The first general election poll out of MA-05 shows a surprisingly competitive race in this extremely pro-Democratic district (PVI D +10.7). From Survey USA, 9/7-9/9, 411 LVs, MoE 4.9:
The worrying part about this poll is that Tsongas is losing independents, 46-39, and that Ogonowski holds Republicans better than Tsongas holds Democrats. That is the old formula we saw working against Democrats before the wave started to build in mid-2005. Most worrying of all, Ogonowski is nearly even with Tsongas among those who disapprove of Bush, 46%-47%. If Democrats no longer hold the edge in partisan coherency, are behind among independents, and local Republicans have successfully distanced themselves from Bush and national Republicans, then the two-year plus run where Democrats held a decisive electoral advantage nationwide might be over.
To see if this really was a warning sign, or simply to be expected in an open seat campaign, I went back to 2006 and compared this result to a pre-election poll in a very similar district in 2006: Vermont At-Large. Back then VT-AL was also an open seat. It has a PVI of D +9.1, and is also situated in New England. It was somewhat of a relief to see that the final pre-election poll in that district was identical to this poll in MA-05:
MA-05 poll, 9/7/07-9/9/07: Tsongas (D) 51%--41% Ogonowski (R)
VT-AL poll, 10/23-10/24/06: Welch (D) 51%--41% Rainville (R). Welch went on to win 53-45. The poll was taken by Research 2000, and can be found in the subscriber section of polling report.
Now, that isn't to say that we are entirely out of the woods. There were other heavily Democratic open seats in 2006, which ended up as more comfortable Democratic victories than VT-AL. Here are a few:
HI-02, PVI D +9,7: Hirono (D) 61%--39% Houge (R)
IL-17, PVI D +4.6: Hare (D) 57%--43% Zinga (R)
IA-01: PVI D +4.8: Braley (D) 55%--43% Whalen (R) (Final polls showed Democratic leads of 56-35 and 49-42)
TN-09:PVI D +15.7: Cohen (D) 60%, two others split 40%
So, in these comparable districts, the Democrats all won by more than 10%, all better than Welch's performance in Vermont. They also pushed the party to the left, as all four joined the Congressional progressive caucus, including two in leadership positions in the caucus (Hirono and Hare). They also replaced to Blue Dogs (Case in HI-02, Ford in TN-09) and one Republican (IA-01). Peter Welch also joined the CPC.
So, there are at lest two reasons to be disappointed in the MA-05 election so far. First, it is doubtful that Tsongas will be the strong progressive that we tended to score in blue open seats in 2006 (although it is also unlikely that she will be a Bush Dog). Second, the campaign seems to be closer than blueish open seats were in 2006. Now, the latter could simply be the flukey results of one poll, which would make this over-analyzing a single result. However, I have to wonder if there is a connection between the two disappointments. Perhaps it is closer than it should be in MA-05 because there isn't as much local, grassroots, progressive activist energy behind Tsongas compared to what we saw in comparable campaigns in 2006. I can't prove that, but I do have to wonder. Reduced activist enthusiasm for electing just any Democrat, rather than preferred, progressive Democrats, could be a factor for Democrats in 2008. Finding a way to get that activism back will be a key to a larger Democratic majority in 2008.
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