I’m going to hit you guys with a double feature this week as I give my June updates for both the Senate and the House. Today I’ll start with the Senate, where there was a lot of moving and shaking based on the outcome of several primaries and some bad news cycles for a certain challenger in Illinois. Here’s the lay of the land, starting with the ratings changes.
June Ratings Changes:
1.Nevada – Lean Republican to Toss Up – The Republicans’ best chance of a pickup on the board has really turned into a screw the pooch situation. Sue Lowden had settled in as the candidate of choice after several other more prominent names had passed on the race, but her campaign went belly up over her system of bartering chickens for health coverage. And as a result, weapons-grade wingnut Sharron Angle won the republican primary. Against anybody else, in any other year, Angle would be unelectable in Nevada, but in this situation she’s still got a shot. But it’s no better than 50-50, thus the move back to toss-up status.
2.Illinois – Lean Republican to Toss Up – Mark Kirk had everything going in this race for a while, as first no great democratic challengers (coughLisaMadigancough) stepped up to the plate, and then opponent Alexi Giannoulias had his family’s bank implode, resulting in a lot of bad press. Everything was going right, until Kirk decided to play the “let’s embellish my military service and discredit other congressional veterans” game. The press was a little slower to jump on Kirk than they were Richard Blumenthal in Connecticut a week earlier, but this story has lingered and has probably cut into Kirk’s numbers a bit (funny how Scotty Rass wasn’t exactly right there with a poll following this news like he was with Blumenthal). Toss-up once again.
3.Arkansas – Lean Republican to Likely Republican – The Democrats’ only hope was that Lt Gov Bill Halter would knock off Lincoln in the primary, and he came mighty close to doing so. Alas though, the more centrist yet radioactive Lincoln snuck through in the runoff. Barring a series of gaffes by Boozman, or a remarkable turnaround in Lincoln’s favorables, she’s cooked.
4.Louisiana – Likely Republican to Lean Republican – Maybe I’m underestimating Louisiana’s hatred of Democrats, but I have to believe that Charlie Melancon’s chances of pulling an upset here are much better now than they were a month ago. His response to the BP Oil Spill has been phenomenal, while Vitter is sure to get hit on his unpopular positions related to the subject, particularly capping BP’s liability. Surely other issues will be discussed in this race, but I think Melancon has at least a fighting chance now, which he didn’t really have a month ago. What we need is for some other polling firm not named Rassmussen or Research 2000 to poll this race.
5.South Carolina – Likely Republican to Solid Republican – Now that the Dems’ favored candidate shockingly went down to defeat against a 30-something who lives at home, I can feel confident beyond any doubt that Jim Demint will be re-elected. Safe.
Takeover Board Changes:
Well, this is boring, but there aren’t any changes on the takeover board this month. I thought about moving Illinois back to Democratic retention, but I’m really, really down on Giannoulias as a candidate. The only other race I considered moving was Missouri, but I’m still fairly confident that when all is said and done, Missourians are going to come to their senses and Carnahan will win. As it stands, she’s only trailing by 1-3 points in most polls anyway.
