Cook: McMahon is the “Quintessential Outsider Candidate”
“McMahon Has Turned Out To Be The Quintessential Outsider Candidate. She Is Getting Good Reviews On The Campaign Trail And Has Vowed To Spend At Least $30 Million Of Her Own Money On The Race. … An Argument Can Be Made That McMahon Would Be The Strongest Candidate Against The Democrat By Virtue Of Her Personal Fortune And Outsider Status.”
Senate Overview: Competitive Democratic Seats
Cook Political Report
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Over the course of the last 12 months, the prospects that Republicans would pick up Senate seats in November have gone from non-existent to a probability that the GOP will seriously cut into Democrats’ 59-seat majority.
A slew of recruiting successes last year in their own open seats and in Democratic-held seats began to improve Republicans’ prospects. The national political environment has also helped enormously. There were signs last summer that the political landscape was beginning to tilt away from Democrats for the first time since 2004. According to the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll (January 23-25 of 800 adults), President Obama’s job rating has slipped from a high of 60-percent approve to 26-percent disapprove last February to 50-percent approve and 44-percent disapprove in the most recent survey. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll taken two weeks earlier (January 10-14 of 1,002 adults) showed that Congress remains very unpopular with 67 percent saying that they disapprove of the job Congress is doing. And, in the late January poll, 58 percent said that the country is off on the wrong track while 32 percent said that it is headed in the right direction. Democrats’ standing on the generic congressional ballot test has also eroded markedly. They enjoyed on nine-point advantage in April of last year on the question of which party voters prefer to control Congress to just a two-point advantage, 44 percent to 42 percent, in the most recent survey.
More telling is Gallup’s monthly measurement of party identification – when voters are asked which party they identify with or lean toward. In 2008, Democrats had a 12-point advantage on this question. In 2009, that advantage dropped to eight points, 49 percent to 41 percent. The shift is largely among independent voters who had moved to Democrats and are now swinging toward Republicans for a number of reasons, including what they see as Democrats’ lack of focus on job creation and the economy in favor of health care reform, frustration with the political process (i.e., a perceived lack of transparency), increased deficit spending caused by the bailouts of the financial services and auto industries, and what they believe is an unprecedented level of government intervention in business and in the lives of average Americans.
All of this combines to create an atmosphere that has changed Republicans’ fortunes in the Senate. Democrats were fairly dismissive that the Republican victories last November in the governors’ races in New Jersey and Virginia had any bearing on this year’s Senate races. Republican Scott Brown’s stunning win in last month’s special election in Massachusetts to succeed the late Ted Kennedy is pretty hard to ignore, though some Democratic strategists seem content to place the blame on their nominee, Attorney General Martha Coakley. There are other strategists who do recognize that the party had neglected independent voters and their concerns, and now say that they’ve heard the message that Massachusetts voters sent, and will devote more time and resources to communicating with these voters.
Democrats also contend that the GOP’s Senate prospects in November are overblown. They correctly make the point that the Republican brand is still quite damaged, diminishing their ability to fully take advantage of the current political environment. In fact, the GOP’s favorable/unfavorable ratings in the last NBC/WSJ poll were 32 percent to 38 percent. Of course, Democrats’ favorable/unfavorable ratings weren’t especially healthy either at 39 percent to 38 percent. Democrats further say that they will focus on defining Republican candidates early, reminding voters that it was a Republican President and a Republican-controlled Congress that set the policies that created many of the problems the country faces today, and that these GOP candidates simply represent more of the same. One strategist put it in very stark terms when he said that Democrats’ job is to remind voters that Republicans are “evil.” And, in the “hope springs eternal” department, many Democratic strategists contend that the economy and unemployment will show enough improvement by next fall as to make the political landscape more level. This, of course, remains to be seen and there are certainly enough economists who dispute that possibility.
On a more practical level, Democrats believe that their incumbents and challengers will be better funded. According to the year-end FEC reports that were filed this week, this is an accurate statement for their incumbents and most of their candidates seeking Democratic-held open seats. And, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee currently enjoys a cash-on-hand advantage over the National Republican Senatorial Committee $12.6 million to $8.3 million. Even some Republican strategists have raised concerns that some of their party’s candidates may not have the financial resources to take advantage of the opportunities that exist.
