Patterico's Pontifications

11/5/2008

The Next Round of Congressional Elections Is Only 730 Days Away

Filed under: General — WLS @ 7:32 pm



[Posted by WLS Shipwrecked]

One of the unusual features of the 2008 election cycle was the fact that the GOP had so many more Senate seats up for election than did the Dems.  The combination of several weak incumbents, a few retirements by long-standing stalwarts, and the fatigue of the Bush years, all combined to put the GOP Senators up for re-election directly in the cross-hairs of an angry electorate. 

But, the one salvation from this fact is that over the next two election cycles is that Dems that will have many more seats to defend — and it remains to be seen whether or not today is the high-water mark of the first term of the Obama Administration.

Senators up for re-election in 2010

Dems:  15

Lincoln AR

Boxer CA

Salazar CO

Dodd CT

Inouye HI

Obama Replacement IL

Bayh IN

Mikulski MD

Reid NV

Schumer NY

Dorgan ND

Wyden OR

Leahy VT

Murray WA

Feingold WI

GOP:  18

Shelby AL

Murkowski AK

McCain AZ

Martinez FL

Isackson GA

Crapo ID

Grassley IA

Brownback KS

Bunning KY

Vitter LA

Bond MO

Gregg NH

Burr NC

Voinovich OH

Coburn OK

Specter PA

DeMint SC

Bennett UT

Of those listed, I would say the following are vulnerable incumbents or vulnerable seats if the incumbent retires:

Dems:  Lincoln, Inouye seat (if retires), Reid, Dorgan

GOP:  Grassley seat (if retires), Bunning (if he doesn’t), Bond, Gregg, Voinovich, Specter seat (if retires).

Each side has one living on borrowed time — Lincoln and Gregg.  The GOP needs to retire Bunning and Voinovich.  The HI seat could be vulnerable to the two-time statewide elected GOP governor with a 70% approval rating, Linda Lingle.  But Inouye is healthy, and even at 88 he might run again.  If he doesn, Lingle will wait for Akaka seat in 2012 to run.

2012 is a different story completely:

Senators up for re-election in 2012

Dems: 24 (incl. 2 Independents)

Feinstein CA  (rumored to be looking to run for Calif. Governor in 2010).

Carper DE

Bill Nelson FL

Akaka HI

Cardin MD

Kennedy MA

Stabenow MI

Klobuchar MN

McCaskill MO

Tester MT

Ben Nelson NE

Menendez NJ

Bingaman NM

Clinton NY

Conrad ND

Brown OH

Casey PA

Whitehouse RI

Webb VA

Cantwell WA

Byrd WV

Kohl WI

Liebermann CT — Independent

Sanders VT — Independent

GOP — 9

Kyl AZ

Lugar IN

Snowe ME

Wicker MS

Ensign NV

Corker TN

Hutchison TX (rumored to be looking to run for TX Gov)

Hatch UT

Thomas WY

In 2012, the GOP will have few if any vulnerable incumbents, whereas the Dems will have them all over the lot. 

GOP:  Snowe (if she hasn’t switched parties), Lugar seat (if retires).

Dems:  Nelson FL, Akaka, Stabenow, Klobuchar, McCaskill, Tester, Nelson NE, Brown, Casey, Webb, Byrd seat (likely retires).

The reason I think all these Dems are going to be in difficult races is they will have had to make numerous votes on a liberal Dem agenda for 4 years by the time their next run comes up.  Many come from battleground states (Brown, Casey, Webb), or states that went for Bush/Bush/McCain — Tester and McCaskill for example.  They’ll have voting records in an Obama administration, not a Bush administration.  We’ll see how well they can defend them in moderate to conservative states.  The Hawaii seat is only in play if Inouye runs again in 2010 and Lingle can’t win his seat.  She’ll be out of office for two years between 2010 and 2012, during which time she’ll be preparing to run for Akaka’s seat.

25 Responses to “The Next Round of Congressional Elections Is Only 730 Days Away”

  1. The only edit I would make is to put Lieberman on the endangered list. After his GOP convention appearance and support for McCain I don’t see hi having a long political future in Connecticut.

    That being said, I don’t see the CT GOP taking the seat anyway.

    Stephen macklin (f552f7)

  2. What would be sweet is for the GOP to find someone strong in NV to go up against and defeat Reid (ala Daschle a few years back). Murray and Cantwell in WA are Boxer and Feinstein light…Wyden in OR is Portland’s Senator, so finding a competitor may be hard (depends on the outcome of Smith’s race).

