Van Hollen says needs Obama's help in 2010

U.S. Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, listens to a question during the 2009 Reuters Washington Summit in Washington, October 20, 2009.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama should expect that 2010 congressional elections will be a referendum on Obama and Democrats will need his help on the campaign trail, a senior Democratic lawmaker said on Tuesday.

Representative Chris Van Hollen told a Reuters Summit that Democrats will need a robust turnout in the November 2010 elections to preserve its strong majorities in the U.S. Congress.

Van Hollen heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that works to elect Democrats to the House of Representatives.

While predicting "a very volatile political environment," Van Hollen said he saw no way Republicans could take over the House as they did in a massive uprising against President Bill Clinton in 1994.

"I would say that anyone who thinks this is going to be a 1994 redux is in la-la land," he said at the summit held at the Reuters office in Washington on Oct 19-21.

"The Democrats are not going to lose control of the House. And it's very clear from all the surveys that the Republican Party has lost the confidence of the American people."

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have already been active in helping raise money for 2010 Democratic candidates. The challenge will be to recreate the same kind of enthusiasm that Democrats had for Obama when they elected America's first African-American president nearly a year ago.

"I see it as a referendum," Van Hollen said. "I see it as a midterm report card on President Obama, clearly a report card on how Congress is doing. I do believe that it is going to be important to have the president engaged in these elections."

Democrats face headwinds. The party in power typically loses congressional seats in the first election after a new president takes over.

And voter turnout typically drops dramatically in these so-called off-year elections, meaning it is important to have enthusiasm in the party base.

REPUBLICAN BASE ENERGIZED

Republicans have their base energized in opposition to Obama policies, while Democrats could face some apathy because the U.S. economy remains dismal.

Republicans see opportunities in 2010 but they also recognize they have an image problem with voters.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll published on Tuesday said only 19 percent of those surveyed have confidence in Republicans in Congress to make the right decisions for the country's future.

Still, Republicans see a 2010 battlefield ripe for picking up some seats, with many Americans unhappy that Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus plan has made no measurable dent in the country's 9.8 percent unemployment rate.

Senator Charles Grassley, who hails from Iowa, a traditional presidential battleground state, told the Reuters Summit that Republicans have opportunities in 2010 but need to convince Americans that they know what they stand for.

"If things look better for Republicans now than they did six months ago, it is not because we have established credibility with the American people. It is because the Democrats have screwed up or got people raising questions about the future of this country," Grassley said.

He said a key is attracting independent voters, who sided with Obama in last year's election but are now increasingly questioning Obama policies.

"We are not a majority party by ourselves when we are in the presidency or when we have a majority Congress. We are there because of independents being with us," Grassley said.

"But those independents and a lot of the Republicans felt we were not living up to what we stand for. Most of that fell in the category of fiscal conservatism. And we have got to reestablish what we stand for," he said.

Ethan Siegal of The Washington Exchange, a private firm that tracks Congress and the White House for institutional investors, told the Reuters Summit that, at this point, he expects Democrats to lose 20 to 25 seats in the House, but stressed it could vary depending on the state of the economy.

"This is an economy election. It is about three issues. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs," Siegal said.

Van Hollen said Democratic organizers will look at the most competitive districts -- those where a Democratic won in a district that typically votes Republicans -- and will work to promote turnout from the party base as well as independents.

From Obama's standpoint, "the president is going to have to make it clear that his agenda is also on the ballot, that he has a lot at stake in the midterm elections," Van Hollen said.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Thomas Ferraro, editing by Anthony Boadle)