Tag: Senate

Looks like the Noriega campaign didn’t send an e-mail blast to us donors with the Oct 21 Rasmussen poll

🙁

and I missed the news.

James L. let me know that Rasmussen calls it John Cornyn 55, Rick Noriega 40.

This particular poll is probably not gonna hold up too well. It won’t be a 15 point margin, more likely less than 7 points.

In 1996, a high school government class teacher, with a pick-up truck gimmick and the same last name as the state’s Democratic Attorney General, won the Senate nomination to lose to Phil Gramm. But despite being all but ignored by elected Democrats and most Hispanic leaders in the state, Victor Morales got 44% of the vote against Phil Gramm, a seasoned politician riding the Repub growth in the state.

So 44% could be the floor for a Hispanic Senatorial candidate in Texas.

Then in 2002, after 9/11 changed everything — for that election, at least — the African-American former Mayor of Dallas was part of the Democratic Dream Team of one black, one brown, one white in the state’s three top races, er, contests. Despite spending about $10 million, Ron Kirk got only 43% of the vote against then-Attorney General John Cornyn.

So 43% could be the floor for a minority Senatorial candidate in Texas.

Rick Noriega is a much more solid and respected candidate than Victor Morales (although a bit duller!), and he’s not from Dallas (Dallas is to Texas as New York City is to the US), so his floor is probably a bit above 45%.

Add in strong Hispanic population growth. Top it off with the Obama campaign energizing the black voters, the youth, and the Presidential-primary-organized Anglo Dems, and it began to look like there was a chance.

Of course, the needed money was still missing. Cornyn has owned the airwaves while Noriega remains broke.

BTW I am borrowing heavily from an analysis of the race by Prof Richard Murray at the University of Houston, who blogs for TV13. http://prof13.abc13.com/

But it’s the economy, Woody. The state’s economy has been propped up by high oil & gas prices, the associated exploration activity, strong employment, and earnings. (No oil money in my family, alas, but 20 miles from my mother’s house you can drive through a town where the air smells of sulfurous petroleum. It’s said to stink — unless the well is in your yard. Then you collect a royalty check for the rest of your days, and the figures go up when the price of a barrel of oil goes up.) Texas also has protections for homesteads written into its Constitution and laws, which may have limited the degree and amount of funny-money mortgage lending compared to most other fast-growing states. So Texas is not yet feeling the pain too much.

In conclusion: Cornyn will get less than Rasmussen’s 55%, more like 52%. A Libertarian will get a point. Noriega will outperform Morales, Kirk, and his own earlier 43 and 44% showings in the polls, coming in around 46 or 47%.

It will be close enough that I’ll be joined on the morning on Nov 5 by others exclaiming, Damn, if only the Democrats would have put a few million into that race back in September, we could have grabbed that one!

(SSP management note: The original diary title was a bit inflammatory and misleading — I edited it to tone it down a notch. I think we need to take a chill pill here for a moment.)

just breaking — this could really f-up our chances in NC…

from politico…

The husband of North Carolina Democratic Senate hopeful Kay Hagan is a lifelong member of an exclusive country club that didn’t admit its first black member until 1995, Hagan’s campaign disclosed Tuesday.

Charles “Chip” Hagan III, a businessman and former Democratic county leader, “supported opening up membership” at the 1,000-member Greensboro Country Club – but remained a member for years despite his opposition to the club’s de facto segregation policy, Hagan spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan told Politico.

Kay Hagan, who is counting on strong support among North Carolina’s black Democrats to unseat Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole, has never been a member of the club herself, Flanagan added.

“Chip supported broadening the membership to include African Americans and others,” she said. “Though it took longer than it should have, Greensboro County Club fully desegregated in 1995 and remains so today.”

Hagan, a state senator and niece of former Florida Sen. Lawton Chiles, leads Dole by one to three points in a race that is one of the most bitterly fought in the country.  

Today, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Allen Buckley, the Libertarian candidate for the Senate from Georgia, is going up on the air on cable in Metro Atlanta and Columbus.  This is good news.  The analysis for a Survey USA poll states that Buckley hurts Chambliss more.

The first ad is over the flip.

Allen Buckley Commercial #1 from Allen Buckley on Vimeo.

And while we’re here, give Jim Martin some love: a Act Blue.

With the election less than 3 weeks away from us, it’s time for another look at all the 2008 Senate races.  There are 35 seats up for election because of a scenario in Wyoming and Mississippi where both seats are up, due to the passing of Craig Thomas and the resignation of Trent Lott, respectively.  Obviously, quite a few of the races are considered “safe” for the incumbent.  So what are the competitive races?

Again, just to be clear, I don’t do predictions.  Every time I do, horrible things happen.  So I won’t even make an actual prediction on the Virginia Senate race, because doing so would effectively jinx Mark Warner.  So, I’ll rank these in terms of tiers.  The top tier will be the races where the party holding the seat has a legitimate chance of switching (but I ain’t guaranteeing anything).  The second tier are races that could become top tier races, but are not at this point.  Tier III are ones where a major event would need to happen for the seat to come into play.  And the safe seats?  Well, Mike Gravel has a better shot at winning the presidency than those incumbents have of losing their races.

