What % of the national house ballot swing was directly caused by Pelosi?

[Lief 🗽]

Apparently she cost the Democrats millions of votes. This year they won 45% nationwide, while in 2008 they won 53%. How much of that eight percent swing was caused directly by Nancy Pelosi? 1%? 2%? 5%?

[You kip if you want to...]

0%. It's completely absurd to blame one person for an party, the world over, losing an election. Did John Boehner get any personal votes from people outside of his district in become Speaker-elect? Probably not.

[Keystone Phil]

Did millions of people go to the polls motivated solely by Nancy Pelosi? No. However, a lot of her actions as Speaker allowed voters to turn on the Dems.

[You kip if you want to...]

Did millions of people go to the polls motivated solely by Nancy Pelosi? No. However, a lot of her actions as Speaker allowed voters to turn on the Dems.

Personally, I'd blame Harry Reid and the Senators more than I would Nancy Pelosi and the Reps.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

You won't be able to quantify her impact. Either you acknowledge it, or you don't.

What you people don't understand is that people don't think in blocks of issues and problems and nothing else. There is overlap. Someone pissed off because of the economy will rate that as his top concern but likewise, he is also arguably even more sensitive on other issues because he is so mad about his job being eliminated. The economy is still his top concern, but it doesn't mean he doesn't care about something else. It means that if he does care, he will be far more sensitive on those other issues then he would otherwise be. Meaning that instead of jobs being an effective scapegoat of Nancy, it is actually one more thing screaming for her replacement. When people are pissed off already, you don't want to give something else for them to pissed at you instead of politicians in general.

[tmthforu94]

Not necessarily a certain percentage, but I think she was a contributing factor in a lot of people's decision to vote Republican this year.

[Brittain33]

Not necessarily a certain percentage, but I think she was a contributing factor in a lot of people's decision to vote Republican this year.

What percentage do you think was okay with Obama as President, but was motivated to vote Republican because of their dislike of Pelosi? This is distinct from people who object to both Obama and Pelosi.

[DrScholl]

Pelosi was only a factor with hardcore Republicans and they aren't a swing group. The mainstream voter knows very little about her and that voter doesn't go to the polls thinking about who will be Speaker of the House.

[Sam Spade]

The question of "how much of the swing was caused by Nancy Pelosi?" is pretty much irrelevant.  I don't know why we dwell on it.

The only question in this whole conversation that is worth much now is "how much of any future swing in the House back to the Democrats will be inhibited by Nancy Pelosi as minority leader, should such an event occur?"

[Torie]

Tom DeLay didn't seem to cost the Pubbies much, until he got into legal trouble.

[Sam Spade]

Tom DeLay didn't seem to cost the Pubbies much, until he got into legal trouble.

DeLay was long gone, even before the Republicans lost their majority.  You seem to be missing my point.

[Torie]

Tom DeLay didn't seem to cost the Pubbies much, until he got into legal trouble.

DeLay was long gone, even before the Republicans lost their majority.  You seem to be missing my point.

You don't think DeLay's problems had something to do with their losing their majority?  Maybe not, and I have the time line confused. In any event, I agree that the personality of the speaker does not matter much in and of itself, nor should it, unless the speaker is allowing corruption to run wild. It really is about the policies. Now maybe Pelosi will succeed in precluding Obama from moving towards the center, in which event, the whole party might suffer, but again based on her influence on policy.

[Guderian]

Ethical challenges of the Republican House leadership definitely had some effect in 2006, even if DeLay was gone by then. Hell, some people thought that Roy Blunt will be hurt by his role as DeLay's consigliere in the Senate race this year.

[bgwah]

Did millions of people go to the polls motivated solely by Nancy Pelosi? No. However, a lot of her actions as Speaker allowed voters to turn on the Dems.

Personally, I'd blame Harry Reid and the Senators more than I would Nancy Pelosi and the Reps.

I tend to agree. When I think of the deadlock in Congress that people are so fed up with, I think of the Senate. I don't think HCR would have cost the Democrats so many votes if they would have passed it in a timely manner rather than dwell on it for so long, and I would place the blame for that much more on Reid than Pelosi.

But, Pelosi's name may be cursed now. A lot of people probably don't know why they dislike her... But they do dislike her.

[Sam Spade]

Tom DeLay didn't seem to cost the Pubbies much, until he got into legal trouble.

DeLay was long gone, even before the Republicans lost their majority.  You seem to be missing my point.

You don't think DeLay's problems had something to do with their losing their majority?  Maybe not, and I have the time line confused. In any event, I agree that the personality of the speaker does not matter much in and of itself, nor should it, unless the speaker is allowing corruption to run wild. It really is about the policies. Now maybe Pelosi will succeed in precluding Obama from moving towards the center, in which event, the whole party might suffer, but again based on her influence on policy.

Of course DeLay had something to do with the Republicans losing the House majority.  The question I'm asking has nothing to do with that.

Let me pose a somewhat similar hypothetical to make things simpler - say DeLay had managed to survive all these things, kept his House seat and retained House Minority Leader (highly, highly unlikely, but not impossible).  How do think having DeLay as Minority Leader would have affected the 2010 house races?

[Torie]

Hardly at all, if the whiff of corruption about him had abated, which was my point. But even that would not have mattered much in 2010. The 2010 election was about Obama, and his policies, and persona, not Pelosi, and certainly not about the GOP minority leader.

[Mr.Phips]

0%. 

[Antonio the Sixth]

0%. 

[Skill and Chance]

The question of "how much of the swing was caused by Nancy Pelosi?" is pretty much irrelevant.  I don't know why we dwell on it.

The only question in this whole conversation that is worth much now is "how much of any future swing in the House back to the Democrats will be inhibited by Nancy Pelosi as minority leader, should such an event occur?"

This would be a much bigger issue if the Republicans held only a bare majority this year, say 223-212.  If that were the case then the Dems would only need to take out 6 of the weakest GOP freshmen to reclaim the majority in 2012, which they could do with only slight improvements over the status quo.  Pelosi's influence could be enough to prevent this in a neutral year.  But when you have at best a 242-193 R-D split,  then the Dems need a wave election to take back the House anyway, and in such an election, Pelosi would be completely overshadowed by some other issue that is really hurting the GOP.  Pelosi as minority leader could make the difference between +2 and +7 in a neutral year, but there is no way she would prevent a +25-35 seat pickup if the national environment was that favorable for them in the first place.