Finally, Democrats point to the number of GOP primaries, arguing that these contests will hinder Republicans’ chances either by producing damaged nominees or by producing a nominee that is less electable in a general election. This is also a fair point in some races. It is entirely possible in one or two cases that a nominee will emerge from a Republican primary that is just not as competitive in a general election as one of the other candidates in that field. If that happens, the result could well take a race out of play, or downgrade the GOP’s chances there.
How Many Seats?
So how many Senate seats can Republicans pick up in November? When I very reluctantly published the first range of potential net gains for Republicans late last year, that range was no net gain to a GOP net gain of three seats. When North Dakota Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan announced his retirement and Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden said that he would not be a candidate in the special election for the remainder of his father’s Senate term, I upped the range to a net Republican gain of two to four seats. Given the events of the past two or three weeks, it seems appropriate to revisit the range yet again.
There are many different factors to consider when establishing the range. The overall political environment and national mood are major factors. Other factors such as the political health of Democratic incumbents, the quality of Republican challengers and their campaigns, whether there are competitive primaries, and the partisan leanings of individual states also carry weight. After all, if there is a single lesson learned every cycle it’s that candidates matter. How much they matter becomes a function of how big a political wave is. In other words – and to resurrect a favorite weather analogy – a Category Five political storm can carry even some mediocre candidates across the line on Election Day. But, the quality of the candidates and their campaigns matters much more if the political wave is only a Category Two or Three.
The fact is that we just don’t know yet how strong the 2010 wave will be. There is some evidence that it could be as big as it was in 2006 when Democrats won majorities in both chambers of Congress. But, like forecasting the weather, political prognostication is an inexact science, and what looks like a Category Four hurricane today could lose strength and become a tropical storm by November. Obviously, the closer the election is, the easier it is to provide an accurate forecast.
This makes coming up with a range of potential Republican gains 10 months before the election something of a tricky exercise. In an ideal world, the range would be very wide, say, four to nine seats, to account for various scenarios – perhaps a gain of four seats if the political wave amounts to a tropical storm, and nine seats if it develops into a Category Four hurricane. That, however, isn’t very practical and would rightly earn me a certain amount of derision. So, with that in mind, I believe that Republicans can net between four and six Senate seats if the election were held today. It’s very unlikely that this range will shrink between now and November. In fact, it is much more likely to increase.
There are much more aggressive ranges for Republican gains, including publisher Charlie Cook, who puts the potential for GOP pick ups at between five and seven seats. Charlie’s range is based almost entirely on the overall political environment and his strong belief that the political wave is going to be quite strong. The quality of individual candidates and the current state of play of individual races are much more minor factors. There is nothing wrong with the way we come to our disparate ranges; we simply weigh various factors differently.
Is Democrats’ Majority in Play?
Over the past week, the question has been posed by several observers, including The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, a Cook Political Report alumnus, of whether Democrats’ Senate majority is now in play. Cillizza premised his question on the fact that we now list 10 competitive Democratic seats, compared to four for Republicans. If Republicans are going to take the majority, they would need to see a net gain of 10 seats, including the three seats that are competitive but currently lean in Democrats’ favor, to get them to 51. As a result, it means that Republicans would have to win all 10 vulnerable Democratic seats, while holding on to all their own seats.
It’s certainly true that the most competitive seats don’t beak down the middle; one party tends to win the lion’s share of them. And, as we’ve learned as recently as 2006 and 2008, one party can achieve such a sweep. In those cycles, Democrat won all the competitive Republican seats without losing a single seat of their own. So, it’s possible that Republicans could manage such a sweep, but it remains a very remote possibility today. If Republicans are to position themselves to truly put the majority in play they will need to do nearly all of the following: nominate the strongest candidates in states like California and Connecticut; give themselves some room for error by putting two or three other races in play in states like New York against appointed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, in Washington against Sen. Patty Murray and in Wisconsin against Sen. Russ Feingold; level the financial playing field; and hope that the political environment remains the same, or gets somewhat worse for Democrats.