This is meant to be a primer for both newcomers and political junkies alike, so some of the information may seem repetitive for you junkies out there.  Also see my previous September diary to see what things have changed since my last update.  Previous rankings are in parentheses.

Note: The RNC looks to be getting into the Senate races to prop up some of their candidates and keep Democrats from getting to 60 Senate seats.  If they decide to end up dropping a moneybomb into a particular race, then that can quickly change the dynamics I’ve written up below.

Tier I

1. Virginia (1): Former popular Governor Mark Warner (D) is still cruising.  Former unpopular former Governor Jim Gilmore (R) hasn’t even gotten above 35% in any poll taken since early September, and Warner cannot get below 55%.  Move along.  Nothing to see here.  This is about as lopsided as you’re gonna get, but still, no official predictions from me.

2. New Mexico (2): Rep. Tom Udall (D) is running against Rep. Steve Pearce (R).  Outside groups like the Club for Growth had been pouring money into this state attacking Udall, and the polling had shown the race getting a bit closer.  But more recently, Udall’s re-opened his massive lead.  Pearce has not gotten above 41% since early September, while Udall has been consistently over the 50% mark at the same time.  The NRSC cancelled their TV advertising in this state last month, leaving Pearce and the 527s to fend for themselves.  Udall also still has a massive cash on hand advantage over Pearce.

3. Colorado (4): Rep. Mark Udall (D) is Mo Udall’s son, and Tom Udall’s cousin.  He’ll face off against former Congressman Bob Schaffer (R).  Schaffer had previously lost the GOP primary for that Senate seat back in 2004 to Pete Coors.  Schaffer has been known for his close ties to Jack Abramoff and human rights abuses on the Marianas Islands.  Right-wing groups had been attacking Udall with ridiculously false ads, which hurt his numbers, but recently the polls are showing Udall slowly but surely increasing his lead over Schaffer.  This has caused Schaffer’s campaign manager to start attacking the pollsters when their numbers are unfavorable to Schaffer.  That’s not a sign of a winning campaign.  To make things worse for Schaffer, those right-wing groups like Freedom’s Watch have now pulled out of the Colorado Senate race.

4. New Hampshire (3): Former Governor Jeanne Shaheen (D), who John Sununu (R) beat in 2002 along with some illegal phone-jamming on Election Day for which several GOP operatives went to prison, has led Sununu in almost every single poll taken in 2008.  General rule of thumb: any incumbent polling under 50% in an election poll is in trouble.  Add to that, the fact New Hampshire strongly went blue in 2006 all over the place, kicking out both Republican Congressmen and flipping over 80 seats in the state House, giving Democrats control of both state legislature for the first time since 1910, and Sununu has to be considered the most endangered incumbent.  But he won’t go down easily, and the polls are starting to tighten a bit.  Sununu also still has a significant cash on hand advantage.  That money will probably make this race closer, but given how much New Hampshire has changed, I’m not sure how much that money advantage will help Sununu.

5. North Carolina (5): Amazing.  The polls are showing a complete reversal of fortune starting in August.  Kay Hagan (D) has been climbing steadily in the polls, while incumbent Elizabeth Dole (R) has been steadily falling.  This, as Obama’s numbers similarly are growing in North Carolina.  The DSCC’s ads against Dole have been quite effective in framing a theme of ineffectiveness about Dole.  You even have Republican insiders say Dole is “virtually certain” to lose.  This has caused Dole to throw the kitchen sink in negative attack ads against Hagan.  Interesting fact, Hagan is the niece of the late Lawton Chiles, the longtime Senator and Governor of Florida, who came from behind to win re-election to the governorship in 1994 by defeating Jeb Bush.

6. Oregon (7): Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley (D) is challenging incumbent Gordon Smith (R).  Smith seems worried, as his commercials have him embracing Barack Obama and John Kerry and Ted Kennedy and Ron Wyden (Oregon’s Democratic Senator) and fighting Bush!  Then, he turned from trying to prop up his own record to smearing Merkley with a misleading ad implying that Merkley is pro-rapist.  Stay classy, Gordon.  (It of course misrepresents what actually happened, and when it was introduced as a stand-alone bill, Merkley of course voted for the tougher penalties.)  Smith trying to tie himself to Democratic politicians has gotten so ridiculous that the DSCC has stepped in with a TV ad mocking Smith for doing so, and showing his real record.  This is probably because the polls now show Merkley pulling into a nice lead over Smith.  In an interesting twist, Smith is actually a cousin of the two Udalls running for Senate.

