Posted on 03/12/2003 12:05:22 AM PST by LdSentinal
He's long been labeled as one of the Democratic Party's most vulnerable members, but seven-term Rep. Chet Edwards' the president's own congressman, has for years managed to elude Republican efforts to oust him from his conservative district in Waco, Texas.
But the Texas GOP vows that 2004 will be different.
Edwards' political demise is close at hand, they say, just as it is for two of his colleagues in Bush's backyard who are on the GOP target list” Reps. Charlie Stenholm and Ralph Hall. Both are among the few remaining Democrats in Congress who have managed to hold on to solidly Republican districts.
"If you look at the voting trends, the Democratic incumbents' margins of victory are getting slimmer and slimmer," said Ted Royer, spokesman for the Texas Republican Party. "And at some point, they're going to reach a breaking point."
Rep. Charlie Stenholm (D-Texas)
Hall, 80, could be the first to go if rumors that he won't seek a 13th term prove true. His solidly Republican district would rank at or near the top of GOP target lists, and would be followed closely by districts represented by Edwards and Stenholm, according to Carl Forti, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
Democrats are not cowed, noting that they've heard this refrain before.
But Republicans add that Bush will top the ticket next year, a fact that should have these Democrats shaking in their boots, Royer said. That's especially true for Edwards, who must run in a more Republican district thanks to the reapportionment process. Polls show that his constituents, both old and new, highly approve of the job their former governor and new neighbor is doing in the White House.
Bush won two-thirds of the vote in Edwards' district in 2000 and carried every one of the 12 counties in and around Waco. He won an equal or greater backing in Stenholm's west central district and in Hall's northeastern district during the last presidential election. That support has remained steady over the course of Bush's term, according to a recent poll by Scripps Howard that showed that 68 percent of Texans approve of the president's performance.
Democrats, however, are quick to note that having a Bush at the top of the ticket hasn't been a problem in the past and won't necessarily be in the future.
Edwards declined to be interviewed for this story and Hall and Stenholm could not be reached for comment.
They have enjoyed uninterrupted winning streaks even when running on a ticket headed by a Bush, which has happened many times over the last two decades. Since 1980, when Bush, Sr., first ran for vice president, either he or his son has topped the Texas ticket in all but four election years.
"These particular candidates have been through eight years of George W. at the top of the ticket and we plan to retain those seats," the DCCC's Bernards said.
Moreover, Democrats note that Bush hasn't taken an active interest in unseating any of these three Democrats and isn't likely to next year. Last November, the president, whose ranch is in Edwards district at Crawford, uttered nary a word against Edwards or his two colleagues. That was surprising for a party leader who crisscrossed the country to campaign on behalf of GOP House and Senate candidates.
Bush, who didn't intervene much in 2000 when he was preoccupied with his own presidential bid, will no doubt be focused on his reelection next year as well.
"Edwards and Stenholm sort of dodged a bullet last fall," said Earl Black, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. "Bush did not really make a special effort in Texas." He added that Bush did not campaign against Hall, with whom he has a longstanding friendship.
Republicans, however, maintain that Texans' once notorious for split-ticket voting, are increasingly voting down the party line, a fact that has eroded support for these three Democrats. They point to three statewide races last year where second-tier Republican candidates won by unexpectedly high margins across the state. Those were races for governor, where Rick Perry won by 18 points; lieutenant governor, where David Dewhurst won by five points; and senator, where John Cornyn won by 12 points.
"Just look at the [Republicans'] three most important statewide elections last fall against the Democrats' dream team. They've never had that kind of success before," Black said. "I think this was coordinated through the Bush team. They're making more of an effort to really put together more of an organization to build the Republican Party in Texas."
Yet while Republicans insist that the trio of Democrats will be vulnerable next year, they are not yet revealing the names of any potential opponents. That's partly because the fate of last year's redistricting map remains uncertain, and candidates are unlikely to kick off their campaigns until they know whether the state Legislature will take up an initiative to redraw the court-ordered district boundaries enacted last year.
Nonetheless, they maintain that these three yellow-dog Democratic seats are within closer reach than ever before.
Edwards has indeed seen a steady decline in support since his second race in 1992, when he shot to a 67 percent victory two years after winning his first race with 53 percent of the vote. Since then, however, Republican challengers have slowly chipped away at his support, leaving him with a 52 percent victory last fall.
Stenholm has seen a sharper drop in recent years. He won his first term with 68 percent of the vote, followed by six consecutive elections with a victory margin approaching 100 percent. In 1992, he fell to 66 percent and hovered in the low 50-percent range until the 2000 elections, when he won 59 percent of the vote. Last year, however, he plummeted to a 51-percent victory, a surprisingly narrow margin for the popular 13-term incumbent.
Hall has remained hugely popular, but even Democrats concede that once he leaves office his seat will likely change hands.
"If you look at the competitive congressional races in Texas, they get closer, closer every election," said Royer. "There's definitely the possibility that we could gain Republican seats in the next election."
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