(Bumped – promoted by DavidNYC)
There are no breaks here at the Swing State Project! One election cycle ends and another begins. I don’t just mean that in a technical sense, either. Several candidates who had little or no prior political experience were able to compensate for that in part by getting a very early start. Paul Hodes, Patrick Murphy and Eric Massa would be some good examples.
Now, I doubt that many people apart from presidential hopefuls) are going to be announcing any runs for office this quickly, but it’s still fun to think about. Here are some topics worth considering:
• Which Senate seats should be our top priority in 2008, both on offense and defense?
• Which members of the House might retire at the end of their terms? How about during their terms (being in the minority sucks), prompting special elections? Who is ready to run in the event of a retirement? This is something to keep a close eye on all next year.
• Who are our most vulnerable new Reps going to be? What, if anything, can we do to help protect them apart from the obvious – ie, giving them tons of scrilla?
Plenty of food for thought!
Well, I’m from Albuquerque, so as far as the House is concerned I’m going to say NM-01 should definitely be a priority (I’m not entirely sure who to recommend for the task, though, we don’t seem to have any really strong Democrats in our district [I’m not supporting Martin Chavez, because of his opposition to the minimum wage hike].
As far as the senate is concerned, I’d look first for defense:
Mary Landrieu (Louisiana) and Tim Johnson (South Dakota)
and for offense:
Saxby Chambliss (Georgia), Norm Coleman (Minnesota), Ken Allard (Connecticut), and Gordon Smith (Oregon).
This is pretty good for starters.
Here’s how I see it from our perspective, a lot will depend on how many cinmbents choose to run for re-election. Let’s assume that all 12 run for re-election because at this moment we don’t know otherwise.
John Kerry, Jack Reed, Carl Levin, Dick Durbin, Jay Rockefeller and Joe Biden will face little more than nominal opposition if they run for re-election.
Tom Harkin won by 10 points against a “moderate” Congressman when Bush had a 70% approval rating. Maybe Nussle can give him a race but I think he’s probably been too damaged by his underperformance in the Governor’s race.
If Lautenberg runs again which is looking increasingly likely I don’t think the GOP can beat him if a very flawed candidate like Menenedez can beat a guy who ran a very good campaign in Kean I don’t think they can beat a significantly less flawed opponent in Lautenberg.
Tim Johnson has some of the highest approval ratings in the country. Unfortunately so does their GOP Gov. Mike Rounds. If Rounds gets into the race he has to be considered a slight favorite otherwise Johnson wins re-election easily.
Max Baucus is set to become a very powerful man the head of the Finance Committee. In a state like Montana I don’t see them booting a guy that is that powerful. Having said that if Cong. Denny Rehberg gets into the race it becomes competitive otherwise, Baucus wins easily.
Mark Pryor, this should be a top target. The problem is the GOP bench is very weak in AR. Cong. John Boozeman can’t win against someone like Pryor, Asa Hutchinson is damaged goods after he got his ass kicked by Beebe and Huckabee appears more interested in the Presidency. If Huckabee doesn’t run I don’t think the GOP can beat him.
Mary Ladrieu-She’ll be locked in a tight race. Although because we’re in the majority and she’ll be running for her third term she can play the seniority card very hard which in LA could be very successful.
The Democratic earthquake that struck NH a few days ago left Sununu and Gregg with no one but each other for comfort.
This makes for a good start in a race that will be harder to win than nat’l pundits may think (Sununu is way savvier than Bass and Bradley and knows how to run to the center or play to NH’s libertarian spirit when necessary). Nonetheless this remains a top pickup opportunity for the Dems.
One bright spot is that the NH Dem Party continues to leverage press stories out of the 2002 phone jamming scandal that helped inch Sununu into victory the first time.
Our hyper-popular gov, John Lynch, will be the presumed front-runner to go against Sununu, but I have my worries about that. Lynch is very well liked, but he hasn’t much of a vision to point to. And despite two good wins, he hasn’t faced a strong competitor yet.
On the other hand, it might be profitable to turn back to Jean Shaheen for a rematch, if only to remind voters in what’s now an overhwelmingly blue state that Sununu’s first win was tainted with scandal.
Defense first.
*Mary Lamdrieu is far and away the seat most at risk of a GOP takeover. She lost a lot of voters after Katrina that never returned and the state was a challenege for Democrats prior to Katrina. The 2007 race for Gov. will give us a good idea the damage done to the Louisiana Democratic party.