7. Minnesota (8): Norm Coleman (R) won this seat in 2002 only after Paul Wellstone (D) died just a few weeks before the election.  Comedian Al Franken got the DFL (basically the Democratic Party for Minnesota) nod.  The recent polling has been friendlier to Al, with every poll taken in October now showing Al Franken in the lead, as Coleman’s own numbers keep falling.  Much of the fall seems to come from the impact of Independence Party (not to be confused with Alaska’s secessionist version) candidate Dean Barkley (who was appointed to the Senate when Wellstone died), who is pulling in a significant chunk of the vote.  And while Franken’s numbers have also fallen with some of his support going to Barkley, it seems that Coleman is losing even more support.  There’s also yet another story about Coleman getting lots of free stuff from yet another big GOP donor, which led to a bizarre press conference with Coleman’s aide repeateding the same rote denial sentence for three minutes straight.  In what seems like a McCain-like campaign stunt, Coleman has also just suspended all negative ads coming from his campaign, and is urging Franken to do the same.  Of course, the NRSC isn’t stopping its negative ads against Franken.

8. Alaska (6): 84-year-old Ted Stevens (R) is seeking a sixth term, but he has been indicted on 7 felony counts for not disclosing the gifts (over $250,000 worth) he got from oil company Veco Corp.  Democrats got their top choice when Anchorage mayor Mark Begich entered the race.  His father Nick Begich was a former Congressman, who was killed in a plane crash along with House Majority Leader Hale Boggs (D-LA) in 1972.  Now while the polls had already shown Begich leading Stevens before the indictment, Stevens was still able to easily win his primary at the end of August, and combined with McCain’s Sarah Palin pick, the polls have suddenly gotten much friendlier to Stevens, and I don’t think it was from his primary win over some no-name challengers.  And to complicate matters, the federal prosecutor was somehow so incompetent that key pieces of evidence against Stevens were thrown out, greatly increasing Stevens’ chances of getting off scot free.  Non-partisan polling now shows Begich only up by 2 or 3 points, with Rasmussen actually showing Stevens having regained a slim lead.  Still, the incumbent Stevens is under the 50% mark.

9. Georgia (NR): Former state representative Jim Martin, the 2006 Democratic Lt. Gov. nominee, thankfully won the Democratic primary over DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones (see previous update as to why Jones would’ve been a horrible candidate).  Starting with the economic collapse, poll after poll showed a completely different race, with Martin only behind by a statistically insignificant margin.  Early voting and African-American turnout may make a difference in this race, as well as the presence of the Libertarian Senate candidate, given that Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr is from Georgia, and will likely shave off some points from Chambliss’s right flank.  Martin, however, does not have much cash on hand.  Good news is the DSCC is going to be helping him out with TV ads against Chambliss.  Remember, Chambliss ousted Vietnam veteran and triple amputee Max Cleland (D) in 2002 by running a despicable ad blending the images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein into Cleland’s face, earning him the nickname “Shameless Saxby”.

10. Kentucky (11): Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) is now a top target of the Democrats.  Wealthy businessman Bruce Lunsford (D) can afford to self-fund, and he’ll need to, with McConnell’s HUGE warchest of over $9 million.  In just the last month, the polls have suddenly shown Lunsford gaining significant ground on McConnell.  The DSCC has responded by coming in to Lunsford’s aid also.

11. Mississippi-B (9): Roger Wicker (R), appointed by governor Haley Barbour (R) on New Year’s Eve after Trent Lott (R) resigned to become a lobbyist, was previously the Congressman from MS-01.  That’s the seat that Travis Childers (D) won in May.  That has to be a shot in the arm for former Governor Ronnie Musgrove (D), though Wicker has shown himself to be a prolific fundraiser.  The latest polls still show this to be a pretty tight race, with Wicker slightly up but still under the 50% mark.  It may all come down to the African-American turnout in this state.  The 2004 exit polls showed they made up 34% of the electorate.  So if black turnout increases, that should benefit Musgrove.  And because this is technically a special election (to fill out the remainder of Lott’s term), there will be no party identification on the ballot in November.  That can actually work to our benefit in a state like Mississippi.  The GOP is worried about this race, as Governor Haley Barbour (R) tried to bury the race at the bottom of the ballot, even after the local county district races.  The problem is that Mississippi election law clearly states that races for national office are supposed to be at the top of the list.  This went all the way to the Mississippi Supreme Court, which asked Barbour nicely to follow the law, which he actually did!

Tier II

I decided, for the sake of my own sanity, not to try to rank the Tier II and III races.  These are given in alphabetical order, by state.

Maine: Rep. Tom Allen (D) is running to challenge Susan Collins (R).  But he just hasn’t seemed to be able to gain much traction.  Collins has worked hard to craft her moderate credentials.  The most recent polls still have Collins at about a double-digit lead over Allen.

Texas: Netroots Democrats got the challenger they wanted to face John Cornyn (R).  State rep. and Texas National Guard Lt. Col. Rick Noriega (D) served in Afghanistan after 9/11, and was chosen to coordinate relief efforts in Houston after Hurricane Katrina.  The few polls on this race (Rasmussen seems to be the only one polling it) show Cornyn slipping a little bit recently, though he’s still at the 50% mark.  The big problem for Noriega is still fundraising for a huge state like Texas, though an appearance from Bill Clinton should help.