It’s not hard to see how some of these things can and will happen. While it’s certainly difficult to control who wins primaries, the political environment, combined with the enthusiasm generated by Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts, has made recruiting easier. Indiana, where former GOP Sen. Dan Coats has decided to challenge Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, is a very good example of the improved recruiting environment. And, Brown’s victory has both led to improved fundraising for the NRSC, and shown some candidates the tremendous fundraising potential of the Internet. It’s unrealistic to think that candidates can replicate Brown’s $1-million-a-day Internet fundraising juggernaut simply because it’s impossible to replicate the circumstances of Brown’s race, but it has certainly given GOP candidates ample reason to believe that the Internet is a largely untapped resource.
Competitive Democratic-Held Seats
Here’s the state of play in each of Democrats’ 10 vulnerable seats. We currently list two Democratic-held seats in the Solid Republican column.
DELAWARE: Democratic Attorney General Beau Biden’s decision not to run in the special election to fill the remainder of the term of the seat his father vacated when he became Vice President amounted to a serious blow to Democrats’ chances of holding the seat.
Although Delaware is a solidly blue state, Republicans got the strongest candidate they could hope for in At-Large Rep. Mike Castle. Castle, a former two-term Lieutenant Governor and former two-term Governor, is both well known and well liked. He has accumulated a very moderate record in the House that seems very much in tune with the state’s electorate. As important, he starts the race with nearly $2 million in the bank.
It appears that the likely Democratic nominee will be New Castle County Executive Chris Coons, who got into the race on Wednesday. Coons, 46, earned his bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and political science from Amherst College in 1985. He is a 1992 graduate of Yale Law School and holds a master’s degree in ethics from the Yale Divinity School. Coons was elected to the New Castle County Council in 2000 and as County Executive in 2004; he won a second term in 2008. New Castle is one of three counties in the state and covers the northern third; it includes Wilmington.
Although Coons is a blank slate in Washington, he has gotten solid early reviews. He will need to build a campaign apparatus and catch up to Castle in fundraising. Democrats contend that Coons is a solid candidate who will run well in a state that leans in their direction. They plan to make Castle’s age – he is 70 – and the fact that he won’t commit to running for a full term in 2014 issues in the race.
Coons might make this race competitive, but Castle is strongly favored today.
NORTH DAKOTA: Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan’s decision to retire rather than seek re-election puts a seat that was in the Solid Democratic column into the Solid Republican column. The presumptive Republican nominee is Gov. John Hoeven, who Republicans had been recruiting to challenge Dorgan. Hoeven is extremely popular and governs a state with low unemployment and a budget surplus.
Despite the fact that Democrats have done well here in races for the Senate and the House and hold all three of those seats today, North Dakota is more a red than a blue or even a purple state. Democrats don’t have much of a bench here, which makes finding a credible challenger to Hoeven very difficult. State Sen. Tracy Potter has announced, but Democrats hope that former Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp will run. Heitkamp has indicated that she won’t make a decision soon.
Democrats’ efforts to hold this seat are decidedly uphill.
There are five Democratic seats in the Toss Up column – Sen. Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas, appointed Sen. Michael Bennet in Colorado, Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada, Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania and the open seat in Illinois.
ARKANSAS: Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln has become increasingly vulnerable as the cycle has progressed. Voters here seem especially alarmed about increased government intervention and angry about the direction that the health care reform debate has taken. It hasn’t helped that Lincoln, who has accumulated a largely moderate voting record, has come across as indecisive about where she stands on a number of issues, including the Employee Free Choice Act (aka, card check) and health care. Lincoln made a number of statements about opposing the health care reform bill, and then provided the 60th vote on the cloture motion. In addition, while Lincoln does go home, it doesn’t appear that she moves around the state much, hitting annual fairs, festivals and other venues where large groups of voters gather. There are reports, for example, that she rarely visits the northwest part of the state. This is something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by voters.
It’s possible that Lincoln could get a primary from Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who does not lack for political ambition. It would seem, though, that national Democrats will do everything they can to dissuade him from running.
