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Macomb, IL – After the dust has settled from primaries in Arkansas, Kentucky, Oregon and Pennsylvania this week, many incumbents will likely survive despite national dissatisfaction with Congress, and those survivors will join Illinois Congressmen Phil Hare and Aaron Schock, and Iowa Congressman David Loebsack in being sure winners.
But the anti-incumbent sentiment may have a casualty: cooperation across the political aisle.
Voters' unhappiness with Congress is like nothing in the past four midterm election cycles, according to Gallup Polls, which found a record-low percentage of U.S. voters - 28% - saying that most members of Congress deserve to be re-elected. Put another way, the April poll showed that most Americans - 65% of registered voters, the highest in Gallup history - say most members of Congress do not deserve re-election.
However, people thinking most members of Congress aren't worth retaining does not mean they think their specific representative is bad. The same poll found 49% of voters saying their own member of Congress deserves to be re-elected.
Dave Levinthal of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics says, "Few things in life are more predictable than the chances of an incumbent member of the U.S. House of Representatives winning reelection. With wide name recognition, and usually an insurmountable advantage in campaign cash, House incumbents typically have little trouble holding onto their seats.
He continued, "Senate races still overwhelmingly favor the incumbent, but not by as reliable a margin as House races. Big swings in the national mood can sometimes topple long-time office-holders, as happened with the Reagan revolution in 1980. Even so, years like that are an exception."
Indeed, the "we'll get rid of 'em all!" prediction may disappoint those who embrace extremist talk radio and cable mouthpieces who claim that Democrats are retiring in droves, bailing out of their party's floundering ship.
In fact, there are high-profile retirees from both parties. In the House, Democrats Patrick Kennedy, Dave Obey and Bart Stupak, and Republicans Peter Hoekstra, Mark Kirk (running for Illinois' U.S. Senate seat) and Adam Putnam, are giving up their seats.
In the Senate, Democrats Evan Bayh, Christopher Dodd and Byron Dorgan, and Republicans Kit Bond, Sam Brownback and Judd Gregg are leaving.
Precisely, 17 Democrats and 20 Republicans are retiring from the House; and 5 Democrats and 6 Republicans are leaving the Senate, as of this week.
Maybe more importantly, the bi-partisanship that's benefited the country for decades is threatened by elected officials playing to extremes of their parties to pass primary muster. A factor in Utah Republicans' rejection last week of U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett - who boasted a lifetime rating of 84% from the American Conservative Union - was conservative extremists blasting his attempt to work with U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat, on a health-care compromise.
It used to be different than the Party of No vs. the Party of Go. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 both had more than 80% of sitting Republicans supporting them. Also in 1965, most House Republicans voted for Medicare. Three decades earlier, 81 of 96 House Republicans and 15 of 20 Senate Republicans backed Social Security.
Author and Millsaps College professor Robert McElvaine, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, says, "The extraordinary partisanship exhibited by Republicans today did not arise until Newt Gingrich. Karl Rove continued the strategy during the presidency of George W. Bush and then Republicans greeted President Obama by working for his failure."
So bi-partisanship may be sacrificed and most incumbents returned.
Together, achieving minimal change and maximum partisanship seems like a lose-lose result.