Tag: MS-Gov

Why prognosticate an election happening in a day, when I could predict an election happening a year and a day from now?!

In 2011, there are 3 gubernatorial races occuring: A Republican-held open seat in Mississippi (Barbour’s got term limits), A Republican incumbent running for re-election in Louisiana (Jindal), and a Dem. incumbent running for reelection (Beshear).

LA-GOV: Likely Republican: Jindal’s got a lot of dough and Louisiana’s turning red fast. A good candidate could make things interesting

MS-GOV: Likely R: in 2007, Barbour won by 16 points against an inexperienced opponent. Dems have a decent bench here, and could make it competitive.

KY-GOV: Toss-up/ Lean D: Beshear is up by 5 according to polls, but the rust belt’s moving away from us fast.

These races havn’t got any attention- for good reasons-but a victory in KY and MS could help drive the narrative for dems in 2012.

Bonus: the VA state senate is a complete toss-up, and the most interesting race in 2011

• AK-Sen: Once again, the Swing State Project is proud to issue one of its once-in-a-blue-moon endorsements, and to do it for Scott McAdams, the Democratic nominee in Alaska. We’re two-thirds of the way to our $2,400 goal, and we’ve just hit 50 contributors, so please join in!

• CO-Sen, CO-Gov: This is a real head-scratcher: Ken Buck’s camp is out with an internal poll by POS… showing him losing (despite what a number of public polls have said)?!? The poll gives a 43-40 edge to Michael Bennet, with 5 going to the Libertarian candidate. Either this is an odd attempt to mess with Dems’ heads, or, more likely, a message to his supporters to stop taking the race for granted and to keep the contributions flowing. UPDATE: OK, this isn’t a Buck internal; it’s a joint POS/Fairbank Maslin collaboration, and it’s not said on whose behalf this poll was performed. One other bit of news from the poll: it also includes gubernatorial numbers, and John Hickenlooper is closing in on the 50% mark. He’s at 48, to 25 for Dan Maes and 15 for Tom Tancredo.

• DE-Sen: Tax liens and penalties are sort of the common cold of political scandals, but this isn’t timed well for Mike Castle, who’s trying to stave off a last-minute zone-flooding from Tea Party Express on behalf of Christine O’Donnell. Castle had to make interest and penalty payments three times on his Capitol Hill pad in 2005 and 2006, although of course that pales in comparison to O’Donnell’s long track record of ducking her bills. Meanwhile, we have a sense of what the Tea Party Express‘s fully operational battle station looks like: they’ve spent only $60K on O’Donnell’s behalf so far, but plan to have spent $250K by the primary (including more airing of their TV spot and radio ad, as well as direct mail and out-of-state phone banking).

• KY-Sen: The moneybomb shoe’s on the other foot: Jack Conway’s doing an online one-day fundraising scramble today. As of 1 pm ET, the day’s total was up to $130K. Meanwhile, against that moneybomb backdrop, is an instance of a paid Rand Paul staffer having gotten caught sockpuppeting over at Daily Kos, concern-trolling against Conway from the left.

• NH-Sen: A lot of money ($10K from various officers and employees) has flowed into Kelly Ayotte’s campaign from a decidedly sketchy company in Texas: Tax Masters, one of those companies that relies heavily on late-night advertising to generate business for helping resolve debts owed to the IRS. The company and its CEO were charged with multiple violations of Texas’s consumer protection laws, in the wake of hundreds of consumer complaints.

• OH-Sen, OH-Gov: The Columbus Dispatch offers up some truly bad numbers for the Democratic candidates in Ohio, finding Rob Portman leading Lee Fisher 50-37 in the Senate race and John Kasich leading Ted Strickland 49-37 in the governor’s race (and the GOP winning all lower statewide races too), among registered voters. One important caveat, though: the Dispatch’s poll are notoriously an all-mail-in survey (why not just poll subscribers to Literary Digest?!?), and have consistently ranked dead last in most of 538’s pollster ratings (until the most recent installment, when they managed to leap ahead of a few other members of the rogues’ gallery, including Research 2000, ARG, and Zogby Interactive).

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray leaked an internal poll today to Politico, showing that the needle has barely budged in this race between two ubiquitously-known, well-defined candidates. The Fairbank Maslin poll gives Murray a 50-45 lead, and 53/42 approval. An April internal by the same pollster, back when Dino Rossi was only considering entering the race, gave Murray an 8-point lead.