*New Jersey will have an open seat to defend with Rep. Robert Andrews the current favorite for the Dem nod.
*Max Baucus never has an easy time in Montana, this seat will be tough even if he does not retire.
*Tim Johnson in South Dakota. Hopefully the recent defeat of the religious right strengthened the state party and Johnson’s chances overall.
*Levin of Michigan, Harkin of Iowa, and Biden of Delaware are likely to retire and open seats always need to be defended.
Take over opportunities (galore!).
Colorado. I believe that Rep Mark Udall has announced that he will challenge Wayne Allard already. Allard is not particularly strong and should be beatable given the purpling of the state.
Kentucky. 2007 will see the defeat of Gov. Ernie Fletcher over corruption issues, if he does not walk away on his own. The 2007 race will set the table for 2008 and if the Democrats take the state house they need to be prepared to hit McConnell hard. Kentucky is moving toward swing state status in the peripheral South making it a good option to force the GOP to play defense. Plus the symbolism of taking out the Minority Leader would be sweet revenge for Tom Daschle’s defeat in 2004.
Minnesota. Jack COLEMAN will not have the emotions surrounding the death and funeral of Sen. Wellstone to play off of in 2008.
New Hampshire. 2006 was a political realignment and both SUNUNU and GREGG should be beatable when next they face the electorate.
New Mexico & Alaska. I doubt minority status will sit well with Domenici or Stevens and both will retire. Any open seat would by definition be a target.
Oregon. Gordon Smith is aligned with the big government interference in your life wing of the GOP. No reason a sound Democratic couldn’t take him out November of 2008.
Virginia. If we get Mark Warner to run against John Warner this is nearly a guaranteed pick-up. If John Warner doesn’t simply decide it is retirement time. If Mark Warner passes on the 2008 Senate race then we have to find a candidate.
Kansas. Hopefully Gov. SEBELIUS can help recruit a top notch challenger to Pat Roberts (maybe even a former GOPer like new AG Phil Morrison). The GOP civil war in Kansas continues to create opportunities. The Kansas Dems have momentum after taking down AG Phil KLINE and Rep. Jim RYUN last Tuesday (and how sweet is that! ). And the women’s vote is surging in Kansas. Kansas could turn into a Democratic field of dreams.
And we need to follow behind the Club of Growth in any primary anywhere they get involved. Bill “Brain-Fade” Sali is all the proof we need that the CoG creates Dem opportunities, if we are ready to capitalize on such gifts.
State Name Party Seniority Election
AK Ted Stevens R Sr 2008
AL Jefferson Sessions R Jr 2008
AR Mark Pryor D Jr 2008
CO Wayne Allard R Sr 2008
DE Joseph Biden Jr. D Sr 2008
GA C. Saxby Chambliss R Sr 2008
IA Tom Harkin D Jr 2008
ID Larry Craig R Sr 2008
IL Richard J. Durbin D Sr 2008
KS Pat Roberts R Jr 2008
KY Mitch McConnell R Sr 2008
LA Mary Landrieu D Sr 2008
MA John Kerry D Jr 2008
ME Susan Collins R Jr 2008
MI Carl Levin D Sr 2008
MN Norm Coleman R Jr 2008
MS Thad Cochran R Sr 2008
MT Max Baucus D Sr 2008
NC Elizabeth Dole R Sr 2008
NE Charles Hagel R Sr 2008
NH John Sununu R Jr 2008
NJ Frank Lautenberg D Jr 2008
NM Pete Domenici R Sr 2008
OK James Inhofe R Sr 2008
OR Gordon Harold Smith R Jr 2008
RI John F. Reed D Sr 2008
SC Lindsey Graham R Sr 2008
SD Tim Johnson D Sr 2008
TN Lamar Alexander R Jr 2008
TX John Cornyn R Jr 2008
VA John Warner R Sr 2008
WV John Rockefeller, IV D Jr 2008
WY Michael Enzi R Jr 2008
If I made a website listing all the seats in the House and Senate and detailing potential candidates for the next cycle (and for cycles down the line), would that be a good idea? Would people help out to come up with ideas?
James Inhoffe is up in 2008, and while Oklahoma remains pretty red, the strong rumor in the state is that Brad Henry, the extremely popular Democratic governor who just won reelection with 67% of the vote, will challenge Inhoffe.