While there is ample reason to believe that Lincoln can be defeated, Republicans are facing an unwieldy 10-way primary. At this point, the two frontrunners are Rep. John Boozman, who will announce his candidacy on Saturday, and state Sen. Gilbert Baker. Boozman represents the heavily Republican 3rd congressional district in the northwest corner of the state. An optometrist, Boozman built a chain of eye clinics with his late brother before winning a special election to the House in 2001. He was re-elected to a fourth full term in 2008 with 79 percent of the vote. Republican presidential nominee John McCain took 64 percent in the district that year.
Boozman has never had a difficult race and hasn’t had to raise the kind of money that a Senate race will require. He had just over $292,000 in the bank as of December 31, so he will need to ramp up his fundraising, particularly since Lincoln finished the year with $5 million on hand.
Before Boozman’s entry into the race, Baker was beginning to consolidate a lead. He got off to a fast start in fundraising, but raised just $296,000 in the fourth quarter of last year, leaving him with $639,000 in the bank. Baker is determined to stay in the race, but it will be interesting to see whether Boozman’s candidacy makes fundraising even more difficult for him.
The other candidate who gets a lot of mention is businessman Curtis Coleman. Coleman was among the first candidates in the race, but his fundraising has been anemic. He raised $55,000 in the fourth quarter and had just $2,500 in the bank. Although Coleman has some personal resources to put into the race, his fundraising creates real doubts about whether he is a serious, or even viable, candidate.
Now that Boozman is running, we would expect many of the other candidates to exit the race.
Either Boozman or Baker can beat Lincoln, whose poll numbers have deteriorated markedly over the past two months. According to the pollster.com trend line, Lincoln is mired in the mid-30s against many of the GOP hopefuls. Boozman is polling in the mid-50s against the incumbent, while Baker is at 50 percent. A Talk Business Quarterly poll by the GOP firm Wilson Research Strategies (January 13-15 of 600 likely voters) put Lincoln’s job rating at 38 percent strongly/somewhat approve to 56 percent somewhat/strongly disapprove.
There is no question that Lincoln is extremely vulnerable, but Republicans need to work through their primary before she gets an opponent.
COLORADO: Democrat Michael Bennet was appointed to fulfill the remainder of incumbent Sen. Ken Salazar’s Senate term. Salazar resigned to join President Obama’s Cabinet of Secretary of the Interior. Bennet was Superintendant of Denver Public Schools before being tapped for the Senate and has never run for office.
Apart from having little name identification, Bennet doesn’t have any inherent vulnerability. He has proven to be a successful fundraiser, banking nearly $3.5 million as of December 31. Bennet is also staking out a position as an independent; he supported the Senate version of the health care reform bill, but decried the deals made to secure some Democratic votes.
Bennet does face a primary from former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, who is popular with Democratic activists and the Netroots. Romanoff, though, lags in fundraising, posting just $450,000 in the bank as of December 31. He recently retooled his consulting team in the hopes of boosting his campaign. Although there hasn’t been any recent polling testing a Bennet-Romanoff match-up, we suspect that Bennet probably has a lead today.
Perhaps Bennet’s greatest challenge is the political environment. Colorado was the first of the Mountain States to hand Democrats a string of victories that gave the region a blue tinge. However, a combination of the recession and voter unhappiness with Washington has given Republicans reason to hope that Colorado may turn solid red this year.
Republicans are hosting a multi-candidate primary, though former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton and Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck are the frontrunners today. Buck appears to be the more conservative of the two and seems to be consolidating support among Tea Party activists. Norton, though, is probably the strongest general election candidate since she has won statewide. Neither Republican posted especially strong fundraising numbers: Norton had $595,000 in the bank as of December 31, while Buck had $276,000. Businessmen Tom Weins and Cleve Tidwell are also running, but neither has made much progress.
Polling indicates that both Norton and Buck are running statistically even with Bennet and Romanoff. A Research 2000 poll for Daily Kos (January 11-13 of 600 likely voters) gave Bennet a one-point lead over Norton 40 percent to 39 percent, while he was ahead of Buck by three points, 41 percent to 38 percent. Norton was ahead of Romanoff, 41 percent to 39 percent, while Romanoff edged Buck, 40 percent to 39 percent.
