Tag: Cook

This is gonna be short because I have to get to class (and I’m in Beijing, PRC, so class starts at 5pm PDT).

Cook made the follow changes; 6 are pro-Dem and 9 are pro-Rep.  Mostly, the changes seem to be clean-up work on races for which time is running out.

AL-03 Likely Rep->Solid Rep

CA-46 Likely Rep->Solid Rep

CA-50 Likely Rep->Solid Rep

FL-18 Likely Rep->Solid Rep

ID-01 Likely Rep->Lean Rep

IL-18 Likely Rep->Solid Rep

MD-01 Likely Rep->Lean Rep

NE-02 Likely Rep->Lean Rep

NV-02 Likely Rep->Lean Rep

NY-20 Lean Dem->Likely Dem

OR-05 Lean Dem->Likely Dem

PA-18 Likely Rep->Solid Rep

TN-04 Solid Dem->Likely Dem

VA-10 Likely Rep->Solid Rep

WV-02 Lean Rep->Likely Rep

My pick for the biggest surprise move is probably Tennessee’s 4th.  I mean, seriously?  I don’t know much about this race, but it seems kinda late for that race to just now be getting competitive if he thinks the challenger can pull and upset, especially in such a pro-Dem year.

Your thoughts?  Also, can someone please tell me what the hell Cook thinks is going on TN?

Update 9:50 PM PDT,

I did some research, and TN-04’s challenger Monty Lankford seems like quite the joke.  He’s lagging significantly in COH ($99872 to Davis’ $413849) and apparently lives in the 7th district.  Either Davis’ vote to reelect internals are absolutely awful and Cook has gotten a hold of them, or Cook thinks that Davis’ declarations that he’s likely to run for governor in 2010 could hurt him.  Either of those seem possible, but I’m still not sure how Lankford manages to hit 50%.

What are the odds that Rothenberg writes another  column slamming Cook for this quixotic choice?  

Charlie Cook has released his latest rankings for the 2008 Senate seats.

 Some things to note:

 -Cook believes that as many as seven Republican senators could retire this cycle and only one Democrat (Johnson). To put this in perspective, there were only four actual retirements in 2005-2006 with only one of them being a Republican, Dayton (D-MN), Sarbanes (D-MD), Jeffords (I-VT), and Frist (R-TN).

 -The only two Democrats who are not considered safe are Landrieu (leans Dem) and Johnson (Likely Dem) (possible retirement)

The hard numbers of the 2005-2006 cycle should have given the Republicans a built-in defense against the Dems taking the Senate (they had a 55-45 advantage at the time) but even then they couldn't prevent it. This time around there are a large number of Republican retirements, quite a few of them in states which are likely to be swing states in 2008 (Virginia and New Mexico come to mind). Even if no one else retires we're still in a very good position to build a filibuster-proof Senate majority by the end of the 2009-2010 cycle.