• MA-Gov: A poll from local wire service State House News Service gives a decent lead to Deval Patrick, thanks to an assist from Tim Cahill. Their first poll of the gubernatorial race has Patrick leading Republican Charlie Baker, independent Cahill, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein 34-28-18-4, among registered voters.

• MD-Gov: For every Joe Miller, there’s, well, a Brian Murphy. The Washington Post takes a quick look at the upstart GOP gubernatorial candidate, whose Sarah Palin endorsement hasn’t turned into much of anything (other than a way for Bob Ehrlich to burnish his moderate credentials). In the pre-primary reporting period (all of which covers the post-Palin period), he’s raised only $35K, including $14K from himself, leaving him with $31K CoH. Ehrlich raised $725K over the 18-day period, taking him to $2.5 million CoH, while Dem Martin O’Malley raised $267K and has $6.5 million CoH.

• MI-Gov: While organized labor is the biggest force propelling Dem Virg Bernero in Michigan, there’s one union that isn’t falling in line. The state’s largest construction union, the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights, is backing Rick Snyder instead. More alarmingly for Bernero, the much-larger Teamsters haven’t endorsed yet and could conceivably go for Snyder too.

• MS-Gov: The 2011 election is only fourteen months away, and things are taking shape in Mississippi. Phil Bryant, the first-term Republican Lt. Governor, is taking steps to prepare for a bid. Businessman Dave Dennis also seems likely to run, while the state’s great-named SoS, Delbert Hosemann, also sounds like he’s interested.

• TX-Gov: We have two wildly divergent polls in Texas, both from GOP pollsters. Hill Research, on behalf of the Texas Watch Foundation (in a poll that seems primarily about homeowners’ insurance reform, but where the gube race seems to have gotten thrown-in as an attention-getter), finds Rick Perry leading Bill White by only a 42-41 margin. On the other hand, GOPAC (perhaps having gotten an advance heads-up about the Texas Watch numbers) rolled out numbers showing Perry in better shape. Their poll, via Wilson Research Strategies, gives Perry a 50-38 lead over White.

• KS-04: With polling now pretty consistently showing Mike Pompeo leading Raj Goyle by single digits in the open seat race in the 4th, the last thing the Republicans can afford here is a high-profile third-party challenge on the right. That’s what they might get, though, if businessman (and former Tic-Tac-Dough host) Wink Hartman follows through on threats to pick up the just-abandoned Libertarian ballot line. The state party has started scrambling to lean on Hartman to get him to stand down.

• NY-various: There’s a bonanza of pre-primary fundraising reports in New York (where the primary is next week). The biggest raiser among the various Republican House challengers was Chris Cox in the 1st, who raised $103K to Randy Altschuler’s $59K (although Altschuler still has a big CoH advantage). In the 23rd, the numbers were much smaller: Matt Doheny raised $41K and Doug Hoffman raised $37K, although Doheny has about three times Hoffman’s CoH.

• WV-01: On the back of the DCCC’s wave of internal polls today, here’s one more poll that probably has to go in the “good news” file: an internal poll, from POS, has Republican David McKinley trailing Dem Mike Oliverio in the open seat race in the 1st. Oliverio leads McKinley 41-36. The only other poll of this race was an Oliverio internal last month that gave him a seemingly too-good-to-be-true 52-36 lead over McKinley, but at the very least, it seems like everyone’s in agreement that Oliverio’s in pole position for now.

• Ads:

• CO-Sen: The DSCC is out with an ad in Colorado, letting Ken Buck go after himself with his own words on Social Security and the 17th Amendment

• DE-Sen: Mike Castle’s new ad is out; predictably, it goes after Christine O’Donnell for her crazy finances

• FL-Sen: First TV ad from Charlie Crist, stressing his (what else?) independence; also Kendrick Meek’s first TV ad, which is him on a swamp boat and stressing his (what else?) Dem credentials

• MO-Sen: Roy Blunt ad about how much he loves small business

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher’s first TV ad out of the gate is negative, going after Rob Portman for being George Bush’s job-exporting trade representative

• CA-Gov: Strangely sepia-toned ad is Jerry Brown’s first, seemingly to remind older Californians about how much things sucked less when he was Governor the first time (SOTB: $1.2 million for one week… that’s California for you)

• FL-Gov: Rick Scott’s first post-primary TV ad is an attack ad against… Barack Obama? (and Alex Sink, too, I guess)

