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Leading the Senate in the 110thCongress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2008

Scott A. Frisch  and
Sean Q Kelly
Scott A. Frisch
Affiliation:
California State University, Channel Islands
Sean Q Kelly
Affiliation:
California State University, Channel Islands
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Extract

The 2006 midterm elections were nothing short of stunning.Republicans lost control of both chambers of Congress. Moresurprising than Democratic gains in the House were their gains inthe Senate. In order to achieve a majority in the Senate theDemocrats needed to reelect all of their incumbents and electDemocrats in three out of four competitive states, all of which hadsupported George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential elections(Missouri, Montana, Tennessee, and Virginia). Riding a wave ofpublic discontent associated with the president's Iraq War policy,Democrats beat incumbents in Missouri, Montana, and Virginia to takea slim one-seat majority in the Senate. Democrats organized theSenate in the 110th Congress, with the support of twoindependents—Bernie Sanders (VT) and Independent Democrat JosephLieberman (CT).The authors thank DougHarris for encouraging us to pursue this project and includingit in the forum. Our analysis benefits from our separateexperiences as participant-observers in the Senate. While aPresidential Management Intern, Frisch served in the SenateOffice of Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ); Kelly was an APSACongressional Fellow and worked for the Senate DemocraticLeadership in the Democratic Policy Committee. nominatedata used in this paper are made available by Keith Poole andHoward Rosenthal at www.voteview.com. Data oncampaign contributions were supplied by Jamie Pimlott to whom weowe a debt of gratitude.

Information

Type
SYMPOSIUM
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 69 - 75
Copyright
© 2008 The American Political Science Association

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