This could be another Red State pickup for the Democrats
That would be Wayne Allard. He’s so invisible you can be forgiven for forgetting his first name – and his state!
But while I’d like to avenge Max Cleland, goign after Georgia would be a mistake for us. The state is not favorable to us at all – it gave us our only really sweat-it-out House races this year.
my district, CA-52, is the home of mega earmarker Duncan Hunter, who has already decided to throw into the R side of the 2008 presidential race (I believe he has already made it all official) I’m hoping that means he’ll forgo running for reelection, in which case we’ll have an open seat down here. Although I’m fairly sure my district has a substantial R lean to it, as an open seat it should be a pickup target in ’08 (assuming Hunter indeed steps down).
my 2 cents.
if Cleland could be called upon to give it another try, I think he could make a race of it. He’s more popular than ever and has become a truly national figure.
sounds like a good idea. And thanks for that list of Senate races MrJJ.
I’ve heard that Collins-R Me was supposed to retire in ’08. Though she’ll only be 56 years old so I was surprised to hear that. It would be a potential pick-up no doubt. I’d prefer Allen ME-01 because he’s to the left of Michaud-d ME-02 & Gov. Baldacchi-D, but they might do better against a strong R, though I don’t see any such on the horizon. Woodcock-R sure wasn’t strong in the end.
More later, need sleep still recovering from Election Night.
Cheers!
I agree with others who say that we need to be on the defense for Mary Landrieu and potentially Tim Johnson as far as the US Senate. I think the Democrats who won the seats of Republicans in historically Republican districts, especially the corrupt Republicans (Mark Foley’s seat, Tom Delay’s seat), will be on the defense too.
Right now, I would not be too concerned about Frank Lautenberg or John Kerry not running for re-election, because the Democrats should have a deep bench in New Jersey and Massachusetts. For that matter, I would not be too concerned about any retirements in the Northeast.
Hopefully Congress performs well in this next session and the Democrats present a strong ticket for the Presidential election, so voters will look positively on the Democratic brand. If everything falls into place, the focus can be placed on the 50-state strategy to continue to build on the advancements made in the Mountain West, Midewest, Northeast, and Upper South; and to put a firewall in the Deep South so that Democrats remain competitive and don’t retreat into irrelevance like Democrats seemed to after 1994 in the Mountain West.
Assuming that no incumbents retire (which won’t happen), here’s my analysis.
Top Democratic targets:
Minnesota – Norm Coleman is not particularly popular and this is a Democratic-learning state.
Oregon – Gordon Smith is a fairly non-descript Republican who can be defeated by the right candidate since Oregon is a Democratic-leaning state.
Colorado – Udall is already planning to challenge Allard, and Colorado trended strongly Democratic this year, with Democrats picking up two House seats.
Second-tier Democratic targets:
Maine and New Hampshire – both have popular moderate Republican Senators up for reelection in states that are trending Democratic. Therefore defeating either of them is going to be a long-shot and a better strategy might be to try to get them to switch parties or become independents.
Top Republican targets:
Louisiana – I don’t see any way that Landrieu gets reelected with the number of African-Americans who left New Orleans after Katrina, especially considering that she was elected with less than 50 percent of the vote. As it is, this was already a state trending Republican, and the outmigration has only sped up the process. The only hope for Democrats here is to focus on how badly the Bush admnistration has screwed up the Katrina recovery process.
Second-tier Republican targets:
Arkansas – Pryor is popular and the state leans Democratic. Huckabee is probably the Republicans best shot here.
Montana – a Republican state (don’t be fooled by the success of Schweitzer and Tester, who both won by only the tiniest of margins against weak candidates. Republicans regained control of the Montana house this year). However, Baucus is popular and the Republicans will have a hard time finding a strong enough candidate to beat him.
South Dakota – A Republican state with a fairly popular Democratic senator. All will depend on if the Republicans can find a good candidate to challenge Johnson.
