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. 

Max Baucus Has a Challenger. Can he compete financially?

Roll Call this morning broke the news that former Montana State Senator and 2012 gubernatorial candidate, Corey Stapleton, is running for the chance to take on Democratic Senator Max Baucus. Stapleton came in second place behind eventual nominee Rick Hill with 18 percent of the vote in June's primary. Some have said that Stapelton's showing was surprising in that he eked out well-known conservative Ken Miller by a bit more than 100 votes. Here's a copy of his web announcement:



Stapleton served as a state senator, so political scientists would label him a quality challenger. He has three important hurdles to overcome. First, I'm sure his name recognition went up during the gubernatorial campaign, but Montanans likely still don't know him well. Second, he'll have to clear the field of other Republican candidates--and to do so he'll have to raise a substantial sum of money quickly to demonstrate his seriousness as a candidate. The third challenge is overcoming the significant money advantage Max Baucus already has should Stapleton get the Republican nomination. Roll Call recently released the fourth quarter FEC filings for incumbents, which I retweeted yesterday. The link is here. Senator Baucus raised $611,000 in that quarter and is sitting on nearly $3.6 million in cash. Of the Democratic incumbents listed in competitive elections, only Senator Landrieu (D-LA) raised more (and she raised just north on $1 million). Of the Democratic incumbents listed, only Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) had more cash on hand ($3.7 million). If Max Baucus can match Senator Tester's fundraising, expect to see those quarterly numbers to jump above the $1 million mark soon. Tester raised $13 million for the 2012 campaign. I expect we'll see Max match or likely exceed that number.

To be competitive, Stapleton need not raise more than Baucus. He only needs to raise enough--probably in the neighborhood of $10 million. Can he do it and can he clear the field of other Republican challengers? We'll see.

The First Campaign Ad in the 2014 Montana Senate Race

In March 2012, a group called the Environmental Defense Fund launched the first television advertisement in the epic battle between Senator Jon Tester and Congressman Denny Rehberg. The spot attacked Congressman Rehberg for supporting lax regulations on mercury pollution. After that, the advertisements never seemed to stop. They did--no campaign ads appeared in April of 2011 or January of 2012. Otherwise, Montana voters were subjected to the most intense media environment in the country during the 2012 cycle. According to the Wesleyan Media Project, more than 90,000 spots aired in the Montana Senate race between June 2012 and the third week of October. That's more than any other Senate race in the country.

This past Friday, KXLH political reporter Marnee Banks tweeted that she saw the first ad of this cycle. The Stronger Montana Fund aired the issue advertising spot in support of Senator Max Baucus:



The estate tax was also an issue in the Tester-Rehberg race. It looks like outside groups are trying to preempt possible attacks on taxes early given that this is an area of traditional vulnerability for Democrats. What is instructive, too, is the fact that the first ad launched is one supporting Senator Baucus--which hints at some possible weaknesses in his armor. A poll conducted by PPP immediately following the November election showed Senator Baucus' favorability rating to be under 50 percent and less than Senator Tester's rating in the same poll in November of 2010.

If Montanans thought there would be a respite from political ads, they were wrong. We got two whole months off, and now it's back to business.

Citizens United: The Good, The Bad, and the Mostly Ugly

Three years ago this week, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Citizens United. Two election cycles later, it is worth pausing to consider the consequences of that momentous decision for electioneering specifically and the representative process more generally. As both a scholar of congressional elections and as an active observer of the recently concluded Montana Senate race—which saw more than 90,000 television advertisements aired over a fivemonth period—I have a unique perspective to share. The decision written by Justice Kennedy was momentous in how it transformed the political landscape, but the effects are not all bad as some contend.

First, the good news. Generally speaking, campaigns are about disseminating information to a generally disinterested and disengaged electorate. Money spent on advertising provides information to voters, and the more information voters receive, the more likely they are to participate in the political process. Many voters express disgust with the sheer amount of advertising in an election, but the simple fact of the matter remains that competitive elections with lots of spending generate more voter interest and involvement. One of the benefits of campaigning in the world of Citizens United is there are more avenues for information to reach the voter because anyone can—and has—form a group to raise and spend money to influence elections. For example, in the Montana Senate race alone, more than $50 million was spent during the campaign cycle. Of that amount, less than half was spent by Democratic and Republican candidates. The rest was spent by political parties and various 501s. The result of all that information? A rich and thick information environment. More voters cast ballots in the Senate race than in the presidential race (not a single ad aired for either Mitt Romney or Barack Obama in Montana), demonstrating that more information reduces the barrier to participation and helps voters make decisions.