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes goes negative against Nathan Deal on the issues of his recently-released tax returns, calling him “too corrupt even for Congress”

• SC-Gov: Nikki Haley’s first TV spot, outsider-themed with a jab at Mark Sanford

• FL-22: The new Ron Klein spot is another anti-Allen West spot, but still hammering on the tax liens instead of, well, West’s non-stop stream-of-consciousness crazy

• ID-01: Walt Minnick’s first TV spot: please disregard the “D” next to his name, because he’s independent

• IN-02: The NRCC’s first television IE of the cycle, hitting Joe Donnelly for, well, being a Democrat

• IN-08: Trent van Haaften’s first TV ad is a basic introductory spot

• PA-03: Kathy Dahlkemper’s second ad tries to cram “jobs” in there as many times as possible

• PA-06: Manan Trivedi’s first TV ad also works the outsider angle

• PA-11: Paul Kanjorski’s second ad works the Social Security privatization angle, smart in such an aged district

• PA-15: Interestingly, Charlie Dent’s first ad is a negative shot against John Callahan (on local property taxes), indicating he may be feeling some heat here

• WI-07: Julie Lassa’s second ad goes after Sean Duffy for saying that he can’t do anything to create jobs

• AFSCME: Here’s the big buy of the day: the AFSCME is shelling out $1.5 million in four states (Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, and Pennsylvania) for an ad attacking Republicans for voting against the state aid package in August)

• Rasmussen:

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 37%, Mike Castle (R) 48%

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 47%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 36%

• ID-Gov: Keith Allred (D) 36%, Butch Otter (R-inc) 52%

• ID-Sen: Tom Sullivan (D) 24%, Mike Crapo (R-inc) 63%

• MA-Gov: Deval Patrick (D-inc) 39%, Charlie Baker (R) 34%, Tim Cahill (I) 18%

• NE-Gov: Mike Meister (D) 28%, Dave Heineman (R-inc) 61%

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 33%, Brian Sandoval (R) 58%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 45%, Sharron Angle (R) 45%

• CO-Sen, PA-Sen: Need some quantification that people just don’t care about the job-offer so-called-stories in the Colorado and Pennsylvania races? It comes from Rasmussen, of all places, perhaps the pollster you’d think would have the greatest vested interest in finding that people do care. 44% of those sampled say this is business as usual for politicians, with only 19% saying it’s unusual. And 32% say it’s an issue that will be “very important” in their decisions in November (and what do you want to bet most of that 32% wouldn’t think it was important if it was a Republican offering a job to a Republican?), Scott Rasmussen points out that’s quite low compared with other issues in importance.

• DE-Sen: It’s been confirmed: Joe Biden will be heading back to Delaware to stump on behalf of Chris Coons. Biden will appear at a June 28 fundraiser in Wilmington.

• NC-Sen (pdf): PPP is out with another look at the North Carolina Senate race, where the Democratic field has yet to be settled via runoff. Today’s results focus only on the general election, though, where Elaine Marshall and Cal Cunningham both lost a little ground against Richard Burr as the bump wore off in the middle of the lull between the primary and the runoff. Burr is still at an unenviable approval of 35/37, but he leads Marshall 46-39 (up from a 1-point margin in the poll immediately post-primary) and leads Cunningham 46-35.

• AL-Gov: The final count of all ballots in the too-close to call Republican gubernatorial primary is scheduled to be released today. The issue isn’t who won, but who made second place and makes it into the runoff. Businessman and gubernatorial progeny Tim James, who was in third on election night by 205 votes, says he’ll seek a recount regardless of what happens with the final count of provisional ballots, so it’ll be a while before we know whether he or Robert Bentley faces Bradley Byrne in the runoff.

• MI-Gov: One more big union endorsement for Virg Bernero in the Michigan Democratic primary; the Lansing mayor got the nod from the state AFSCME (not surprising, considering that public employee unions have little use for his rival, Andy Dillon).

• MN-Gov: The good news: there’s a new poll out showing all three potential DFL nominees handily beating GOP nominee Tom Emmer in the Minnesota gubernatorial race, contrary to the recent SurveyUSA (where Emmer was winning) and Minnesota Public Radio (super-close) polls. The bad news: it’s a pollster I’ve never heard of, and I can’t tell at whose behest they took the poll, so I don’t know how much weight to give this one. At any rate, Decision Resources Ltd. finds that Mark Dayton leads Emmer and Independence Party nominee Tom Horner 40-28-18. Margaret Anderson Kelliher leads 38-28-17, while Matt Entenza leads 34-27-19.

