attention to in 2008. Unfortunately, in the 2006 cycle, this was a type of district the online component of the progressive movement, the netroots, virtually ignored.

Now, even without the help of the online component of the people-powered progressive movement, some good things happened in these districts. Three of these seats now sport members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus: IL-17 (Phil Hare), HI-02 (Mazie Hirono) and MN-05 (Keith Ellison). Further, some of the more odious Democrats occupying ultra-blue districts were removed, including Greg Meeks (NY-11), Ed Case (HI-02) and Harold Ford (TN-09). I find it hard to imagine that their replacements won't be real improvements. Yet further, we probably lost something in OH-06 and OH-13, but the current representatives have moved on to bigger and better things, so it isn't really a loss. Even further, while it was probably a move to the right, the replacement of Cynthia McKinney in GA-04 is, I think, a very, very good thing. Good riddance, McKinney. Having arrogant, crazy--even potentially bigoted--jerks without a bone of self-recrimination in their bodies representing the left does not help the left one bit.

I cannot speak to FL-11, MD-02 and NJ-13, since I do not really know much about the new Democratic representatives from those seats. Personally, I consider my inability to speak to the condition of these districts a very bad sign. The fifty-state strategy does not just mean we play in the deep red areas of the country--it means we play in the deep blue areas, too. If we don't, Representatives like Chaka Fattah can be replaced with Representatives like Albert Wynn. If we do, Representatives like Mazie Hirono can replace Representatives like Ed Case. Most of the movement's favorite Representatives are from safe blue districts, such as Louise Slaughter and John Conyers. Playing in safe, open Democratic districts is where we can breed a new generation of national leaders for the movement. For 2008, in order to be a fully-fledged, mature political movement, the netroots have to play a major national role in safe Democratic open seats.

While it is hard to forecast where new retirements will come from, we must stay vigilant. For example, one ultra-safe Democratic seat that might come open in 2008 would be my home district, PA-02. Chaka Fattah, whom I mentioned above, is a fantastic representative who is likely to run for Mayor of Philadelphia. Also, he happens to occupy the third bluest district in the entire nation. (It is difficult to explain just how blue this district is. Voting 89% for Kerry doesn't even really explain it, because it is off the charts of the American left-right spectrum. Hell, in my neighborhood, I might actually be something of a moderate. The very large anarchist community is the left wing. Green party registration equals Republican registration in my precinct--and those Republicans are moderates. Moderate Republicanism is a third or fourth party in this area. Republicans of the sort who control the nation party do not really exist outside of a fringe 1-2%).

Fattah would start the campaign as the front-runner for Mayor. If he wins, it is very likely that a machine candidate will be hand-picked by the local ward leaders. With the progressive movement only firmly in command of one of the twenty or so wards in the district (we have made movement in a handful of others, but not to the point of control), it is very likely that a less agreeable, machine candidate could be easily nominated to take Chaka Fattah's place. Now, that new Democrat would probably vote reasonably well (Bob Brady, head of the Philadelphia machine, actually votes pretty well), but that certainly is not a guarantee (see Williams, Anthony the state senator whose district I represent on the state committee). What is a guarantee is that the new candidate would not feel any allegiance to the people-powered movement and never be an all-star, even though this is the sort of district where we should expect progressive heroes.

If you need any more examples, just remember that in 2002, Rahm Emmanuel narrowly defeated a grassroots candidate in his ultra-blue open seat. There is no district so blue or so red that that the netroots should not be giving a major assist to local reformers. The fifty-state strategy means changing blue districts, too. In 2008, we have to prepare our game face for the entire playing field.

Harold Ford announced that he will not challenge Howard Dean for DNC chair. Score another one for the progressive movement over the corporate wing of the party. To celebrate, here is an outstanding article on Howard Dean from Hoteline, Dated Kerry, Married Dean:Who won the election for Democrats last week? Apportion a large measure of credit to the national environment and to Republican mistakes. Give the Democratic grassroots, who cultivated candidates, knocked on doors and raised money for people and causes ignored (at first) by the national party. Certainly, Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer deserve their accolades.

And then there's Howard Dean, the unorthodox, insurgent chairman of the Democratic Party. For more than a year, many of the party's familiarly named strategists, consultants and hangers-on have been convinced that Dean wanted to shape the national committee as a counterweight to the party committees. So if party committees get credit for the victory, Dean should get none, right?

Wrong.(...)

Leave the Internet aside: the architecture of Dean Politics has become the de mode style for the entire party. Dean promoted a vocal, confrontational style of campaigning, one that did not cede an inch to Republicans. His primary campaign was predicated on a 50 state strategy. He urged Democrats to adopt issues that would drive wedges between the Republican base and the party's weaker adherents (mostly in the suburbs). He rejected the politics of inoculation, pronouncing himself proud to be the talisman of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. He intuited that the party (and voters) wanted the Democrats to be the opposition party.(...)

As the result of Dean's own 50 state funding initiatives, when states like Indiana and Wyoming and Nebraska suddenly featured competitive races, the DNC had trained field staffers on the ground. But even Dean's admirers admit that there's no concrete way to know whether the 50 State Project gave these races a bigger boost than the DSCC and DCCC efforts.

But give Dean credit for setting the tone and style of Democratic politics. Successful, Democratic politics, that is, in an environment that Dean first detected three years ago.Read the whole thing. It is awesome.