Tier III

Idaho: With Larry Craig (R) retiring after his airport bathroom… ah… incident, it’s looking like a rematch between Lt. Governor Jim Risch (R) and former Congressman Larry LaRocco (D), who lost the 2006 Lt. Gov. race to Risch by a sizable 58%-39% margin.  The latest polls are not kind to LaRocco.  At this point, wild card independent rancher Rex Rammell won’t be anywhere near enough to help out LaRocco.

Kansas: Pat Roberts (R) is up against former Congressman Jim Slattery.  There had been high hopes for Slattery, but the polls have not been kind to him.  This is about to fall into safe territory, even with Slattery’s innovative new ad.

Louisiana (10): Mary Landrieu (D) was considered the most endangered Democratic incumbent in 2008.  But the NRSC just pulled out of this race, leaving turncoat John Neely Kennedy (R, no relation to the Kennedy family in Massachusetts) to fend for himself.  The sparse polling shows Landrieu still holding a sizable lead.  The Republican tilt of the state is the only thing keeping this race from falling even further into safe territory.

Nebraska: With Chuck Hagel (R) retiring, former governor Mike Johanns (R) quit his job as Bush’s Agriculture Secretary to run for this seat.  The netroots were thrilled when rancher and history professor Scott Kleeb (D) threw his hat in the ring.  While Kleeb lost the NE-03 House race in 2006, that district is the most Republican in Nebraska, and Kleeb got a higher-than-expected 45% of the vote.  That’s had a lot of people thinking he would actually win in the other two districts, and thus a statewide race.  Of course, that didn’t take into account how he’d be running against the former governor.  The last two Rasmussen polls show Kleeb has gained ground, but that means he’s only down by 14 points instead of being down by over 25 points.

Oklahoma: James Inhofe (R) is being challenged by state senator and netroots favorite Andrew Rice (D), who lost his brother in the 9/11 attacks.  They could not be farther apart when it comes to energy and environmental issues.  The latest polls show Rice has improved his numbers a bit.  Still, losing by 13 points instead of losing by over 20 points is still a loss, even if Rice almost matched Inhofe in Q3 fundraising.

Democratic safe seats

Arkansas (Mark Pryor)

Delaware (Joe Biden)

Illinois (Dick Durbin)

Iowa (Tom Harkin)

Massachusetts (John Kerry)

Michigan (Carl Levin)

Montana (Max Baucus)

New Jersey (Frank Lautenberg)

Rhode Island (Jack Reed)

South Dakota (Tim Johnson)

West Virginia (Jay Rockefeller)

Republican safe seats

Alabama (Jeff Sessions)

Mississippi (Thad Cochran)

South Carolina (Lindsey Graham)

Tennessee (Lamar Alexander)

Wyoming (Michael Enzi)

Wyoming (John Barrasso)

So there you have it, my personal rankings for the 2008 Senate races, as they stand with less than 20 days to go.  These are my picks, and I’m sticking with them… until my next update, at least.

Feel free to rip me apart in the comments, telling me I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, how could I possibly put a certain race in Tier II or III when it’s so obviously a top tier race, why I’m being too optimistic in some seat, etc.  Have at it.  🙂

I don’t know if this is a sign that it’s over for John McCain or simply a benefit of having so much money, but the Politico is reporting that the RNC is planning to pump $5 million into senate races to protect endangered incumbents.

The Republican National Committee, growing nervous over the prospect of Democrats’ winning a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, is considering tapping into a $5 million line of credit this week to aid an increasing number of vulnerable incumbents, top Republicans say.

With party strategists fearing a bloodbath at the polls, GOP officials are shifting to triage mode, determining who can be saved and where to best spend their money.

And with the House and Senate Republican campaign committees being drastically outspent by their Democratic counterparts, and outside groups such as Freedom’s Watch offering far less help than was once anticipated, Republicans are turning to the national party committee as a lender of last resort.

A decision is imminent because television time must be reserved and paid for upfront, and available slots are dwindling.

One thing that stands out is that there is no indication that they plan to help out Bob Schafer in Colorado or Wicker in Mississippi. What was also interesting is one GOP staffer who thinks the RNC shoud bail on McCain altogether.

But that the party would use new money to block a Democratic triumph in the Senate rather than boost the odds of its presidential nominee speaks volumes about what many Republicans think is still salvageable. And some in the GOP, especially those working on House and Senate races in which their candidates’ poll numbers swoon during the financial crisis, are increasingly agitated about money being spent on what all observers, including McCain, acknowledge is an uphill fight on top of the ticket.

“They should pull the money from ­McCain like [former RNC Chairman] Haley Barbour did in ’96, when Dole slid away, and funnel it to save some Senate and House seats as best they can,” said one longtime GOP strategist who is working on congressional races.

If I haf to guess, I would say such cash will go to help Saxby Chambliss, Mitch McConnell and John Sununu. If I were the DSCC, I would see if they can open up a line of credit like the nrcc did, or find a way to raise a quick $10 million. The RNC does have a lot of money and I do not want to pass up a once-in-a-generation opportunity because of money.