• MS-Gov: Hey, I know we haven’t even gotten through the current election, but it’s only a year and a half till Mississippi’s off-year gubernatorial election. The mayor of Hattiesburg, Johnny Dupree, will seek the Democratic nomination. If he won, he’d be Mississippi’s first African-American governor. (H/t GOPVOTER.)

• TX-Gov: It turns out that it was too early to conclude (as the media did yesterday) that the Greens were actually going to get a ballot line in Texas this year, which could make a difference in a close gubernatorial race. An Arizona political consulting group collected the 92,000 signatures and, for campaign finance purposes, delivered them as “a gift” to the Greens. But while an individual could do that, a corporation can’t, according to an election law expert.

• VT-Gov: One other state where organized labor is starting to weigh in to the Democratic primary is Vermont, where the state AFL-CIO and the Vermont Education Association both have decided to back former Lt. Gov. Doug Racine. The good news here may be that the AFL-CIO isn’t backing Anthony Pollina like they did last time, splitting the liberal vote (although there’s no indication yet that Pollina will be running this time).

• FL-24: One day after snagging Mike Huckabee’s endorsement, Karen Diebel got the boom lowered on her by RedState (who don’t have a candidate they’re backing, but suddenly seem spooked about her electability issues). They reiterated the (already a known piece of oppo research that’s been floating around for the last year, although perhaps not known to all readers here) story about Diebel’s 911 call in 2007 where police were called to her house over reports of a dead snake in her pool and she subsequently told police she was afraid she was being monitored through her phone and computer.

• NJ-04: With the exception of his hard-core anti-abortion stances, Chris Smith has usually been one of the most moderate House Republicans, so it’s strange to see him enlisting the help of bomb-thrower Michele Bachmann in a re-election bid (in the form of robocalls). In fact, it’s strange to see him sweating a re-election bid period, but facing a teabagger primary challenge from Alan Bateman in today’s climate, he’s not taking any chances.

• WA-08: It’s also see strange to see the Seattle Times going after their pet Congresscritter, Dave Reichert. But they also lambasted him in a weekend editorial for his cynicism, after he was caught on tape telling a Republican audience how he takes the occasional pro-environmental vote in order to throw a few bones to moderate or liberal voters in order to make himself safer in his Dem-leaning swing district. I suppose his brief moment of transparency upset their Broderite inner compasses and trumped even their need to keep him in office.

(From the diaries. Share your thoughts on Mississippi’s 2007 elections here. – promoted by James L.)

Louisiana has had their jungle primary and Democrats held on to the both chambers of the state legislature, the Lieutenant Governorship, and are heading into run offs for Agriculture Commissioner and Attorney General. Before these runoffs are held, Kentucky and Mississippi will have similar statewide elections on November 6. Additionally, New Jersey and Virginia will be electing large portions of their state legislatures. Going into these elections, I’d like us to have an opportunity to focus on these somewhat overlooked 2007 elections. Before going forward, I will admit that I am not an expert on any of these states and these threads are mostly here for feedback from the forum users. Today, I’ll focus on Mississippi.

Mississippi will be voting for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, State Auditor, State Treasurer, Agriculture and Commerce Commissioner, and Insurance Commissioner. Additionally the state legislature is up. Here’s a brief on each office.

Governor
Haley Barbour, former tobacco lobbyist, is seeking re-election as the Republican nominee. Barbour beat out incumbent Democrat, Ronnie Musgrove in 2003. Since then he has been received positively by the state, mostly due to what was seen as strong reaction to Hurricane Katrina (no doubt reinforced by Louisiana’s poor reaction). The Democrats have nominated John Arthur Eaves Jr. who, from what I have heard, has run hard on religion and performed well in debates while Barbour has appeared listless. Expect Barbour to win, but his margin of victory to be closer than expected.

Lieutenant Governor
Due to term limits, Republican Amy Tuck will not be seeking re-election. The Republicans have nominated 3 term State Auditor Phil Bryant. The Democrat is State Rep. Jaime Franks. Both candidates look to be highly engaged in this race. I have no idea who is favored, but I’d guess Bryant because he has been elected statewide before.

Secretary of State
Incumbent Democrat Eric Clark is retiring. Democrats have nominated Former State Senator Rob Smith. The Republicans have put forward Redstate favorite Delbert Hosemann who will keep those “dirty illegals” from voting. Delbert’s campaign looks much more engaged compared to Smith whose campaign looks nonexistent. Expect the Republicans to gain this one.