    FWIW…GOP needs to find some leadership in DC that “has a set” and is not afraid to go back to traditional GOP values…Need to get people like Steele and Kaisch back out in the spotlight, and start grooming Palin, Jidal and the younger GOP leaders for national government.

    The door is open for 2010…the GOP needs to get to work, TODAY, to get back into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

    fmfnavydoc (0dd45c)

  3. If someone would buy a few books and find (hard to do) a few democrat who could read, Webb would have to run back to Thailand where he could molest some more children. His book is not third party, it’s about himself. No other reason for him to spend time in Thailand other than the availability of children for weird sex acts.

    Scrapiron (dda662)

  4. fmfnavydoc – John Kasich is an excellent idea. I like Pence and Flake to lead the House.

    JD (008a90)

  5. I think we need to overhaul the GOP in California and get new leadership here, too.

    I volunteered with a local grassroots Republican group during the campaign, and for the better part of 2 months we had no yard signs and bumper stickers. We had streams of people coming in asking for these items, and we had to keep telling them that “we’re out”, which sounds better than “we don’t have any.”

    The person running the headquarters later told me that she got an email from the CA GOP that we shouldn’t expect anything much from them since California is lost anyway. The county central GOP hardly did anything to help either. We didn’t even get our phone banks in because the prepaid cel phones that were supposed to be used “disappeared.” There was absolutely no support for the guy running for Congress in our district, not to mention the poor fellow who was running for the Assembly.

    I can see why they might think it’s necessary to focus the effort in swing states, but I really don’t understand why we’re not even showing up to fight in California anymore and just conceding the state to the liberals. A big chunk of the state, at least geographically, is conservative. Yet, there doesn’t seem to be a big central effort to get to them. They do turn out for big issues like Prop 8, but the fight came from other groups, not from the GOP. I always thought they could have turned the Obama candidacy into a 2nd Amendment issue, but no luck.

    I know that the local Republican clubs tried really hard during the election. We had to spend our own money to get materials in. We’ve formed networks now (it’s my first time volunteering, and I am now connected to people in at least 3 other counties because we were trying to share resources), and we’re hoping to do better in 2010. Every single person I’ve met in those other counties have contributed time and money because they honestly believed in what they’re doing. Unfortunately, we can only do so much without a central GOP to guide us.

    With the way this election turned out, there’s only one conclusion I can reach: we have to get rid of the GOP state and county leadership and start over. If we continue to operate the way we did in 2008, then California will stay permanently in the “blue” column.

    Anna (7a04b2)

  6. Thank you, Anna, for the information. I’m in Cali too and from what I could tell and in talking to local pols, there was indeed no support from the GOP. And interesting about the signs – my neighbors’ Obama signs disappeared on Sunday and on Tuesday they were replaced by 3 bigger and better ones.

    Dana (79a78b)

  7. I volunteered for Gov. Wilson’s campaign and the local GOP on the Montery Peninsula had a pretty solid organization. I suspect that was more a result of Gov. Wilson than the GOP though. It sounds like the people need to take the organization from the ones that are placeholders.

    JD (008a90)

  8. 1) The Messiah had no coat tails.

    2) If/when re-districting occurs, you’ll see real movement. Until then, there just aren;t many contestable seats in CA government.

    Ed (d7cda1)

  9. The California Republican party seems content with a situation wherein they have just over 1/3 of the state legislature – enough to block new taxes – and nothing else.

    We are a poorer state for it; it means the California Democratic party is increasingly poorly run and ineffective, as it has no opposition and no need to achieve anything to stay in power.

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  10. What’s interesting for the GOP going forward is, for the first time in awhile, the GOP doesn’t have someone as the acknowledged leader at the head of the party. You had a pretty unbroken string from Reagan, Bush, Gingrich to W, with other people like Dole and DeLay at times seen as being able to speak authoritatively for the party as a whole.

    Now I’m not sure who is in charge. I think you can rule McCain out. McConnell? Boehner? Romney? I think each would have problems with various parts of the base.

    Someone will have to step up and become the unofficial but acknowledged leader coordinate the message and strategy looking forward to 2010, and I’m sure someone will, but right now I have no idea who that would be.

    Aplomb (b6fba6)

  11. I would pick Congressmen Pence or Flake, going forward.

    JD (008a90)

  12. Pardon my ignorance, but based on this post I’d say that the Dems had a good shot at picking up an extra seat or two in 2010. Given that they’re already going to be knocking on the door of 60 senators, isn’t that really, really bad news?

