Max Baucus Shocks Washington and Montana...and just made Montana interesting for 2014

Tuesday morning, I had just gotten back from dropping my youngest off to day care and was getting ready to transcribe my last interview for chapter 2 of my book on the Tester-Rehberg race. I was damn excited—I was going to get the chapter started this week, and once that was finished, the rest of the book was going to fall into place.

And then, at about 8:30 a.m., my former student Jim Cave posted a link to the Washington Post story breaking the news: Max Baucus was retiring at the end of his term.

Let’s just say I did not spend a single minute on the book yesterday. Instead, I spoke to everyone and everybody about Senator Baucus’ retirement and its political implications. Not too long ago, I had written a piece saying that Max Baucus remained a favorite for reelection. I still maintain that was the case had he remained in the race. His war chest of $5 million is formidable, incumbents are hard to beat, and thus far the Republican candidates who have announced are not raking in the cash (Baucus raised $1.5 million in the last fundraising quarter compared to Corey Stapleton’s $140,000. No numbers have been reported yet for Champ Edmunds). Sure, the Senator’s approval ratings were not great. Sure, the race would be tighter than people might have expected. And sure, I can spin a yarn about how Senator Baucus’ situation looked pretty similar to Senator Frank Church in Idaho in 1980 (who also was chair of a powerful committee supporting the agenda of an unpopular president in his state and who ultimately lost a close race). But at the end of the day, Baucus would raise $15 million, Governor Schweitzer would stay away, the Republicans would not field a challenger comparable to Idaho Congressman Steve Symms, and Baucus would win a seventh term. So why did Senator Baucus step away when reelection, while tough, would likely be the order of the day?

There are lots of reasons why, but I’m not sure fear of losing is one of them. I can point to instances where an incumbent walked away with the sure knowledge that they would lose (Jim Bunning and John Ensign come to mind recently). But the case wasn’t as clear with Baucus. His fundraising was strong, his organization solid, and he appeared to be keeping strong challengers and the money flowing to them at bay. Senator Corey Stapleton MIGHT have some strong political skills, but who would know his story if he didn’t have money to tell it? Maybe Baucus feared the formidable Governor Schweitzer in a primary. Doubtful, too. While it is clear to me that Governor Schweitzer misses the game, what would Schweitzer gain from such a move long term? He MIGHT beat the Senator, and he MIGHT have won in the fall, but he would have upset the political establishment in the state and in the party. An establishment that’s useful when governing and perhaps useful if one wishes to run for higher office in the future (such as the presidency). Primary contests against well-entrenched incumbents are tough to pull off even in an environment where it has happened more regularly than in the past (see Senator Dick Lugar and Bob Bennett).

I think three factors were important in the Senator deciding to retire. First, I think he knew full well that he would need to raise $15 million to win this race, which he was fully capable of doing as Senate Finance chair. But, I don’t think he wanted to do it. Raising money is a tough and long slog that requires lots of travel all over the country. That’s a tall order at any age, but particularly so at 71.

Second, it is not clear that going back to the Senate for another term would be all that and a bag of chips. Consider this: Senator Baucus is chairman of a powerful committee that isn’t as powerful when the party leadership has shown a willingness to legislate outside and around it. That makes that chairmanship less powerful, less interesting, and less prestigious. Add the fact that many of the long-term members the Senator has served with have either left the chamber or have died. These were folks he had relationships with and that he could influence. He has far less influence as a centrist in an increasingly polarized body without those long-standing relationships. Consider the number of centrist politicians who have left the chamber recently: Kent Conrad, Byron Dorgan, Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, Dick Lugar, Olympia Snowe, Bob Byrd, and Tim Johnson to name only a few. I’m sure that if I sat down and did a rigorous analysis, I’d find that centrist Senators have been increasingly likely to step aside in recent years because of the constant difficulties they face in being pulled by each extreme in the two parties. Every vote that is taken because a potential campaign issue—something to not take lightly in an era of Citizens United where a person can raise millions of dollars and dump it into your race unexpectedly and at the drop of a hat. The ability to control the campaign narrative is rapidly disappearing in this environment. What’s the point of winning if you can’t ultimately govern in the manner you believe is best?

