2010+Republican+Victories

Matt Sykes **__2010 Republican Victories__**
The Republican Party won control of the House on November 2, 2010, in the midterm elections, and while the Democrats lost seats in the Senate, they still held the majority. Republicans gained 63 seats in the House for a majority of 242, which was  their biggest since 1928. This change in the House seats was the largest in any election since 1948. In addition, the Democratic majority was cut to 53 from 59 in the Senate, which includes two independents who caucused with them. President Barack Obama, at a post-election conference, stated that Republican victories were a "shellacking" to him and his party.

**__I. Republican Brown Wins Upset Victory in Massachusetts__**
Republican state Senator Scott Brown, on January 19 2010, won an upset victory in a special election in Massachusetts for the United States Senate seat, which was held for more than 46 years by Democrat Edward Kennedy until his death in August 2009. This loss deprived Democrats of their 60th vote in the Senate and the supermajority they needed to overcome Republican filibusters. Subsequently, this caused the derailing of an ambitious health care reform bill that was the top domestic priority of Barack Obama.

media type="youtube" key="CzQ6sK5dUy8" height="390" width="480" align="left" Brown had campaigned directly against Obama’s health care bill, vowing, if elected, to block it. Brown’s victory in this traditional Democratic stronghold was a huge setback for Obama. Obama ended his first year in office with his public approval rating dropping below 50%. This, combined with the heavy Democratic losses in the November midterm elections, made his job as a Democratic leader even more difficult.

In spite of Massachusetts being the most Democratic state in the nation, the election revealed the fact that more than half of registered voters in the state were independents. Out of the rest of the voters , 37% were Democrats and, surprisingly, only 12% were Republicans. Pre-election polls showed that the majority of independent voters swung to Brown, continuing a trend ,  which has also been seen in New Jersey and Virginia, of the Republican victories over that voting bloc.  Brown won 52% of the vote, defeating the Democratic candidate, state Attorney General Martha Coakley, who took 47%, and would have been the first female senator from Massachusetts if she won. However, the turnout on election day was only 54% of eligible voters. As a result, Brown will now serve the remaining two years of Kennedy’s term, being the first Republican elected to the Senate in Massachusetts since 1972.





__ **II. Redistricting ** __
Republican victories in the midterm elections are expected to have much longer lasting effects than the two years that they will serve. These victories give the GOP (Grand Old Party) a strong political advantage as the parties start the redistricting process. It’s the legislatures that must undertake the once-every-decade, partisan and extremely complicated process of reformatting congressional boundaries based on population shifts obtained from the census.

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Republican members predict that the GOP will take up to around 500 addition <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">al seats as well as to fight the majorities in l<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">egislatures away from Democrats in anywhere from 10 to 18 <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">states <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">. “We’ve got a minimum of 11 or 12 chambers going our way – and it could be as high as 17,” said Chris Jankowski, the director of the Republican State Leadership Committee’s REDMAP project.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">The ultimate goal that Republicans wish to achieve is to carve congr<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">essional districts which would be based upon voter registration in order to secure partisan victories. This is known as gerrymandering, which is a process that causes oddly drawn districts to favor candidates. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania have been the most intensely fought battlegrounds at the state level because all three states are expected to lose seats in Congres s, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">which places a large amount of power in the hands of the legislatures over who gets the remaining seats. In many states, governors also play a key role because they have the power to veto the maps. However, indicators seem to point to Republicans taking up <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">a <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">half-dozen or more governorships.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">**__III. Key Issues in the Election__** //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">The Economic Downturn and the Path to Global Recession // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">On October 15, 2010, the Treasury Department reported that the federal budget deficit amounted to $1.294 trillion in the 2010 fiscal year, being the second-largest deficit in history. However, it was down from the record $1.416 trillion in the 2009 fiscal year. The 2010 fiscal deficit equaled 8.9% of gross domes tic product (GDP), which was down from the 10% <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">of 2009. These are the largest deficits of GDP since World War II. CBS <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">News reported that the deficit grew more than $3 trillion to date, October 2010, since the beginning of Obama’s presidency. As Clinton would say, “It’s the economy, stupid!” The terrible economic status shed a poor light on Democrats nationwide, causing many people's hopes to be shifted towards Republicans and their promises of lower government spending.

//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">House Republica ns' <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Agenda Resounds Across the Nation // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">On September 23, 2010, House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) and other high ranking House Republicans revealed a “campaign manifesto” for the November midterm elections. Boehner illustrated the agenda, titled “A Pledge to America,” as “a new governing agenda,” which portrays the Republicans <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">' <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> confidence in their chances of regaining control of the House. This so called agenda fought for tax cuts, reduced federal spending and the repeal of President Obama’s major health care insurance reform law. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">The Republicans also played off of the large amount of public discontent with President Obama and his handling of the economy and the extremely high unemployment rate. Boehner said, “The American people are asking, ‘Where are the jobs?’” Representative Kevin McCarthy said, “Americans are outraged, and so are we.”

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">One of the agenda’s main planks is to permanently extend all the income tax cuts signed by Republican George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003, which, unfortunately, were scheduled to expire at the end of the year unless Congress acted to renew them. Surprisingly, Obama backed extending all tax cuts except to those taxpayers who he defined as wealthy: “individuals who made at least $200,000 a year, and couples who made at least $250,000 a year.” Obama stated that extending tax cuts to these people would cause an estimate of $700 billion more added to the deficit over the next ten years. The GOP plan also called for reducing federal spending to the levels of the 2008 fiscal year, prior to <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Obama’s emergency spending in response to the global financial crisis <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">that <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">caused the budget deficit to skyrocket. In order to attempt to boost the econ omy, t<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">he GOP called for a tax deduction of 20% of small businesses’ income.

<span style="display: block; line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: center; text-indent: -0.5in;">Works Cited Altman, Alex. “Can House Republicans Put Big Spending Cuts into Action?” //Time// 24 Jan. 2011: n. pag. //Time//. Web. 17 Feb. 2011. <http://www.time.com/‌time/‌politics/‌article/‌0,8599,2044038,00.html>. "Editorial Cartoon: Recession Over?" // World News Digest //. Facts On File News Services, n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2011. <http://www.2facts.com/article/ca0801>. “Federal Budget: Deficit Fell to $1.3 Trillion in Fiscal 2010.” //Facts On File World News Digest//. N.p., 21 Oct. 2010. Web. 23 Feb. 2011. <http://www.2facts.com/‌wnd_story.aspx?PIN=2010530240>. Hamm, John. “John Hamm as Sen. Scott Brown .” //Youtube//. Web. 17 Feb. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/‌watch?v=CzQ6sK5dUy8>. “It’s the Economy Stupid.” Cartoon. //Blogspot//. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2011. <http://knightscsa.blogspot.com/‌2010/‌12/‌its-economy-stupid.html>. “Republican Brown Wins Upset Victory in Massachusetts Special Election for Senate Seat Long Held by Kennedy.” //Facts on File World News Digest//. N.p., 21 Jan. 2010. Web. 17 Feb. 2011. <http://www.2facts.com/‌wnd_story.aspx?PIN=2010511060>. “2010 Elections: House Republicans Unveil Agenda.” //World News Digest//. Facts On File World News Digest, 23 Sept. 2010. Web. 23 Feb. 2011. <http://www.2facts.com/‌wnd_story.aspx?PIN=2010528270>.