    Todd (776816)

  13. I think WLS is assuming Obama will pull a Bush, Todd.

    snuffles (677ec2)

  14. “I think WLS is assuming Obama will pull a Bush, Todd”

    Yeah, but I think he’s also just making a point about the raw number of seats the Republicans and Democrats have to defend. Even if Obama’s a catastrophe, we’re not getting his Illinois senate seat, for example. So by his estimates Republicans may even have one or two extra seats to defend in two years, which is not good considering the Dems now have close to 60 of them total.

    And in general, this is very cold comfort. I don’t want the Dems to be defending 33 seats one year.

    Todd (776816)

  15. I suppose trying to pick up Republican Senate seats if Obama has a good start (economic recovery, troops home from Iraq) is kind of pointless.

    snuffles (677ec2)

  16. It is worth noting that Clinton came in with similar numbers in 1992:

    House ’92: 258D, 176R
    Senate ’92: 56D, 44R

    but two years later:

    House ’92: 204D, 230R
    Senate ’92: 48D, 52R

    Maybe Gingrich can be persuaded to run for Speaker again… GA-08 looks doable.

    Kevin Murphy (0b2493)

  17. Chris Matthews is looking at the Specter seat. Start working on a Worst of Matthews youtube now.

    It would be great if we could recruit some of those returning vets to run.

    Amphipolis (fdbc48)

  18. There is a bigger issue.

    The next census is 2010. The Dems will try to factor in people (Democrats) they claim are missed, like last time. This will not only increase their seats in the house, it will increase their electoral votes.

    And then there is amnesty, which will create tens of millions of new Democrats.

    And then there is election fraud, which will not be prosecuted now thus encouraging more massive efforts next time. Voting as many times and wherever you want is now part of the culture.

    I don’t know whether there will be a way back.

    Amphipolis (fdbc48)

  19. I share the concern of #18. The chances of ACORN-like organizations being investigated and prosecuted are now slim and none (and I saw Slim leaving town on a bus Tuesday night); in fact, left-leaning groups like ACORN will be even better funded and more encouraged to continue their scams on what’s left of our election system. We certainly face more left-leaning election officials whether elected, hired or appointed. Add those realities to the likely Democratic mischief with the 2010 census and there is plenty of reason for gloom.

    The way back, if there is one, will indeed be long and difficult.

    Old Coot (8a493c)

  20. I’ll add to that the Democrat’s unlimited ability to raise money from anonymous donors, which will also be rewarded with no investigation. Campaign finance reform is a one way street taking the honest and out of power to permanent oblivion.

    Amphipolis (fdbc48)

  21. Note how the New Jersey and Florida supreme courts have intervened to change election law to favor Democrats when they are in trouble. Obama will immediately stack the circuit courts, the ability to filibuster nominees will be eliminated. If Obama can get one more liberal in the US Supreme Court, every election can be disputed and made to favor the Democrats.

    See how long it takes for the CA Supreme Court to reinstate gay marriage.

    Amphipolis (fdbc48)

  22. I also think that Obama and his leftist illuminati ideals will bring some changes soon to the Supreme Court and to Congress. Look for conservative legislation like the gay marriage ban to be overturned in the future.

    Jeff (7082b1)

  23. I think we need to keep fighting, but we need to open our eyes. The days of the pendulum swinging from the right to the left may be over. When the very institutions we rely on are systematically compromised, and when they all fall into the hands of those who seek power over all else, there may be no way back.

    See this –
    a complete breakdown in parliamentary procedure
    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/03/politics/politico/main3130820.shtml

    They play for keeps.

    Amphipolis (fdbc48)

  24. Tampering with elections and the electorate is not good enough. There could still be a backlash to the unpopular upcoming decisions Biden warned us about. Here’s my barometer to determine how serious Obama and his handlers are about consolidating their power and making it permanent –

    If they move to silence the opposition mass media.

    Not ultimately via the Fairness Doctrine. That would only make talk radio less accessible (they would migrate to satellite radio). And it would keep others, including those on the internet, free. No, it would require more than that.

    If, in the first 100 days, Congress moves to pass broad hate crime legislation, prompted no doubt by some well publicized incident, then you will know that January 20 will mark the beginning of one party rule in the US. This legislation would be used to intimidate or shut down all opposition media everywhere. There can be no new 1994 if all people hear is spin.

    A media bailout could allow the government to nail down any loose members of the MSM, and ensure that the spin gets out.

    Then they can play this card if it is still needed.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/26/opinion/26smith.html

    I hope and pray that the Democrats do not choose to lead us all into despotism. But for the most part the decision is up to them now.

    Amphipolis (fdbc48)

  25. What Anna said, but not just in lost states like Cali. We had the same problem at the state fair in NC, only to see Obama carry the state by almost exactly the same number of people who asked me for McCain-Palin stickers we didn’t have.

    Xrlq (9c9b67)


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