Third and finally, the Senator made mention of his wish to come back to Montana and spend time with family. Anyone who lives in Montana and has made a life here knows that Montana gets into your soul and bones. People live here because of the land, the space, and the lifestyle. Travelling back and forth to Washington over forty years is hard enough, but to leave Montana? That’s almost impossible and heart-wrenching. As Governor Schweitzer said, can you blame him for wanting to come home? The Senator is newly re-married and is building a house in Bozeman. Given the shock waves throughout Montana and the surprise by which the announcement took his own staff, I believe the Senator when he says that the reason for announcing his retirement was largely personal and not because of any fear of losing. He wants to come home while he still can and enjoy the Last, Best Place unlike so many friends that died in the Senate, away from their homes.

Love him or hate him, one cannot deny that Senator Baucus has been responsible for millions of dollars in federal dollars and projects throughout Montana over the years. He has played an important role in conservation, healthcare reform, the Bush tax cuts, and free trade. What Max Baucus has done for the state and the legacy he leaves behind will be debated for years. The political implications of his departure will be felt well beyond Montana. It will mean a new finance chair in 2015 regardless of which party wins control of the chamber, and I suspect that Senator Tester will seek Senator Baucus’ seat on agriculture. 

Senator Baucus’ stepping aside has created a rare open seat opportunity in Montana, the first since 1976. Open seats provide the best opportunity for the party out of control to capture a seat. Generally, this means well-qualified challengers on both sides of the aisle jump into the fray.

This open seat, however, is not truly “open” because there is one candidate sitting in the catbird’s seat that would alter competitive dynamics dramatically. What he decides determines whether this race will be truly competitive or whether the Democrats will retain the seat with little effort. That candidate, of course, is ex-Governor Brian Schweitzer. He is currently the most popular politician in the state. He has a flair for the dramatic and is beloved by independents in an independent-minded state. And he is often talked about as presidential material. While in the past I have generally dismissed the Governor as a Senate candidate, the situation is now different. 2016 is a long way off and with increasing chatter of Clinton and/or Biden running, the path forward for the presidential nomination becomes more challenging for the ex-Governor. While Schweitzer acquitted himself well in two national convention speeches, he is still a relative unknown without a large national fundraising apparatus in place. A Senate seat might provide him with the platform to build a national brand, and that might be tempting for someone who I believe to be clearly interested in the White House. Without an incumbent in the way, he would clear the Democratic field and perhaps the Republican field of any of the stronger candidates. If he wins, Schweitzer and the Democrats become the prohibitive favorites in the race.

Should Schweitzer not run, then the top three Republican candidates are Congressman Steve Daines, former Governor Marc Racicot, and former Congressman Denny Rehberg. Each has their strengths and weaknesses. Steve Daines ran a good race, but he just got elected to the House and turning around and cobbling together a Senate race may look disingenuous to the voters. It is also risky. If he loses, there’s no clear political path forward for him. Former Governor Racicot is nearly as popular and well-thought of as Governor Schweitzer and he might prove to be the most formidable challenger to him. But he’s been a lobbyist for quite some time and has spent a lot of time in Washington. Wouldn’t the Democrats love that narrative as it worked so well against Congressman Rehberg in 2012. As for Congressman Rehberg, people know him, all the dirty laundry has already been aired, and he might fare better in a comparison to another candidate who is not dirt farmer Jon Tester. On the other hand, I’m not terribly convinced that’s what he wants to do. It would be his third try for the Senate, and I suspect he likes the time he’s spending with his family after sleeping on that office coach for 12 years. 