Targets only if the incumbent retires:
Virginia (Warner) – Democratic target
New Mexico (Domenici) – Democratic target
West Virginia (Rockefeller) – Republican target
Iowa (Harkin) – Republican target
New Jersey (Lautenberg) – Republican target
Everything else is an extreme longshot. In Tennessee, Harold Ford is not going to be able to beat Alexander, who is a much stronger candidate than Corker, and any Democrat who thinks that McConnell can be defeated is drinking cool-aid and needs to take a look at how well Lucas did in his House race against Davis in KY-4 to get a dose of reality.
seemed to have the proverbial fire in the belly whereas Holt immediately passed on consideration. Other than the fact that Pallone comes accross very well, his base is in heavily Gop Monmouth County which would act as a big plus in the General. Both Pallone’s and Holt’s district were made much more Dem positive in the last redistricting, they started out as marginally Gop districts.
I thought about Rothman NJ-09 but frankly his ratings are a bit too Conserv for me, in the 25% range.
Pallone represents what once was NJ-03 Howard-D, which was my old stomping grounds for a decade and a half.
Should Pallone move up, there are not too many Dem State legislators in the larger Monmouth portion of the District, those are mainly in the Middlesex portion.Monmouth has shown signs of trending Dem as alot of suburban/exurban Counties have done.
Former Gov.James McGreevy-D does live in this district now. Though I don’t know that he’d be a serious replacement possibility.
Like how Paul Hodes raised more money from inside NH than any other Congressional candidate from either party in either district in state history?
Udall’s staff told me early in this cycle that the Congressman is indeed likely to run whether Allard does, or doesn’t, keep his vow to serve only two terms. He’ll be a great Senator. Coloradans should start looking around for someone to hold his House seat in the Blue column.
I strongly hope Bill Winter will try again in CO-06 and if he does, I’ll back him all the way.
I hope Donna Edwards challenges MD-04 again and starts earlier.
We need fresh faces in PA-06 and CT-04. Or maybe we should abandon PA-06.
I hope Hayhurst runs again in IN-03. He came amazingly close with no help at all.
Obviously, if the recount doesn’t put Larry Kissell into Congress, he’s our star netroots candidate for the next cycle.
As a progressive activist in Oregon, I knocked on over 1000 doors for state leg candidates this year, let me tell you that Gordon Smith will not be easy to knock off. While Oregon has an anti-Republican lean, much to my dismay Gordon Smith is very very popular here in Oregon. To unseat him we’d need to recruit either ex-Governor Kitzhaber or current Representitive Peter DeFazio (extremely popular is a swing congressional district). Kitzhaber won’t be running, he’s focusing all his energy on the Archimidies Project so run DeFazio run!
Anything in Arizona. We are moving left. We need better candidates! When there is a decent candidate we can elect them. We now have 50% Dem representatives and a Dem Gov. There is a problem, the i.d. rule is a big issue. Good article in Salon.
Minn. Norm Coleman, pretty boring middle of the road Republican. Minn is liberal in the urban areas where the population is larger than rural.
Also Illinois target Roskam. If Cegelis would be supported she might bump him out. She did well against Hyde in 2004 although he was entrenched.
…is pretty much the same as yours. Gordon Smith seems to have an… I dunno… John Ensign-like teflon quality. Based on all that I’ve heard, Oregonians really like their Wyden-Smith unit.
Perhaps it’s worth checking the current SUSA numbers for those incumbents being discussed. Here are some of the nets I found relevant.
Inhofe -9
Allard -4
Cornyn -3
Alexander +4
Coleman +5
Roberts +5
Chambliss +7
Sununu +11
Smith +12
McConnell +12
Landreiu +13
Baucus +29
Johnson +46
Polls can be off and a lot can change, but the Dems the R’s may target look pretty good compared to the R’s we can target. Our trouble is that their unpopular incumbents may survive in places like OK, TX, TN, and KS where the states are pretty R and we do not have a lot of good candidates. As others have said, good recruitment could make OK and KS interesting. Might Bell go after Cornyn in TX?
…definitely think we’re going to see challenges to our newly-aquired seats in TX-22, OH-18, PA-10 as well as perenially targeted seats in states like Utah, Kansas, South and North Dakota, Texas and others that we’ll have to defend vigorously. On the plus side, there’s still alot of room for pickups in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and scattered throughout the southern states (Florida mostly) and western states (Colorado and Nevada come to mind).
So, we’ll see. It’s far away at the moment, but I’m thinking 2008 will be a wash: we’ll probably gain a few house seats and lose a few. However, I think we’ll make even more Senate gains. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 or 5 seats.
But, then again…it’s a long time away and I’m still celebrating last week’s results.