I wrote a variation of this on Daily Kos a few days ago but thought this crowd might like it as well.

As a lifelong student of Minnesota politics, I’ll do my best to rise to the challenge of handicapping the wildly unpredictable three-way contest between Al Franken, Norm Coleman, and independent challenger (and former Senator) Dean Barkley.  I currently live out of state but visit the parents every three weeks or so, where I keep apprised of the goings-on in the campaign, and get vague updates from my dad who is active in the county DFL.  And of course, I keep up with the ads via the Internet and the crazy all-over-the-map polls coming out of the race.  Anyone who says they know where this race is going is either nuts or alot smarter than I am, but I do have some insights on specifics from past races that could give some sense of what the future holds.

First of all, the Barkley factor.  I didn’t see tonight’s debate, but it was essentially the starting point for Dean Barkley.  Not many third-party challengers come out of the starting gates with 18-19%.  Most Independence Party candidates in recent years are left-of-center and very well-spoken eggheads either on an ego trip or a journey of personal discovery through their candidacies.  My impression of Barkley is that he’s best friends with Jesse Ventura for a reason.  Both are pretentiously “centrist” would-be intellectual egomaniacs with a few keen insights, but a hard-time avoiding self-aggrandizing bluster that over time turns voters off.

In other words, a little of Barkley tends to go a long ways, but in the limited exposure Minnesotans will get of him in the October debates, his shtick may not quite reach the level of diminishing returns before election day the way it will by next spring if he ends up getting elected and being Minnesota’s junior Senator.  Combine his ability to leave a positive initial impression on swing voters and the hunger for a protest vote against two major-party candidates with high unfavorables and Barkley could prove to be a problem.  I give him a 20% chance of winning this whole thing, and above-average odds of getting at least 25%.

But the debates will be critical.  Jesse Ventura rose from 12% to a 37% victory in a month by impressing enough voters in the televised debates, with the help of a few clever TV ads, and weak, bickering opponents (one of whom was Norm Coleman).  On the other hand, the 2002 Independence Party gubernatorial nominee Tim Penny had the lead three weeks before that election, but uninspiring debate performances and a charisma gap with eventual winner Tim Pawlenty caused the bottom to completely fall out of Penny’s candidacy, falling by more than 20 points to an unimpressive 16% showing on election day 2002.  If Barkley doesn’t stand out in the debates, he could just as easily plunge to Penny’s level of insignificance, or substantially much lower since Penny still had a regional stronghold in his southeastern Minnesota stomping grounds that likely boosted his statewide numbers by 5%.

But the question is, where do we want Barkley’s numbers?  Clearly, we don’t want them to get too high.  Despite the Star Tribune’s recent overly optimistic poll, I suspect Norm Coleman has a basement of about 40% in the state, and if Barkley is pulling in numbers higher than 25%, those votes are most likely coming at Franken’s expense.  For the same reason, I don’t want to see Barkley fall too low either.  My suspicion is that Franken has more people who would never consider voting for him than does Coleman, meaning a Barkley collapse likely benefits Norm.  Essentially, I think Franken is best positioned for victory if Barkley stays where he’s at in the high-teens.  If Barkley is polling 15-19%, Franken probably wins.

The regional internals of this race are just as difficult to handicap, but to quote Joe Biden, “past is prologue”, meaning there is some basis to predict where the three candidates’ strengths are likely to emerge from.  When looking at the county map from the 1998 gubernatorial race, you can see that Jesse Ventura’s victories came in the Twin Cities metro area as well as the rural counties of central Minnesota, west-central Minnesota, and south-central Minnesota.  The common denominator of these counties is that they all lie in the Twin Cities media market.  Just as Jesse’s exposure was broadest in the Twin Cities market, so will be Dean Barkley’s.  That means it’s more likely to be a two-candidate race throughout northern Minnesota serviced by the Duluth, Grand Forks, and Fargo-Moorhead media markets, as well as southwestern Minnesota serviced by the Sioux Falls, SD, media market, and southeastern Minnesota, serviced by the Rochester, Austin, Mason City, IA, and La Crosse, WI, media markets.  Franken has little control over how well Barkley plays in the metro area market, meaning his performance in the outlying areas is critical.

With that in mind, Franken needs to work overtime in Duluth and the Iron Range, where he has the best chance of running up the score on both Coleman and Barkley.  Outside of that, I’m not sensing too much favorable turf for Franken.  The Rochester area has been trending Democrat, but Republicans that meet their defintion of “moderate” still seem to do well.  Tim Pawlenty, for instance, won Olmsted County by 17 points in 2006.  Now that’s not to say Rochester area residents will view Coleman through the same lens as they did Pawlenty, but my hunch is that they’ll feel more comfortable with Coleman than Franken in a region that can still be best described as center-right.