If any of the three entered the race absent Schweitzer, then it would be difficult to see which Democratic candidate could be competitive. The best candidates would be statewide office holders like Denise Juneau, Linda McCullough, or Monica Lindeen simply because all three have statewide name recognition and have put together winning statewide campaigns. That said, neither have a long list of accomplishments that the voters know much about and they would need to raise considerable amounts of money to compete with well-connected Republican candidates like Daines, Rehberg, or Racicot. If none of these Republicans run, then the race is truly wide open and could become one of the most competitive in the country as either party would have a shot of winning the seat.

The 2012 Senate campaign was a long, tough slog that witnessed more television spots than any other Senate race during the cycle. The race cost more than $50 million when you tally all the outside money and the sums raised by parties and the two candidates. Whether Montanans will be subjected to another campaign as intense and close depends largely on one man: Governor Schweitzer. When will he decide? Time will tell, but I believe it is in his best interest to wait as long as he can before that decision is made and announced. No one will make any decisions about their own future plans until he makes his, and given his statewide recognition and his favorable job reputation, he can afford to keep everyone else waiting. And that’s just the way the Governor likes it, to be sitting in the catbird seat.

How Vulnerable is Max Baucus...Really?

Montana Republicans are pretty excited about what they perceive to be Max Baucus’ vulnerability leading into the 2014 cycle. There are two indicators which are suggestive of said vulnerability. First, Max Baucus’ job approval ratings may be underwater. Two recent PPP polls had Baucus’ approval ratings at 41 (November) and 45 (February), respectively. By comparison, Senator Jon Tester—who was widely considered vulnerable in 2012—had a job approval rating of 50 percent two years before Election Day in PPP’s poll. Baucus’ numbers are less than Tester’s in the same PPP poll, and generally speaking, an incumbent who is under fifty percent could be in trouble.

Second, some national observers are suggesting that Max Baucus could be in trouble—and the most notable national observer is Nate Silver. Silver, of course, correctly predicted all but two Senate races in the 2012 cycle correctly using his econometric modelling techniques. Silver recently placed the Baucus race in the toss-up category, noting that Montana is a conservative leaning state and that Senator Baucus’ role in shepherding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) through the Senate Finance Committee hasn’t played well in the state. Of course, Silver was wrong on Montana—Tester won the race and did so largely in spite of voting for the ACA. Nevertheless, at 71 years old, Baucus may have a fight on his hands. All of this is known, and I’ve commented on it on the past here on this site.

How vulnerable is Max Baucus really? Well, to be frank, the evidence is mixed. First, Senator Baucus has raised a boatload of money. It will be very hard for a Republican challenger to match the kind of funds that Baucus has at his disposal. As of the last quarter FEC filing, Baucus had $3.5 million cash on hand—more cash on hand than any other Democratic Senator running for reelection save one. Frankly, creating a sizeable war chest is one of the key powers of an incumbent as it tends to scare-off quality and strategic challengers because of the daunting prospect one would face to raise the money to compete. Consider, too, the important perch from which Baucus goes into this race: he’s the Chairman of the uber-powerful Senate Finance Committee. I heard several stories from sources that Senator Baucus used his position to help Senator Tester raise money and to “suggest” to some lobbyists that it would be “unwise” to give money to Tester’s challenger, Congressman Rehberg. If you were a lobbyist, would you really want to risk your access by giving to Champ Edmunds (who just announced his bid) or Corey Stapleton?

Senator Baucus hasn’t had a serious electoral challenge since Congressman Rehberg—then the Lieutenant Governor of Montana—ran against him in 1996 and came within five points of beating him. After that, he’s coasted to reelection. In 2008, against an admittedly weak and less than serious challenger (Bob Kelleher, who wanted to move the United States to a parliamentary system), Baucus racked up 73 percent of the vote. The lack of a serious challenger can cut two ways. The lack of a strong challenger is a sign of strength because the Senator scared off all the serious ones. The lack of a strong challenger could auger some weakness because the Senator hasn’t faced a real competitive race in nearly twenty years (certainly, Montana Democrats made this case about Congressman Rehberg in suggesting that his challenge was not nearly as formidable as some claimed).

