Here is the way congressional elections often work. The vast majority of incumbents seeking reelection win, and many races that do not have an incumbent are decided in the primary of the party that dominates in the electoral district. Meanwhile, there is a small portion of races where the outcome is up for grabs in the general election. Further, it seems easy to understand with high confidence way ahead of time what will be the case for most districts come election day.
This situation is a boon for special interest groups. They can focus money and effort on incumbents set to win reelection to help ensure continued support, on candidates of their preference to win primaries of the parties that dominate in electoral districts, and on their preferred candidates in general election close races.
This leaves a group of nominees in the general election who are little aided or wooed by the special interests. These candidates are largely viewed as “filler” candidates. They help fill the lines on the ballot for a political party, but they are seen as not at all likely to win.
But, on occasion, these “filler” candidates do win. In fact, sometimes there is an election like Tuesday’s midterm election where many of them win.
Consider, for example, a Wednesday WRAL report by Will Doran concerning election results for US House of Representatives races in North Carolina. Doran reported that of the ten Republican House members from the state seeking reelection only two had been declared winners by the day after the election, five had lost, and the other three were in races too close to call that appeared headed to recounts. Pertinent to the potential of these results yielding truly independent House members, Doran wrote:
Overall, the performance was a shellacking that few saw coming. In some cases, the GOP incumbents lost to challengers who raised little money in their fights against deep-pocketed members of Congress — without much financial help from national Democratic groups.
Similar situations have happened across the country, with Democratic congressional candidates who seemed to have no chance of winning, and who were thus relatively ignored by special interest groups, achieving election day victories.
What do the special interests do when these surprise victories occur? They try to make up for lost time to ensure these relatively unknown new Congress members become allies.
In many instances these efforts by special interests will be successful. And often minimal effort will be necessary with “filler” candidate victors whose views already line up with those of the special interests. But, an election like the one earlier this week provides increased opportunity for truly independent candidates to make their way to Congress.