Senate Math: (counting Sanders and Lieberman as Democrats)
Old – 59 Democrat, 41 Republican
New – 54 Democrat, 45 Republican, 1 Independent
Republican Pickups (7) – North Dakota, Illinois, Arkansas, Indiana, Nevada, Colorado, Delaware
Democratic Pickups (2) – Ohio, Missouri
Independent Pickups (1) – Florida
2010 Senate Big Board (as of June update, Bold indicates pickups)
Solid Dem – 6 seats
New York (Schumer)
Vermont (Leahy)
Maryland (Mikulski)
Oregon (Wyden)
Hawaii (Inouye)
New York (Gillibrand)
Likely Dem – 2 seats
Wisconsin (Feingold)
Connecticut (Blumenthal)
Lean Dem – 3 seats
Pennsylvania (Sestak)
California (Boxer)
Washington (Murray)
Toss Up – 6 seats
Florida (Open)
Ohio (Open)
Colorado (Open)
Missouri (Open)
Illinois (Open)
Nevada (Reid)
Lean Rep – 5 seats
Kentucky (Open)
North Carolina (Burr)
Indiana (Open)
New Hampshire (Open)
Louisiana (Vitter)
Likely Rep – 5 seats
Georgia (Isakson)
Delaware (Open)
Arkansas (Lincoln)
Iowa (Grassley)
Arizona (McCain)
Solid Rep – 9 seats
South Carolina (Demint)
Alabama (Shelby)
North Dakota (Open)
South Dakota (Thune)
Kansas (Open)
Oklahoma (Coburn)
Utah (Open)
Idaho (Crapo)
Alaska (Murkowski)
I agree that Sharron Angle can win in this environment, and I agree it is a tossup, but it should tilt Dem at this point.
Toss-up is fine, but I see the Dems retaining that seat, especially if we’re winning close races in MO and OH.
Come November Obama is not going to be judged on WHY the accident occured (which is the part they can shift blame to Bush/Cheney) but how the cleanup is going and how well the leak has been plugged. And this mess is something which no one really knows how to fix (hence why the Obama administration is not rushing to take it over from BP). If could very well be going full blast come November.
Unless Obama can pull a rabbit out of his hat as more and more oil reaches the shore more and more anger will be directed at the incumbent administration in Washington. And that can only hurt Melancon.
Kirk 42 (46)
Alexi 39 (38)
http://www.rasmussenreports.co…
“Sixty-two percent (62%) of Illinois voters say they’ve been following news stories about Kirk and his military service, and 63% say this news is important in terms of how they vote this November. Thirty-two percent (32%) say Kirk’s misstatements about his military record are not important in how they vote.”
I’ve had IL-Sen as a tossup all along. Kirk isn’t polling well enough or Alexi poorly enough to put it anywhere else, and polling movements have been small with voters reluctant to form strong opinions yet.
I think AR-Sen has been likely Republican since Boozman won the GOP nod. Halter polled only slightly better than Lincoln against Boozman, not enough of a difference to rate them differently. Yeah Halter had the opportunity to be a fresh face, but that’s offset by Arkansas having perhaps the strongest anti-Obama sentiment in the country (remember Hillary was their favorite daughter, and Obama beat her). Really, we needed Boozman to get upset and have a different Republican to run against, but that didn’t work out.
I don’t think anything has changed on LA-Sen, and it’s unwise to move it from likely GOP until polling shows otherwise. Melancon has been very good, but it’s wishful speculation at this point to assume that translates into conservative whites revisiting their support for Vitter. After all, while Melancon is performing his job well, Obama is his party’s President and is hurting in job approval from this oil spill.
And South Carolina was solid Republican all along. Rawls was never going to give DeMint a run for his money. I wouldn’t be surprised if this Greene fellow performs the same this November as Rawls would have, although there’s no way to test that.
I do worry about the macroenvironment dragging us down to defeat in every close race. The damn hole needs to get plugged, and job growth needs to pick up. Absent those things, our candidates and campaigns could simply be overwhelmed by the tide. And it scares me, because people like Paul and Angle and their supporters and allies will truly harm this country.
Polls have continued to show Sestak and Toomey trading small leads, and their cash on hand situations are probably pretty similar too. I don’t see how you can justify putting PA at Lean Dem with Washington and Wisconsin based on this little evidence.
True, Dem voters outnumber Republicans by quite a bit, but I think that Sestak has been damaged at least a little bit by his changing stories on job offer/no job offer/kind of a job offer. That, and there may end up being some division in the Dem ranks after a contentious primary with Specter (some of whose voters were probably conservative Dems or former Republicans who voted for him when he was a Republican too).
I think Penn is a tossup at best. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Toomey picked it up in the fall.