This race has a way to go before the general election takes shape, but it will be extremely competitive.
ILLINOIS: Tuesday’s primary produced a general election match-up between Democratic state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and GOP Rep. Mark Kirk.
Giannoulias, who was the first to announce his candidacy and was the frontrunner for the nomination, ended up with a closer than expected primary against former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman, former Chicago Urban League President Cheryle Jackson and two other candidates. Giannoulias took 39 percent to 34 percent for Hoffman and 20 percent for Jackson.
In truth, Giannoulias is the nominee Republicans were hoping for. They believe that his family’s banking business, where he once worked, and his relationship with disgraced former Governor Rod Blagojevich make him vulnerable. As soon as Giannoulias was declared the nominee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee posted a web video which said that Giannoulias “would make Tony Soprano proud.”
Kirk won the GOP nomination with 60 percent in a six-way field, handing Republicans the strongest general election candidate they could hope for. They were also somewhat encouraged that the Tea Party movement could not propel their preferred candidate, developer Patrick Hughes, to more than 20 percent of the vote.
Kirk has a largely moderate voting record, knows how to raise money, and faced plenty of difficult races in his suburban Chicago congressional district. He did not run a flawless primary race as he tried to navigate some middle ground between moderate and conservative voters, but odds are that he will be a better general election candidate. Democrats will try to cast Kirk as a Washington insider who is part of the problem. They will also highlight any issue on which he moved to the right during the primary.
We haven’t seen any general election polling, but suspect that the two candidates are probably pretty closely matched. Giannoulias will get lots of help from national Democrats who want to keep the President’s former Senate seat in their column, but Republicans see a rare opportunity to win a seat in a very blue state and will provide Kirk with as much assistance as possible.
Look for an extremely competitive general election.
NEVADA: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s problems are well-documented. The state’s economy is suffering greatly. Unemployment is at 13 percent, tourism is way down, and Nevada ranks among the states with the highest percentage of foreclosures. Reid’s job as Majority Leader means that voters see him in a more partisan light as he works to push President Obama’s legislative agenda through the Senate. It would also seem that voters just don’t like him, something that shows up in polling in the form of high unfavorable ratings, but the reasons for it aren’t entirely obvious.
Reid has been lagging in the polls almost since the start of the race. According to the pollster.com trend lines, Reid’s favorable/unfavorable ratings are 35 percent to 54 percent, while his job numbers average 39-percent approve to 57-percent disapprove.
Reid is a prolific fundraiser and finished 2009 with nearly $8.7 million in the bank. He has spent nearly $2 million on television advertising, but it hasn’t produced any improvement in his poll numbers.
Republicans have a crowded primary. The frontrunners are former state party chair Sue Lowden and businessman Danny Tarkanian. Lowden is the establishment favorite, while Tarkanian has support among the Tea Party movement. Lowden is proving to be the stronger fundraiser, raising $819,000 in the fourth quarter and banking $498,000. She has pledged to match every dollar contributed to her campaign in the first quarter of this year. Tarkanian, who has been in the race longer, finished 2009 with just $297,000 in the bank. Other candidates include 2006 NV-02 candidate and former state Rep. Sharron Angle, who had $146,000 cash-on-hand as of December 31, and investment banker John Chachas, whose personal wealth makes him something of a wild card in the race. He has already put $1.3 million of his own money into the contest.
None of the Republican candidates is especially well known, yet Lowden, Tarkanian and Angle all run ahead of the incumbent, who is mired in the low 40s, according to the pollster.com trend line.
Democrats believe that once voters are more familiar with what Reid has done for the state they will rally behind him. They also contend that Reid has spent the last four years building the party, and point out that Democrats now lead Republicans in voter registration. They are confident that Reid will prevail as long as the base turns out on Election Day. Whether they can make that happen given that the Democratic base, especially young and first-time voters, did not turn out in the New Jersey or Virginia gubernatorial contests, remains to be seen.