That leaves northwestern and southwestern Minnesota farm country.  Coleman did very poorly, particularly in northwestern Minnesota, against Walter Mondale in 2002….and probably would have done just as badly against Paul Wellstone had he lived.  The myth of western Minnesota is that it’s full of right-wingers and is hopefully Republican, but that’s not the case, particularly in the farm areas which have a long-standing populist tradition and tend to vote Democratic more than Republican.  The region was skeptical about Wellstone’s liberalism for years, but anecdotal evidence heading in the 2002 race was that Wellstone’s long-standing fighting on behalf of family farmers was winning them over against New York City transplant and agriculture agnostic Norm Coleman.  Six years later, the tables are likely to have turned.  Coleman is now fairly well versed in farm policy and the former Saturday Night Live comedian is not a comfortable fit with the populist but socially conservative region.  It’s always hard to predict how these voters will go, particularly in northwestern Minnesota’s Red River Valley, but if Franken is serious about winning them over, he’d best draw the battle lines on the trade issue where Coleman didn’t stand with the sugar growers during the 2005 CAFTA debate.

My parents live in southeastern Minnesota and I know those media markets are running an abundance of Franken and Coleman ads.  I would guess the same is true in Duluth.  But I’m less certain about Fargo-Moorhead and Grand Forks.  Franken would be well advised to ramp up his campaign operation there, both in terms of campaign visits and TV advertising since he’s most likely to win over votes there based on the aforementioned policy reasons and the reduced effect of Barkley interference.  And I’d be very surprised if either candidate was advertising in Sioux Falls or La Crosse (Minnesota candidates rarely do), but if Coleman isn’t, it might be worthwile for Franken to do so in the final two weeks as a handful of counties in those corners of Minnesota are effectively isolated from Minnesota politics, and could yield some modest advantage for one candidate who does reach out that direction.

Franken’s challenge and opportunity is that the regions of the state where he is probably running the furthest behind right now are the very regions where he is best positioned to improve his standing with some savvy campaign moves.  But these areas account for only about 20% of Minnesota’s population.  Take the Duluth market out of the equation since it’s a safe bet Franken is already doing well there, and that number shrinks to about 10%.   But that could be decisive in a race this close.

Lastly, what to do if Barkley really starts catching on in the weeks ahead?  Does Franken go negative on him?  I’m hoping Franken is prepared for this possibility because Ventura went unchallenged in 1998 and ended up winning because of it.  Right now, Barkley appears to be more of a gadfly against Coleman, so it doesn’t make sense to go after him right now.  But the Barkley factor could change with just a few more percentage points of support, at which point Franken would be well-advised to poke some holes in Barkley’s story.

I was 13 years old in 1990 when I experienced two very exciting and unpredictable Minnesota elections (Wellstone v. Boschwitz in the Senate and Grunseth/Carlson v. Perpich in the Governor’s race).  Those races set the stage for several more wild roller coaster rides.  The 2008 Minnesota Senate race seems likely to carry on that fine tradition, and frustrating as it is to try to handicap these races based on what I thought I’ve learned from previous races, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Repubicans running in the Congressional and Senate races in Kentucky face a serious dilemma. Aside from Brett Guthrie every one them were around and voted for the very failed policies that have led to our economic debacle. No matter what their vote on the bailout, every Repubican in the Kentucky delegation holds blame for the failing economy.  

An excellent article from the Lexington Herald-Leader last week really pounded home the fact of how intagled with this current failure all the major Republican candidates are. An excerpt:

Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials hit Capitol Hill on Tuesday to sell the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, getting a mixed reception from lawmakers who argued about the role of government in business.

But there was little dissent in 1999, when Sen. Mitch McConnell and the rest of Kentucky’s congressional delegation voted to deregulate Wall Street banking and investments. They – and most other members of Congress – brushed aside concerns that deregulation could create massive financial institutions that would be “too big to fail,” requiring a government bailout if they started to stagger.

The Kentucky delegation went on to collect millions of dollars in combined campaign donations from the financial sector, while the banking, securities and insurance industries merged into the creature that is now collapsing and calling for government aid.

Now that is a serious Problem!! When every candidate you have running for re-election except the one you have running for an open seat have a record of such failure, it is distressing. I submit that every member of the Kentucky Republican delegation has already shown the lack of judgement and leadership that negates any “Experience” and shows that they are not fit to hold office representing Kentucky.

Of course, as always with this bunch, money always clouds good judgement:

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. $4.3 million

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky. $2.4 million

Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Hopkinsville $697,116

Rep. Ron Lewis, R-Cecilia $551,266

Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Somerset $406,765

Source: Center for Responsive Politics

http://www.kentucky.com/210/st…

Those are the donations to the Kentucky Republicans from the very sector they voted to deregulate so it could implode the Economy.

But it gets even worse in the case of Ed Whitfield, my Congressman. He voted no on the bailout in the House, but his reasons show that he still doesn’t realize what has crashed the economy, or how to fix it:

Whitfield, who represents the 1st District spanning much of western Kentucky, complained that the bailout plan puts unprecedented regulations on financial institutions and markets. He said some leading economists believe such heavy oversight might do more to hinder the economy than help it.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s…

It is amazing to me that for a sitting Congressman to have seen his vote for de-regulation crash our economy, and then submit MORE de-regulation as the solution is just mind-boggling.

