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Obama's Downballot Excitement Factor

With the Democratic convention as a backdrop, National Journal met with Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. This is an edited transcript.

National Journal: Do you expect Obama's candidacy to help win House races?

Van Hollen: In terms of them helping us, you've got an overall sort of enthusiasm, excitement, advantage on the Democratic side this time largely generated by the Obama candidacy. We believe that will bring out a lot of new voters, especially a lot of young voters who haven't participated as much in the past. And that will be a sort of across-the-board phenomenon. I mean, young voters participated at about 50 percent of eligible voters last time around -- 18-to-29-year-olds -- and we think the Obama candidacy will boost that across the board. The other areas are in those congressional districts where you have large African-American communities, and some examples are North Carolina 8th District, Larry Kissell lost last time by only 50 votes to Robin Hayes. You will see a much bigger turnout in a presidential election. Virginia 2, Thelma Drake's district, is another one. Ohio 1, Steve Chabot's seat, and Steve Driehaus is our candidate, great candidate. It's another area that you didn't see a large turnout in the midterm elections. So those are three examples.