From Stateline.org:
By contrast, the Republicans have serious concerns only about Arizona, the three open seats in solidly Democratic territory (California, Hawaii and Rhode Island) plus Nevada, where first-term Gov. Jim Gibbons has gotten himself into a series of self-inflicted scrapes, and South Dakota, where a strong Democratic candidate, U.S. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, is planning an open-seat bid.
Hardly definitive, but this phrasing makes it sound pretty certain she’s going to run.
Our statewide recruitment open thread series continues to chug along, and today we’re making a stop in beautiful South Dakota, where Republican Gov. Mike Rounds is term-limited out of office in 2010. Democratic Rep. Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin has been a rumored candidate for some time, but if she decides to stay in the House, who should run for the state’s top job? And who might we see line up on the Republican side of the aisle?
For the GOP, frosh Senator John Thune sounds like he’s staying put in his current job, so it doesn’t seem that we’ll see a job swap between Rounds and Thune. While defeating Thune in 2010 doesn’t seem very likely, perhaps some ambitious young Democrat could make a name for him or herself with a spirited campaign. Who might that be?