Bilbray Victory Shows Voters Aren't Crossing the Divide

The result highlighted the GOP's continuing vulnerability in this year's battle for control of Congress. But it also suggested that Democrats are not yet positioned to squeeze the maximum benefit from that vulnerability.

Above all, Republican Brian Bilbray's victory over Democrat Francine Busby demonstrated that this deeply polarized era is resistant to dramatic shifts in voter sentiment. The results showed that today's voters generally stick with their party more reliably than their parents did a generation ago. That means changes in the balance of power are more likely to come incrementally than through the kind of sudden, seismic shift last seen when Republicans captured both the House and Senate in their 1994 landslide.

If there was ever a set of circumstances that might shake the loyalty of GOP voters, the Bilbray-Busby contest seemed to provide it. The two were vying to succeed disgraced Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a Republican convicted in a bribery scandal. Bilbray holds more moderate positions on social issues than many Republicans. And voters in the district weren't immune to the general dissatisfaction with the nation's direction that has spread almost everywhere during President Bush's second term: Even Republican polls found that 70% of local voters believed the country was on the wrong track.

Yet even in such an adverse climate, the evidence indicates that virtually all Republicans stuck with Bilbray. There were no exit polls to measure how individual groups voted. But another set of numbers tells the story. The special election decided who would fill the remainder of Cunningham's term this year. Voters on the same day also cast ballots in primaries to choose the two parties' nominees for the November election that will determine who holds the seat for the term beginning next January.

Comparing the results between the primaries and the special election is revealing. In that Republican primary (which Bilbray also won), 59,195 people voted. In the special election, Bilbray won 60,319 votes. The close parallel suggests that even though many Republicans were unhappy, they stuck with Bilbray in the special election rather than expressing their discontent with a vote for Busby. "In a partisan era like this one," notes political scientist Gary Jacobson of UC San Diego, "it is hard to squeeze votes from the other side."