Just a reminder from Syracuse University political science professor Rogan Kersh: Despite all the hype around this year’s presidential election, there are races for seats in Congress, too, and these races could affect the nation’s political landscape.

In the final lecture in the series titled, ‘The 2004 Elections: Politics as Usual?’ Kersh spoke about why there could be a change in the majority parties of the Senate and House of Representatives.

The Republicans currently have control of both the House and Senate, but Kersh believes there are 36 seats that could be involved in a close election this year. The Democrats own 12 of these seats and will need to gain 12 more in order to have control of the House, which should be a tough task.

‘The Democrats need a political wave to bring the House back to their advantage,’ Kersh said.

This wave normally occurs when that party’s presidential candidate wins by a large margin and carries the House and Senate votes with him, something Kersh believes could happen Tuesday.

Kersh said that there could be evidence that this presidential election might not be all that close when all the votes are counted: In Onondaga County, which traditionally votes Republican, 11,000 additional voters have registered for this election, while 1,200 Republicans have left the county rolls. About 7,000 of the 11,000 newly registered are Democrats.

‘If this is happening all over the country, this could be a Tsunami win for Kerry,’ Kersh said, adding that it could be the type of wave to help the Democratic Party take control of the House and Senate, too.

Many of the new potential voters are young and are predicted to vote for Kerry because of concerns about a military draft, but this may not be enough to sweep the Democrats into power.

‘Because of the incredible shrinking of competitive seats, the Republicans will likely maintain control of the House,’ Kersh said. ‘If you want to get outraged about something in the nature of politics, get angry about redistricting.’

When census data is collected every 10 years, states are forced to change the borders of voting districts due to changes in population. To ensure incumbents have a clear majority to re-elect them, the Republican and Democratic parties often agree to redraw the district lines to group loyal voters together – a practice often referred to as gerrymandering.

This, in turn, has prevented many competitive races from occurring.

‘It’s not just the presidential election that matters,’ Kersh said. ‘What matters as well is who wins in the congressional elections.’

As for the Senate, the Democrats need to win an additional three seats in order to get a tie, and then the vice president – who serves as president of the Senate – will break any ties.

While there are many close races, Kersh said if the Democrats can win all the races that they are currently projected to, and can additionally take Kentucky and Oklahoma, they can get a tie in the Senate. With a win by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, they would have the tie-breaker in vice presidential candidate John Edwards.

Kersh added that through the 20th century, the party of the incumbent president usually lost seats in the first election after a war. Most recently, in 1992, when the first President George Bush led the country to war, the Democrats had the majority in both the House and Senate and only increased the gap.

‘This is a very sobering thought for Republicans,’ Kersh said.

Kersh also commented on the amount of money spent on the presidential elections and the congressional elections, which broke the $3 billion spent on campaigning in 2000.

Many people were upset about the amount of money spent, which led to campaign finance reform efforts, but Kersh said he would not mind more money being spent.

‘People were up in arms about the 2000 election because it cost 3 billion dollars,’ Kersh said. ‘We spent 4.7 billion on Gogurt and over 100 billion on pornography. If people would rather put money into candidates they support or improve voting machines, I’d much rather that.’

Some in the audience thought the numbers of newly registered voters would add an unpredictable element to Election Day.

‘I was surprised about the new registered voters and how they would vote,’ said Nicki Bisson, a resident of Manlius.

Sandra Barrett, the director of community programs at Syracuse University, said Kersh’s talk was beneficial because it reminded people that there are other elections.

‘We have been so focused on the presidential election, we haven’t been thinking about other elections,’ she said.

Despite all the polls and analysts, there might be another signal for who will win the election next Tuesday, and it will come this Sunday.

Kersh said that in every presidential election since 1940, if the Washington Redskins won their final football game before the election, the incumbent would win, if they lost, the challenger would win.

‘So if you are a Kerry fan, you should cheer for Green Bay,’ Kersh said.

Published on October 26, 2004 at 12:00 pm