Given that Republicans’ prospects nationally have improved since either Lowden or Tarkanian got into the race, we have to wonder whether other, better-known Republicans are taking a second look at challenging Reid. We wouldn’t be surprised if the recruiting chapter of this race is not quite closed.
In any event, Reid is in the fight of and for his political life.
PENNSYLVANIA: Sen. Arlen Specter must be wondering whether his decision to switch parties last spring was the right one. Not only have the GOP’s prospects improved, but he finds himself locked in a nasty primary with Rep. Joe Sestak. And, even if he secures the nomination, Specter’s prospects in the general election have dimmed in recent weeks.
Sestak is finding support among Democrats who are suspicious of Specter’s party switch, but he still has a long way to go to build his statewide name identification and raise the kind of money he will need to level the financial playing field with Specter. As of December 31, Sestak had $5.1 million in the bank compared to $8.7 million for Specter. To say that Sestak is mounting an aggressive challenge is almost an understatement; he is critical of just about every move Specter makes. On the flipside, though, some Democratic strategists argue that Sestak has made Specter a more reliable vote by pushing him left. In fact, vote studies suggest that Specter votes with Democrats more than he voted with Republicans when he was in the GOP conference.
Still, polling indicates that Sestak has a way to go before he catches Specter in polling. According to the pollster.com trend line, Specter has a 53-percent to 26-percent advantage over Sestak.
On the Republican side, former Rep. and Club for Growth president Pat Toomey is the presumptive GOP nominee. As Specter and Sestak fight for the Democratic nomination, Toomey has gotten a free ride as he puts his campaign together. He had $2.8 million in the bank as of December 31, and recent polling indicates that he has opened a lead over Specter in general election match ups. According to the pollster.com trend line, Toomey is ahead of Specter, 45 percent to 39 percent, despite that fact that he is not well known. Toomey also leads Sestak, 42 percent to 33 percent.
Like so many other states, Pennsylvania’s economy is suffering and Democrats generally have been hurt by scandals in the state legislature and a seemingly endless battle over the budget.
Interestingly enough, Specter defeated Toomey in the 2004 Senate GOP primary. And many assumed that as long as Specter secured the Democratic nomination, he would be well positioned to beat Toomey again. Recent polls have certainly called that assumption into question and it appears that Toomey will be a very viable candidate, regardless of which Democrat he faces in the general election.
The final three races in California, Connecticut and Indiana are in the Lean Democratic column.
CALIFORNIA: Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer has never gotten a firm hold on this seat, though she tends to win re-election easily, largely because Republicans nominate opponents who are either too conservative for the state or can’t raise the money to compete. National Republicans have also been loathe to put money into Senate races here because the state is so expensive that whatever they can spend never seems to be enough.
Republicans hope that 2010 might mark a change in their fortunes against Boxer. There is a three-way GOP primary between former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, former Rep. Tom Campbell and state Sen. Chuck DeVore. DeVore is a favorite of conservatives, which gives him a fighting chance to win the nomination, even though he can’t compete with Fiorina and Campbell financially. Campbell is probably best suited to a general election given his moderate views on issues, but it is a real question as to whether he will be able to raise the kind of money he’ll need. It’s also a fair question as to whether he can raise what he needs to compete with Fiorina in the primary. Campbell spent last year pursuing the GOP gubernatorial nomination, but switched races in January.
Fiorina has been able to raise money – she collected about $1 million in the fourth quarter – and she can put personal resources into the race. She’s put in about $2.6 million so far. That Fiorina can fund the race makes her the biggest threat to Boxer, who had nearly $7.3 million in the bank as of December 31. While that’s a lot of money by most standards, it may not be enough in a race in California against a self-funder.
Fiorina is not the perfect candidate. She’s never run for office before and her tenure at Hewlett-Packard was controversial. But, again, it’s Fiorina’s ability to fund the race that makes her a threat to Boxer. It’s possible that Campbell can give Boxer a competitive race if he can raise the money. DeVore isn’t a threat and if he is the nominee, Boxer is a safe bet for another term.
The outcome of the GOP primary will determine what kind of race Boxer will have in November.
