CQ politics has finally released its ratings for the 2010 Senate and gubernatorial elections. Here they are:
Incumbent in parenthesis, *=retiring
First, the Senate races:
Safe Democrat
California (Boxer)
Hawaii (Inouye)
Indiana (Bayh)
Maryland (Mikulski)
New York (Schumer)
North Dakota (Dorgan)
Oregon (Wyden)
Vermont (Leahy)
Washington (Murray)
Democrat Favored
Arkansas (Lincoln)
Colorado (Bennet)
Delaware (Kaufman*)
Leans Democrat
Nevada (Reid)
New York (Gillibrand)
Wisconsin (Feingold)
No Clear Favorite
Connecticut (Dodd)
Florida (Martinez*)
Illinois (Burris)
Kentucky (Bunning)
Missouri (Bond*)
New Hampshire (Gregg*)
North Carolina (Burr)
Ohio (Voinovich*)
Pennsylvania (Specter)
Leans Republican
Louisiana (Vitter)
South Carolina (DeMint)
Republican Favored
Arizona (McCain)
Georgia (Isakson)
Kansas (Brownback*)
South Dakota (Thune)
Safe Republican
Alabama (Shelby)
Alaska (Murkowski)
Idaho (Crapo)
Iowa (Grassley)
Oklahoma (Coburn)
Utah (Bennett)
Now the governor’s races:
Safe Democrat
Arkansas (Beebe)
Maryland (O’Malley)
New Hampshire (Lynch)
Democrat Favored
Hawaii (Lingle*)
Ohio (Strickland)
New Mexico (Richardson*)
Leans Democrat
California (Schwarzenegger*)
Colorado (Ritter)
Illinois (Quinn)
Iowa (Culver)
Maine (Baldacci*)
Massachusetts (Patrick)
New York (Paterson)
Oregon (Kulongoski*)
Wisconsin (Doyle)
No Clear Favorite
Michigan (Granholm*)
Minnesota (Pawlenty*)
Nevada (Gibbons)
New Jersey (Corzine)
Pennsylvania (Rendell*)
Rhode Island (Carcieri*)
Virginia (Kaine*)
Wyoming (Freudenthal. Apparently he is considering suing to overturn the term-limits law, so CQ is unsure about rating this race until that is resolved)
Leans Republican
Alabama (Riley*)
Arizona (Brewer)
Oklahoma (Henry*)
South Carolina (Sanford*)
Tennessee (Bredesen*)
Texas (Perry)
Vermont (Douglas)
Republican Favored
Alaska (Palin)
Connecticut (Rell)
Georgia (Perdue*)
Florida (Crist)
Idaho (Otter)
Kansas (Parkinson*)
South Dakota (Rounds*)
Safe Republican
Nebraska (Heineman)
You can see the maps here:
http://innovation.cq.com/senat… http://innovation.cqpolitics.c…
Please comment and say what you think of CQ’s first batch of race ratings!
Senate: I’d call NY-B and WI likely D, if not Safe D. I’d call IL leans D. I’d call GA, SC, and SD safe R.
Governor: I’d call PA leans D, OK tossup, GA leans R, AK and ID safe R, MA likely D.
Did they release house ratings yet?
Doyle seems intent on running for a 3rd term and his approvals are pathetic. Wisconsin isn’t overwhelmingly Democratic and with approvals in the low 30’s we could definately lose this one with Doyle.
http://www.surveyusa.com/clien…
Lots of disagreements in the Senate races; not as familiar with the gubernatorial races. Most are in listing races as more competitive than they really are.
For Democrats, NV, NY, WI, and IL all should be Dem Favored. These are blue-bluish states and there’s no good R even in the race yet. IL in particular is mislabeled as I don’t see anyway Burris wins a primary should he decide to run for re-election. CT should probabaly be Leans Dem, but I can understand that one.
For Republicans, I might make FL Lean Rep. LA should probably be Rep Favored, and SC and SD should be Safe Republican. SC in particular seems like a crazy rating–what I am missing on this one? I might move OK and IA to Rep Favored on the idea that Coburn or Grassley could retire and if they did it would be a competitive race, but I understand why CQ has them where they are.
I mean conservative in the sense that they are slow to make judgments about the relative safety of incumbents, and consider most races to be more competitive than other people do. Thus the large number of races in the favored categories, despite all those incumbents being virtually safe.
As time goes on, they will shift more and more races towards one side as the situation becomes more clear.
On the whole, the Senate picture is about what I’d expect it to be, but I think we are on much better ground in the governor races than CQ believes. Georgia for one is probably leaning our way at the moment, given the candidates running.
Moved Dodd to toss-up and Specter and Bunning to Lean Takeover.
Several other changes.
http://rothenbergpoliticalrepo…
do they think is going to take out Jim DeMint in SC? I’d pay good money to see that one happen, but it’s impossible. He might as well be Richard Shelby.
Also, I strongly disagree with their rating of AZ-Gov as Lean GOP. At the very least it’s a tossup; more likely, Goddard is favored over all Republican comers.
http://www.rasmussenreports.co…