Fifteen months ago, DavidNYC extended a humbling offer to promote me from the comments section to the front page of the Swing State Project. It’s been an absolute blast to write for and help steer this blog over the past year, which is why I’m very excited to announce that the Swing State Project team is adding a new contributing editor this weekend.
Please give a warm welcome to Trent Thompson, an energetic young Democrat from Alabama. This spring, Trent made a major splash as the publisher of Sack Sessions, a blog dedicated to the defeat of Senator Jeff Sessions. Trent was also instrumental in helping us build an exciting (if ultimately unsuccessful) effort to draft Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks into the Senate race this year. He has since gone on to join Left in Alabama, a growing community blog for progressive action in his home state, as a front page poster. I can’t say enough good things about Trent; he’s an excellent writer and he’ll offer a valuable perspective to SSP, especially on Southern races. With Trent on board, we stand to be in even stronger shape in the near future.
Should we take this as a sign that you are declining to challenge Jeff Sessions as well, Constitutional age requirement notwithstanding?
Anyways, I’ll use this thread here to post my predictions from the other thread (which I was unable to do):
Senate: 7
Reason: it is very optimistic, it seems, but our prospects are increasing daily here. First we have Colorado, and the 4 blue-state races. I think Collins will actually win, but John Sununu is a complete gonner, while Coleman and Smith will lose in close races. Then we have the trio retirement possibilities of Nebraska, Virginia and Mississippi, and everything here are all ifs, but I do believe that we’ll end up winning 2 (everything situational though… Mark Warner running, Thad Cochran retiring and Mike Moore jumping in, Hagel retiring + Bob Kerrey running). Next I think we’ll pick up 2 in our 2nd-tier states: North Carolina, Kentucky, Alaska, New Mexico, Oklahoma or Texas, most likely the 1st 3. Then I assume either, one retirement doesn’t happen, Landrieu or Johnson lose, or one of those races doesn’t materialize (Smith and Dole/McConnell may yet win), so I bring the total back down to 7.
As for what races I’m interested in this week…
There’s a few rumblings in NE-02 about another candidate entering the race, as Jim Esch has yet to make up his mind. I haven’t been able to even guess who it is – then again, I’m not exactly impartial in this race. The only other rumored candidate prior to this point was State Senator Tom White, but I’ve been assured that he has no intention of running for Congress in 2008.
Regardless, some folks in Omaha have taken it upon themselves to start TerryWatch.com to keep an eye on Lee Terry.
And, if you haven’t stopped by the New Nebraska Network lately, there have been a few changes, making the jump to a community blog.
I thought Sack Sessions was great – glad to see you’ll be taking part here.
House: 7-9 seats
Reason: We currently have a huge list of great targets: AZ-01, CO-04, CT-04, FL-10, FL-13, IL-10, MI-07, MI-09, MO-06, NJ-07, NM-01, NV-03, NY-25, NY-26, NY-29, NC-08, OH-01, OH-02, OH-15, OH-16, PA-03, PA-06, PA-15, PA-18, VA-11, WA-8, WV-02. This doesn’t include lower tiered possibilities, such as AL-03, IA-04, TX-10, IL-11, IL-14, OH-12, the other New York districts, the numerous other FL districts, WY-AL, AK-AL, NE-02, ID-01, IN-03, NM-02, among others… a few of these will move up into top-tier (as will a few top-tiers move down). Overall, I predict us capturing 9-11 of these seats. In addition, I believe we will lose 2-4 of our own seats (TX-22, CA-11, WI-08, NH-01, GA-08, GA-12, PA-10, FL-16, KS-02, IN-09, currently with TX-22 and PA-10 being the most likely).
I must say, ’08 is shaping up to be quite a nice cycle.
Have fun. And i’m sure there’ll be a lot of news and speculation to cover too.
Welcome aboard Trent,
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed how few House members are running for Gov. or Sen. in 2008 thus far?
Might be an artifact of the changeover in control I guess but wonder if others have any thoughts on the question?