Silver dismisses the lack of past serious challengers, saying what is more important in forecasting the Montana Senate election is the recent job approval numbers that tell us how voters feel right now about Senator Baucus. Well, to cite an old campaign adage, you can’t beat somebody with nobody, and at this moment, it is clear that Champ Edmunds is a second tier candidate at best. Whether Corey Stapleton is a somebody or nobody remains to be seen. He has some statewide recognition owing to his recent gubernatorial campaign and he served for some time in the Montana Senate, so he knows about running for and serving in office. His seriousness depends mostly on his ability to raise cash.

Silver’s point about job approval numbers is worth noting. I assembled the job approval numbers of Senators up for reelection in the last four election cycles. I sorted the senators into three categories: senators who ended up opting for retirement, senators who won reelection, and senators who lost (see Figure 1). The patterns are suggestive but not conclusive. Senators who have lower approval numbers, on average, generally opt to retire—and this is particularly true when going into what appears to be a wave election that will likely work against your party. Senators who win reelection are generally more popular on average, and Senators who lose generally have lower approval numbers two years out. 

2012 was odd, however. Senators losing reelection actually had HIGHER job approval numbers two or so years out than those who won reelection. First, 2012 was a year where relatively few Senate incumbents lost reelection (91 percent of those seeking reelection won): Scott Brown lost after having won a surprise special election to replace Senator Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts, and Dick Lugar lost in the primary to a Tea Party endorsed Republican. Both had rather high approval ratings two months out. 

Looking at previous vote percentages (see Figure 2), the pattern is the same. Generally, senators reelected with lower numbers are more likely to lose than those who win reelection six years later. Retirees can either go out strong (as they did in 2008) or leave strategically because they don’t want to face a tough reelection (like 2006). Again, 2012 defies the pattern largely because Dick Lugar won by such a large margin in 2006 (receiving 87 percent of the vote) and so many Democrats won reelection despite having won by relatively slim margins six years previous (likely due to the great GOTV effort undertaken by Democrats and allied interest groups). 

Midterm elections like 2014 have consistently led to the president’s party getting spanked at the polls (for data, see the Presidency Project here). Generally speaking, Senator Baucus exhibits some signs of vulnerability, yes. But that’s a long way of saying he is going to lose. At the end of the day, incumbents are damn hard to beat. House incumbents have a reelection rate of 95% in the post-war era, and even in wave elections like 2010 or 2006 have reelection rates above 90 percent. Winning reelection to the Senate is harder, but even then incumbents choosing to run for reelection win 85 percent of the time. There’s no scandal, which kills incumbents (see Conrad Burns, Herman Talmadge for illustrative cases). Baucus is in good health (unlike Senator Roth, who lost in 2000). It appears that the Democratic ranks are closing around Montana’s Senior Senator (see media accounts of the Mansfield-Metcalf dinner). If you were to wager on Max Baucus’ reelection prospects today, you would be well-advised not to bet against him.

Comment Policy Reminder

I just received a very thoughtful and provoking comment about Dr. Johnson's recent post. I'd love to publish it, but generally speaking, we (the political science department at Montana State) much prefer to post comments which are attributed. We work hard to produce our product and attach our names to what we write. In that spirit, we'd like folks who comment to do the same and to keep our discussion lively, civil, and engaged.

The NRA and Theory of Concentrated Benefits

In the now classic The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (1965) the author Mancur Olson wrote:

“(O)nly a separate and ‘selective’ incentive will stimulate a rational individual in a latent group to act in a group-oriented way”; that is, members of a large group will not act in the group's common interest unless motivated by personal gains (economic, social, etc.). He specifically distinguishes between large and small groups, the latter of which can act simply on a shared objective. Large groups, however, will not form or work towards a shared objective unless individual members are sufficiently motivated”.

The National Rifle Association understands Olson’s analysis better than most.