This was not lost on Heather Ryan, who released this statement on Ed Whitfield’s vote on the Bailout Bill:

I find it interesting that Mr. Whitfield’s reason for opposing the compromised bail out legislation is because it imposes too many regulations on the banking industry.  Astonishingly, Exxon Eddie is one of the few who will admit that he still has a love affair with deregulation, the very reason the economy is in ruins now.  

Lest we not forget that when this bail out bill was but a mere $700 Billion Blank Check from George Bush on the backs of taxpayers, Mr. Whitfield was a gleeful supporter.  Only once consumer protections, ie. restrictions on how the massive amounts of money could be doled out to banks, were added did he suddenly oppose the bill.  

While I also oppose this bail out, I believe Mr. Whitfield’s motives are vial as he, yet again, sides with the rich special interests and ignores the middle class.  Perhaps someone can send a wake-up call to Exxon Eddie’s Florida estate soon to let him know that the Billionaire Boy’s Club isn’t very popular this election year.

Heather Ryan

Democratic Candidate

U.S. House of Representatives KY-01

Indeed!!! We ARE fed up with the Billionaire Boys Club that has bankrupted our state, and country.

We need to replace the constant De-regulate at any costs vote of Ed Whitfield, and replace it with a young, energetic voice of common sense. Ed Whitfield has not only failed, but he will continue to vote against any Progress for working Americans if given the chance.

All Kentucky Republicans running this year are hurting bad over this. Whitfield is especially vulnerable, if Heather can get her message out. She has called a press conference Wednesday morning at her headquarters at 4905 Clark’s River Rd. in Paducah, please help us by writing the Paducah Sun and asking them to report it here:

http://www.paducahsun.com/cont…

Please consider supporting Heather in this race, we are going to be fighting hard in the last month, including our first radio and T.V. spots, and we need your help!!:

Here is the link to the Kentucky ActBlue page, with many candidates who can all win:

http://www.actblue.com/directo…

Kentucky Republicans have a record. Help us expose it!!

As we enter the final stretch run of the 2008 election cycle, it’s time we took the pulse of the Senate again. You know what to do: Rank the Senate races (as far down the list as you wish to go) in order of their likelihood of flipping.

Growing up liberal during the Reagan years taught me to go into elections expecting to be disappointed. Watching high-ranking Democrats in Congress fail to challenge the premise behind the dreadful and unnecessary proposed bailout of Wall Street, I share thereisnospoon’s concern that Democrats will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory yet again.

But looking at the polling trends in the presidential race and in key Senate races, even a pessimist like me has to admit that a big Democratic wave seems quite possible.

Currently Democrats seem poised to pick up 12 to 18 seats in the House and five to six Senate seats. If we are on the verge of a wave, Democrats could win more than that, including a few districts where the Republican incumbent never saw it coming.

Waves can drag down well-funded incumbents with tremendous clout. Democratic losers in 1994 included House Speaker Tom Foley and my own 18-term Congressman Neal Smith.

This is a thread for discussing House districts and Senate seats that may seem likely Republican holds today, but which could shock us on November 4.  

I’ll get the ball rolling by telling you about Iowa’s two House districts currently held by Republicans.

In the fourth district (D+0), Becky Greenwald faces Tom Latham, who has remarkably little to show for his seven terms in Congress. I went over many reasons I think Greenwald can win this race here.

Latham understands that it will be a big Democratic year in Iowa, judging from his first television commercial (which glosses over his lockstep Republican voting record). David Kowalski noticed that Latham’s campaign website avoids mentioning that he is a Republican (see, for instance, this bio page). Aside from the odd newspaper clipping on his site that refers to him as R-Iowa, you would never be able to tell which party he belongs to.

IA-04 shows up as “likely Republican” on House rankings, in part because Latham sits on the House Appropriations Committee and in part because he has been re-elected by double-digit margins in the past. However, 2002 was the only time Latham faced a well-funded challenger, and that was a bad year to be a Democrat running for Congress. Greenwald had raised more by June 30 than our 2006 candidate against Latham raised during his whole campaign, and she’s fundraised aggressively since then. She is already up on television and recently got the endorsement of EMILY’s list.

Whatever pork Latham has brought back to his district is nothing compared to what Neal Smith brought to central Iowa during his 36 years in Congress, and that didn’t stop voters from giving Smith the boot in 1994.

Now let’s look at Iowa’s fifth district (R+8), where Rob Hubler is running against one of the most atrocious House Republicans, Steve King. I laid out my case for why Hubler can win this race at Bleeding Heartland, but here are the highlights.

Hubler is the first Democrat to run a real campaign against King, who does not have a big war chest and has not been campaigning actively. Although Republicans maintain a voter registration edge in IA-05, Democrats have made big gains since 2006, putting Hubler in position for an upset if he wins independents by a significant margin. King’s extreme views and tendency to make bigoted, embarrassing statements are a turn-off to moderates.