CONNECTICUT: Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd’s decision not to seek re-election was an answer to Democrats’ prayers. As much as Dodd is well liked and respected by his colleagues and strategists, it was very difficult to see how he was going to win re-election. With Dodd out of the race, Democrats ended up with a much stronger candidate in Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.
Blumenthal is the most popular Democratic officeholder in the state, and he has won his five terms as Attorney General easily. He is also a proven fundraiser, though he hasn’t had to file an FEC report since he wasn’t a candidate until January.
Republicans are holding a three-way primary between former Rep. Rob Simmons, former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon, and investment banker Peter Schiff. Either Simmons or McMahon could have beaten Dodd, but Blumenthal’s candidacy has changed the equation. Simmons’ strength is his experience running for office, and a relatively moderate voting record. His weaknesses are that same voting record, which makes it difficult for him to run as an outsider, and questions about whether he can raise the money he’ll need to beat McMahon in a primary.
McMahon has turned out to be the quintessential outsider candidate. She is getting good reviews on the campaign trail and has vowed to spend at least $30 million of her own money on the race. She isn’t taking contributions over $100 and had invested $6 million in the race as of December 31. McMahon has never run for office before so the possibility that she could make a fatal mistake is real. Simmons and Democrats don’t go after McMahon as much as they go after WWE and its business practices, including its drug testing program and the fact it doesn’t provide health insurance to wrestlers. They also are critical of McMahon for not having detailed positions on some issues.
Schiff hasn’t been as visible in the race, relying largely on fundraising over the Internet. Still, he posted a cash-on-hand total of nearly $1.1 million as of December 31, which means that his candidacy can’t be written off.
Simmons has a small lead over McMahon in recent polling, but there are a large number of undecided voters, meaning that the race continues to be wide open.
All three Republicans currently trail Blumenthal by wide margins in general election match ups. An argument can be made that McMahon would be the strongest candidate against the Democrat by virtue of her personal fortune and outsider status. Simmons’ supporters, of course, strongly disagree with this assessment.
We suspect this race will get competitive, which is why it’s in the Lean Democratic column, but Blumenthal holds a comfortable advantage today.
INDIANA: Until Tuesday night, Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh’s bid for a third term wasn’t on anyone’s radar. Republicans had a string of recruiting disappointments as Gov. Mitch Daniels and Rep. Mike Pence said they weren’t interested in challenging Bayh. Republicans’ fortunes changed, though, when word leaked that former Republican Sen. Dan Coats would announce his candidacy.
Coats was elected to the House in 1980, succeeding his former boss, Dan Quayle, who ran for and won a Senate seat that year. He served four terms before being appointed to Quayle’s Senate seat in 1989. He won a special election in 1990 with 54 percent, and was re-elected in 1992 with 57 percent. Coats opted to retire in 1998, because, according to the conventional wisdom at the time, he didn’t have the stomach for a race against Bayh, who was coming off two successful terms as Governor. Since leaving the Senate, Coats spent four years as Ambassador to Germany and has remained active in national Republican politics. The Bush Administration called upon him to help shepherd Harriet Miers through the confirmation process when Bush nominated her to the U.S. Supreme Court; Miers eventually withdrew her name from consideration.
Democrats were quick to attack Coats, pointing out that he has spent the last two years as a lobbyist representing financial services firms, including Bank of America. They also have made an issue of Coats’ Virginia residency, which means he is not even registered to vote in Indiana.
Republicans have long argued that Bayh is vulnerable. At the age of 55, he has spent nearly half his life in public office, which earns him the label of career politician from Republicans. They also say that his voting record has moved to the left, putting him out of step with Indiana voters. And, Republicans find it especially ironic that Democrats are attacking Coats for lobbying for Bank of America when Bayh voted for the bail out.
There has been absolutely no polling that tests Coats’ name identification or his strength against Bayh. One significant advantage Bayh does have going into the race is his war chest, which contained nearly $13 million as of December 31.
This race has the potential to become very competitive and is an example of how the political landscape has greatly improved recruiting for Republicans. The race is in the Lean Democratic column.
LINK (Subscription Required)