Attorney General
Incumbent Democrat Jim Hood is seeking re-election. The Republican candidate is Attorney Al Hopkins. Both sides appear engaged and Hopkins looks like he’s bringing abortion into the election. Both sides also look like they are getting REAL dirty as well. This one may be close, but I’d guess a Hood re-election is in store.

State Auditor
Phi Bryant is the Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor, so it is an open seat race. Cousin to Congressman Chip, State Sen. Stacey Pickering is the Republican nominee. The Democrats have nominated Forrest County Adminstrator Mike Sumrall. This one looks like it has gotten away from us and will stay with the Republicans.

Treasurer
Republican Tate Reeves is seeking re-election and the Democrats have frequent candidate Shawn O’Hara. This one is staying theirs.

Agriculture and Commerce
Republican Lester Spell is seeking re-election. Former Democratic State Chair Rickey Cole is our guy. This is the only race where the Democrat seems more engaged than the Republican. If we upset any race this is it, but the Republican is still favored. A candidate from the Constitution Party may make the difference for us.

Insurance Commissioner
DFA endorsed and ex-state fiscal officer Gary Anderson defeated incumbent Democrat George Dale in the primary, so this can be considered an open seat race. The Republicans have nominated Mike Chaney. Anderson looks a bit more engaged, but, and I REALLY hate to say this, expect race may be a factor and we may lose it on that alone, issues be damned! I’d say this leans Republican, but we still have chance.

State Senate
A pair of Democrats defected earlier this year and gave control of the legislature to the Republicans. The current Composition is 27 Republicans-25 Democrats. I expect the Republicans may have some coattails from many of their top of the ballot races and gain a tad to expand their majorities.

State House
The DLCC website states the Mississippi State House has a 74-48 Democratic majority. Expect our majroity to shrink due to coattails, but Democrats to stay in command.

Summary
Republicans will keep the statewide seats they already have, however the race for Governor and Lieutenant Governor may be closer than we could have previously hoped for. The Agriculture Commissioner may flip Democratic, however it is unlikely Democrats can also expect to lose the Secretary of State. Our bright side appears that, while it will be close, we should hold onto the Attorney General, barely, and the State House. While Insurance Commissioner will probably flip Republican, we do have fighting chance of holding it.

Please, comment, and tell me your thoughts on Mississippi. I’ll have more of these up before Nov 6 on New Jersey, Virginia, and Kentucky.

On a complete side note, I am looking forward to Friday when I can get Mac OS X.5 Leopard so I can get bloody spell check build into Safari, so until then, please forgive the spelling typos where they are.

Crossposted to BlueSunbelt.Com, DailyKos, and Swing State Project

The Mississippi election for governor has finally attracted a well financed Democratic candidate. Trial lawyer John Arthur Eaves, Jr. has filed to challenge incumbent GOP Gov. Haley Barbour. Eaves will face an uphill challenge against the popular Barbour who received high marks after Hurricane Katrina. His father John Arthur Eaves, Sr. ran strong races for governor in 1975 (Eaves did not make the runoff between William Winter and Cliff Finch) and 1979 (won by William Winter).

Barbour is expected to be a heavy favorite for re-election. Thus far, Democrats with statewide campaign experience, such as former Attorney General Mike Moore, have opted not to challenge Barbour. Eaves, a well known Jackson attorney whose father ran unsuccessful campaigns for governor in the 1980s, might be the best funded and best known Democrat to get in the race.

Eaves’ only other political experience is that he was the Democratic nominee for the 3rd District U.S. House seat in 1996. He lost to Republican Chip Pickering.

Bill Renick of Ashland, who has served in various government capacities, including chief of staff to former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, also has qualified as a Democrat to run for governor.

http://www.djournal….

(Cross posted on Daily Kos)

Since Election Day, all of the election-related talk has naturally been about 2008, with a few Kissell, Jennings, and Jefferson stories sprinkled in between them. But I say wait a cotton pickin’ minute because we have some southern gubernatorial races to deal with in 2007. Below the fold, I’ll try and go through some background on the three races, the likely contenders, and our chances. I am a Yankee and live in none of the three states, so take my analyses with the required grain of salt.