Also, an internal poll of the district for Hubler’s campaign showed the generic ballot for Congress virtually tied at 36 percent for the Democrat and 38 percent for the Republican.

Nearly three months ago, the editor of the Storm Lake Times newspaper wrote:

Republican despondence also may be a threat to incumbent Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron. Scoff if you will, but again recall that Harkin defeated incumbent Bill Scherle and Bedell knocked off incumbent Wiley Mayne in the post-Watergate landslide. The atmospherics may be similar this year.

Like I said at the top, upsets happen in wave elections. After winning in 1974, Tom Harkin represented most of the southwest Iowa counties now in IA-05 for five terms, until his election to the U.S. Senate in 1984. Berkley Bedell represented most of the northwest Iowa counties now in IA-05 for six terms, until he retired because of health problems caused by Lyme’s disease.

Despite Sarah Palin’s presence on the ballot, I do not believe Republicans in western Iowa are going to be fired up to turn out this November. During the past month five separate polls have shown Barack Obama above 50 percent in Iowa and leading John McCain by double digits. McCain has never campaigned much in Iowa, skipping the caucuses in 2000 as well as 2008. He’s against ethanol subsidies, which causes him to underperform in rural Iowa. Certainly McCain lacks the appeal George Bush had to conservatives here in the last two elections.

Harkin is cruising against a little-known Republican challenger for the U.S. Senate, and King is not giving his supporters any reason to believe he’s concerned about Hubler. Why should the western Iowa wingnuts put a lot of effort into getting their voters out?

Meanwhile, Obama’s campaign has at least half a dozen field offices in both IA-04 and IA-05 to drive up turnout among Democrats and other Democratic-leaning voters.

Clearly, Greenwald and Hubler go into the home stretch as underdogs. But who thought Dave Loebsack was going to beat Iowa Congressman Jim Leach two years ago? Democrats put tons of money and effort behind a strong challenger to Leach in 2002 and came up short. As a result, Loebsack got no help from the DCCC or outside interest groups in 2006, and just about everyone viewed IA-02 as “likely Republican.”

Carol Shea-Porter’s amazing victory in New Hampshire’s first district seemed just as improbable two years ago. She was massively outspent by the Republican incumbent and got no help from the DCCC. By the way, NH-01 is D+0 and mostly white, as is IA-04.

The partisan lean and demographic profile of IA-05 (mostly white and largely rural) is similar to KS-02 (R+7), where Nancy Boyda came from behind to beat a Republican incumbent in 2006. The DCCC did get involved in that race, but it didn’t appear to be a very likely pickup before the election.

Two weeks ago Stuart Rothenberg mocked the DCCC for putting “absurd races” (including the Hubler-King matchup) on its list of “Races to Watch” and putting long shots on the “Red to Blue” and “Emerging Races” list. James L. already took down Rothenberg in this great post, so I won’t pile on.

I will say, however, that I have put my money where my mouth is by giving as much as I can afford to Hubler and Greenwald.

Somewhere, somehow, some unheralded challengers will give House or Senate Republicans the surprise of their lives on November 4. I ask the Swing State Project community, who’s it gonna be?

My latest update is ready, with the big news being Oregon and North Carolina.

1. Virginia: No change. I have nothing more to say about this one.

2. New Mexico: No change. The NRSC pulled the plug on this one.

3. Alaska: No change. Things look grim for Uncle Ted. The Federal criminal trial is underway and witnesses testified that he was never billed for the work on the house. Palin’s presence will not help either, especially since she threw him and Don Young under the bus. Young’s name on the ballot will be no help either. At this point, I don’t even think a new name on the ballot would help at this point. I think it’s over.

4. Colorado: Previously fifth. Udall’s increasing strength and new tightness in the New Hampshire race bring this up a notch.

5. New Hampshire: Previously fourth. Sununu is showing signs of life, especially with McCain’s strength at the top of the ticket. Shaheen should still win, though.

6. Oregon: No change. Merkley has surged and Gordon Smith is finding himself of trouble. Unless Smith can find a way to change the game, it might be over for him.

7. North Carolina: Previously eighth. This race has really taken off and some operatives are describing Dole as “political road kill”. I suggest everyone contribute to this race and Oregon if you can.

8. Minnesota: Previously seventh. This shifted downward only because of Hagan’s new strength. However, Al Franken has a lot of work to do.

9. Mississippi: No change. Musgrove is still in the hunt.

10. Kentucky: No change. Recent polls have Lunsford getting very close to McConnell. It remains to be seen whether he can keep that momentum up. He certainly has the money to do so. McConnell’s strength in the Bluegrass State has long been overstated by pundits. He has never been loved the way Wendell Ford was and he never had a tough opponent after 1990. I had written this one off because Lunsford did not show much signs of life. The current surge could be due to current conditions rather than the candidate. Still, we have ten races now where the Democrat is either likely to win, or has a good shot.