This was supposed to be the marquee race of the 08 cycle. But I’ve heard very, very little about it in recent months.
It seems like Franken has the leg up right now. The question with Franken was whether or not he was a serious candidate and whether or not he could win. He’s definitely confirmed the first part. And the second part, he’s been polling just as good as Ciresi recently.
Minnesotans fill me in, what does it look like?
So Rasmussen has released a couple of polls on the MN-Sen race and VA-Sen race.
In the MN-Sen race Ciresi and Franken poll basically the same with both holding Coleman at 46 and Ciresi getting 42% while Franken gets 41. The only real difference is that opinions on Ciresi are significantly less firm.
In VA, the polls show Mark Warner with a huge lead over both of his potential rivals, leading Gilmore 54-34 and Davis 57-30
I think Davis’ numbers undercut our resident conservatives’ view. His entire view is that Davis can win because he will cut into support in NoVa. I could be wrong on this, but those people are the ones who should know who Davis is and they should already have their minds made up on him. If they do have their mind up, that’s very bad for Davis.
Warner is expected to announce his decision on Thursday. If he decides to run I wouldn’t be surprised one-bit if Davis chooses not to run against him
Jon Ensign is making Elizabeth Dole look like a political genius. Because while Dole wasn't successful in winning any seats, they had a number of races that they targeted and felt they could be compeitive like Washington, Michigan, New Jersey, Maryland and Minnesota. But I think you are looking at the possiblity that the GOP could be playing total defense.
The way I see it, barring retirements, and I think being very conservative with these estimates that their are 5 potentially competitive Senate races: Montana, Arkansas, New Jersey, South Dakota and Louisiana.
Montana: Some may disagree with this, but like I said I'm being conservative with these predictions. Baucus is doing everything right and is very well positioned to win another term. But I'm not ready to declare him safe yet. Its still Montana in a presidential year and while Mike Lange certainly has a temper the GOP could've done worse.
Arkansas: This race became a lot more safe with Huckabee's performance at the Straw poll. Had he finished fourth or worse he would've dropped out. I think he's the only credible possible opponent for Pryor. Having said that there's still the possibility this doesn't jumpstart his presidential campaign and he does still drop out. Even then I think Pryor could win, but it would be a helluva race.
New Jersey: Being conservative with the estimates is the main reason to put this here. There's no signs this will be a competitive race, but Lautenberg is old and has shoddy approval ratings. But he doesn't look to face any real competition at this point.
South Dakota: This race is just totally up in the air. All I'll say is that unless Johnson retires I don't see this becoming competitive. Rounds doesn't seem to be showing much interest in the race right now, and none of these second-tier cndidates stand a chance.
Louisiana: This was the race everyone expected to be competitive, and smart money says it probably still will be. But, no Republican wants to do it. Baker ruled it out, and Kennedy may still jump in but it'll be bizarre to see Kennedy give his victory speech one night, and that next morning switch parties and announce he will challenge Landrieu, which is basically what he would have to do.
I know I’ll get eviscerated for this, but oh well.
First of all met just start off by saying that 95% of the time we should challenge a seat even when it looks hopeless because sometimes you get a Bunning-type situation, or even symbolically to show that we have a presence in those states.
But I think their are those rare occassions where not having a candidate in the race is beneficial, because of lower ballot races. I’ll use the Wyoming and Indiana 2006 senate races as an example.
In Wymoing, Dale Groutage seemed like a nice guy but there was never any indication that Craig Thomas was even slightly vulnerable. At the end of the day Thomas won by 40 points. The same happened in the Governor’s race where Freudenthal beat his sacrificial lamb GOP opponent by 40 points. As we all know, Wyoming had an extremely competitive House race. We ended up losing this race by the slimmest of margins. Because both Freudenthal and Thomas had sacrificial lamb opponents they basically cancelled each other out. If Groutage had not been in the race maybe Freudenthal would’ve been a little more powerful and Thomas may have decided not to campaign very hard, which could’ve perhaps been enough.
Indiana was the only Senate race we didn’t contest. I think this was to our benefit. Lugar has never been known as an overly political person. Because he didn’t have a race he really didn’t do any real campaigning. We ended up winning 3 House races in Indiana. I’m sure if he wanted to Schumer could’ve convinced some State Rep. to do the race, but it would’ve been pointless. If Lugar had a real opponent he would’ve actually campaigned and maybe one of those House races would’ve swung the other way.
Also, in 2002 the Mass. GOP’s decision not to challenge Kerry likely ended up being beneficial as Kerry spent his time campaigning in Iowa and NH and if Kerry had an opponent maybe Mitt doesn’t get elected.
Former Congressman Bob Schaffer announced he’ll run against Udall.
This is an issue where the public is clearly on our side. So the bill came up today and it was 63-34, with Landrieu, Johnson, and Dodd not voting, so basically it was a 66-34 vote. We were just 1 vote away from getting the numbers to override Bush’s veto.
The opponents were 32 Republicans and 2 Dems(Casey and Ben Nelson). 14 of the 21 GOP Senators who are up for re-election in 08 voted against this. Those being Allard(retiring), Chambliss, Coleman, Cornyn, Craig, Dole, Domenici, Graham, Hagel, Inhofe, McConell, Roberts, Sessions and Sununu.
Coleman and Sununu’s names are obviously the two big ones their as their opponents will almost surely use this against them. Dole, and perhaps Cornyn, Craig, and Inhofe are also people who could face competitive elections and their opponents may be able to gain traction using this issue. Also who could forget Ron Sparks as this would be a good issue to use against Sessions.
Also, one thing I just realized is that Frist supported this legislation and his successor, Corker didn’t. Wow, I can’t believe that in one way I actually wish Frist was still in the senate.