The simple observation of Olson was that when it comes to organizing for a common purpose, people organized into small, highly focused groups will incur less cost per unit of good produced than those in large groups. In other words, as political groups increase in size, they tend to lose focus and experience what we now call “mission creep”. In addition, as groups increase in size there is a greater tendency for some to not pay their way – the quintessential “free rider” problem. The goals tend to become fuzzy and eventually, most large groups become more socially oriented than goal oriented. Costs to members per unit of good rise precipitously until it is no longer cost effective to belong.  This is the theory of collective action and concentrated benefits versus diffuse costs.

An example I studied in the 1980s was the Sierra Club. What started out as a small group of conservationists passionate about the high Sierras in 1892 was, by the 1930s, as focused on outings and social gatherings as conservation. Eventually, the club’s efforts to get along with mainstream politics got so bad that then director David Brower resigned in 1969 and formed his own conservation group – The Friends of the Earth. This is not to suggest the SC had no conservation successes, on the contrary – they have their activist fingers in virtually every conservation pie from clean water to climate change to electric cars. In fact, they are currently engaged in 25 different conservation programs. Today, if you were to ask most Americans what the club is all about many would say they run fun trips into the wilderness. They have lost focus and so effectiveness in the conservation world.

The NRA takes a different approach. When I was young, all of us kids took NRA Hunter Safety courses before we could acquire our first hunting license. Their magazine The American Hunter was on par with Field & Stream. The NRA was about firearm safety and shooting sports with a little conservation thrown in. It was largely apolitical and certainly not a standout interest group. Today, the NRA is focused wholly on gun control. A political coup in 1977 by organization activists afraid of gun confiscation turned the group into a Second Amendment advocate. Since then, the NRA has proven itself one of the most successful interest groups on the Hill. The reasons are obvious and were explained by Olson almost fifty years ago.

First, NRA members know exactly what their dues go toward – preservation of gun rights via Second Amendment protections. There is no pretense among membership that they are a shooting hobby group or social club. They advocate for the right to own guns.

Second, members are notoriously single minded in their voting patterns. They are single issue voters and will oppose any politician that threatens their own perception/interpretation of their Second Amendment rights. They will write letters, sign petitions, march in political rallies, give money, and generally go beyond the “normal” level of political commitment compared to most of us.

Third, they are relatively few in number and so are able to stay on task. Gun ownership numbers are always suspect but there is widespread agreement that Americans own a lot of guns. Gallup polls report that almost half (47%) or around 50,000,000 households own a gun; a recent survey of 45,000 people by YouGov reported 35% of households with guns. However, here is the important number: 65% of the 310,000,000 guns in private ownership belong to just 20% of gun owners. Further, the YouGov survey found that only 7% of gun owners belonged to the NRA – according to NRA figures that is only four million members. While that seems like a large number, and it is, in terms of gun ownership it is a drop in the bucket – but a highly focused, highly activist one.

What lessons can we take away? The first would be that until a group emerges that is as highly focused on gun control measures as the NRA is on gun rights, there is no contest. All the major polls show overwhelming support (somewhere north of 50%) for some degree of gun control. The problem is that most of those same people do not have the single-minded focus of the gun rights advocates. Until they do, they are not in the game.

The other lesson is that perhaps size really doesn’t matter. The NRA demonstrates that a relative handful of people can block any sort of meaningful reform for decades. Rather than building broad political consensus on the issue, reformers could be effective by operating with strategy and funding. The only time we hear from Wayne LaPierre is when he rails against reform measures. The rest of the time the NRA stays mostly out of the news and so out of our consciousness. They lobby quietly on the Hill and in state races. Reformers should do the same.

Mancur Olson understood that our social and political activities are better understood through an analysis of our costs and incentives for action. Politics is not always a game of large numbers; sometimes it is simply laser like focus on a single goal. Incentives cover a wide array of motivators including financial and moral remuneration. The NRA understands this. The gun rights reform movement; in order to be successful, will need to identify the incentives most salient to the majority. Unfortunately, widespread gun violence in our schools and communities doesn’t seem to be sufficient.