More money equals more political information, but is all that information beneficial to democratic process? One of the very clear downsides of the Citizens United decision is increased access to the campaign process has led to a lack of control by the candidates, political parties, and citizens who have to live with the results after Election day. Money does matter in elections, especially when one side has superior financial resources and employs them in an otherwise low information environment election. Consider the case of California’s 35th district. Because of California’s primary law that allows the top two vote getters to move onto the general election, two Democratic candidates faced off in the general election: incumbent Congressman Joe Baca and State Senator Gloria Negrette McLeod.  One of the most important voting cues is party identification, but in this instance that cue did not differentiate the candidates. Joe Baca, the incumbent, was widely anticipated to win the election and yet, at the very last moment, Mayor Bloomberg’s Independence USA PAC dropped more than $3.3 million into the race on mailers and television attacking Baca. Why? Because Baca was supported by the NRA and voted against gun control measures. When voters were paying attention they received a considerable information boost from all of this money and a sure bet for Baca was turned into a loss. Citizens United increases the ability to use money to influence elections—especially by outside groups.

The most troubling aspect of Citizens United is not that labor unions and corporations can spend money on electioneering and issue advocacy, as some suggest. It is the complete and utter lack of transparency in the Citizens United world. This is certainly ironic, given the fact that Justice Anthony Kennedy himself wrote in his decision that “prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters”. The fact of the matter is we, the voters, have no idea who the groups peddling information to us are and we don’t know which individuals support them. Congress and the Federal Election Commission have been unable and unwilling to act by establishing disclosure rules for the sundry 501s engaged in electioneering activities outside of the 60 day window of before an election. Citizens can find out how much money is spent on television or radio advertising if they care to visit those stations in person by requesting the political file—a daunting task in Montana, where stations are spread across thousands of miles. Of course, there’s still all the money spent on grassroots organization, Internet advertising, and phone calls outside of that sixty day window—how much and by whom, we may never know. Some groups, like the Sunlight Foundation, are doing yeoman's work tracking as much of the dark money as they can, but there's only so much even they can do with their resources to track down everything.

Although attorney Jim Bopp’s assertion in a recent Frontline special about dark money that most voters don’t care about where that money is coming from is likely true, the consequences of anonymous speech for political discourse are troubling and should cause voters to take notice. Anonymity breeds bad behavior. Hiding behind the veil of secrecy, groups and individuals are more likely to be more negative and play more fast and loose with the facts than if they were held responsible for their actions. We saw it time and again during this election cycle. Groups set up shop with a P.O. Box, launch a bunch of scurrilous attacks, and then disappear. Fact of the matter is these groups are accountable to no one, unlike the candidates and political parties who must put the pieces back together and try to govern after elections. The stealthy nature of these organizations make it less likely for candidates and parties to take risks and compromise for fear they will be brutally assaulted out of nowhere in the next election cycle.

No Transparency? More Negative and More Nasty Ads

Unregulated Speech: From an ad sponsored by the Now or Never PAC

Nasty speech: From an Internet ad sponsored by the American Bridge to the 21st Century

At the end of the day, Citizens United—as a decision—opened the floodgates to more money and more information in the political process. Whether that information is good and beneficial to democratic discourse is an open question, however, when juxtaposed against the very fact that much of the information flooding the system is peddled by groups with no responsibility to the political process or the hard task of governing in an environment that has become increasingly fragmented and polarized—in large part because of the money raised and spent by these very groups. At the end of the day, I live in a state where the Senate race was decided in part by the millions of dollars raised and spent by outsiders who never met Jon Tester or Denny Rehberg, and are not accountable to Montanans. In a state that is suspicious and often resentful of the influence of outside interests, this should be very troubling indeed.