Mississippi

Date of election:
November 6, 2006

Likely Republican Nominee:
Incumbent Haley Barbour

Possible Democratic Candidates:
Wayne Dowdy – Former Congressman and current head of the Mississippi Democratic Party
James Graves – Member of the Mississippi Supreme Court
Ray Mabus – Former governor, 1988-1992, and former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia
Mike Moore – Former Attorney General, 1988-2004
Ronnie Musgrove – Former governor, 2000-2004, defeated in 2003 by Barbour in a close election

Governor’s Approval Rating:
59%

Analysis:
Probably will be the least competitive of the three gubernatorial races, but that’s not to say it can’t get interesting.  The only way, in my opinion, this race is winnable is if Musgrave or Moore throw their respective hats in the ring.  Moore is apparently well-liked in the state for most notably taking on tobacco companies and getting them to reimburse the state for treating patients of smoke-related illnesses.  Musgrove, being a recent former governor, obviously has the name recognition to make the race potentially competitive.  He did however lose in 2003 to Barbour, so quite a few things would have to go right for him to win again in this deep-red state.

No matter who runs however, they face a huge uphill battle facing a fairly popular Republican governor in a Republican state.

Louisiana

Date of election:
October 20, 2007 & November 17, 2007 (if necessary)

Likely Democratic Nominee:
Incumbent Kathleen Blanco

Possible Republican Candidates:
Bobby Jindal – U.S. Congressman for Louisiana’s 1st congressional district
John Georges – CEO of several large Louisiana based businesses
Walter Boasso – State Senator from Arabi

Governor’s Approval Rating:
39%

Analysis:
Blanco may face a strong challenge from Mitch Landrieu, the current Lieutenant Governor, if he decides to enter the race, which some local pundits expect him to do.  Former Senator John Breaux has been mentioned as another candidate, but has said he would not enter if Blanco runs for re-election, which she has stated she intends to do.  Although she must be considered the favorite among Democrats, a strong challenge from Landrieu would be devastating to her chances as he’ll sifend much needed money from her and potentially cost her an outright victory or, at the least, might allow a Republican into the run-off election.

Bobby Jindal has already announced he will run against Blanco, and from what I can tell, he is already considered the frontrunner in the race.  A poll of 600 people in late October showed Jindal with 52% to Blanco’s 20%.  Landrieu is polling at 9%.  That being said, a lot can happen between Oct 2006 and Oct 2007, but it seems like Blanco has an uphill battle here – a large part of which has to be contributed to the exodus of African-American New Orleans residents leaving the state.  An unpopular Democratic governor in a Republican state is not a good thing.  Throw in that a large part of her base is gone, and it’s hard to see Blanco winning re-election.  One X-factor that’s in her favor is that Jindal is not very battle-tested in that he has won every election by a landslide since taking office.

The other two potential Republicans would not be very significant to the race if they entered.

Note: Louisiana has a run-off election system where if one candidate does not take more than 50% of the vote on Primary Day, another election with the top two finishers is held.

Kentucky

Date of election:
November 6, 2006

Likely Republican Nominee:
Incumbent Ernie Fletcher

Possible Democratic Candidates:
John Y. Brown III – Former Kentucky Secretary of State; son of former Governor of Kentucky John Y. Brown, Jr.
Julian Carroll – Member of the Kentucky State Senate; former Governor of Kentucky, 1974-1979; former Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives
Ben Chandler – Representative from Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District
Martha Layne Collins – Former Governor of Kentucky, 1983-1987
Brereton Jones – former Governor of Kentucky, 1991-1995
Greg Stumbo – Attorney General of Kentucky
Otis Hensley, Jr – Private contractor

Governor’s Approval Rating:
35%

Analysis:
This is probably the most interesting of the races to watch in 2007, with a whole slew of Democratic heavy-hitters lined up to take on the very corrupt Fletcher.  The only Democrat who has announced his candidacy thus far is Hensley (who received 3% of the vote in the 2003 Democratic primary), but as you can see, there are a lot of big names that are rumored to jump into this race.

On the surface – which is about the only place I’m capable of making judgements from – there doesn’t seem to be the one or two stand-out candidates that would make a formidable challenger like there is in Mississippi and Louisiana.  Chandler seems like he would make a very formidable candidate, and his seat would not be at-risk as it is heavily Democratic.  You probably can’t go wrong with a former governor – which there seems to be a plethora of on the Democratic side – either.  Perhaps some Kentucky Swing Staters can shed some light on this race.  One thing I do know, however, is that Fletcher is not liked and will face an uphill battle no matter who he faces.