Can Democrats Takeover The Senate?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in General Politics, PollsThere seems to be some hope for the donkeys yet.
Political Wire digs into a piece by Larry Sabato and comes up with some good stuff.
How to do it? Assuming Democrats can hold all open seats (MD, MN, and possibly NJ) and win the close Democratic seats (WV, FL, WA, ND), they would need six seats to take control.Two Republican senators — Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) — “are in deep trouble, and may be ripe for the plucking.” To get the other four seats, “there appear to be only five possibilities in the nation: the Tennessee open seat of retiring Senator Bill Frist (R), plus defeats of incumbent GOP senators Conrad Burns (MT), Mike DeWine (OH), Jon Kyl (AZ), and Jim Talent (MO). All of these are possible, none at the moment is likely.”
Not so fast Larry. Actually, one of those is very likely…
Missouri Senator, Jim Talent is very unpopular in his state.
Just 36 percent of Missourians say that they would vote to re-elect Talent in 2006, while 64 percent say that they want someone else or are undecided. Despite 11 years in Washington, Talent has failed to show an overwhelming majority of Missourians any reason why they should keep him there. “We cannot recall an incumbent senator with lower positive ratings than Talent,” said Harstad Strategic Research, which conducted the survey of more than 600 likely voters.
Also, Missouri’s Governor Matt Blunt is running at nearly the same re-election numbers…below 40%.
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 22nd, 2005 and is filed under General Politics, Polls. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 22nd, 2005 at 11:17 pm
Well I, for one, would shed no tears over seeing Mr. Santorum sent back to private life. Especially because Casey, the Democrat most likely to replace him, is a moderate Democrat of the kind Pennsylvanians traditionally like. He’s not likely to be popular with the strident wing of the party.
Chaffee, on the other hand — feckless and fickle as he can be — would represent a loss to the collective weight of the barely-there moderate GOP in Congress. I’d hate to see him go for that reason alone.
Any word on who is likely to rise up in place of the others? Visionary leaders; uniters and bridge-builders; independent thinkers, let’s hope.
September 23rd, 2005 at 12:46 am
Quite possibly. Something tells me that after Bush’s strong push to the right, the next 12 years will be about moderate politics that more closely align with the political leanings of the other 60%.
September 23rd, 2005 at 3:22 pm
Okay, you guys. I see an opportunity here.
How hard would it be to measure the moderacy of today’s Congress, and tomorrow’s Congressional candidates? I’ve seen people tend to depict far right as Delay, far left as Kennedy, and moderate as McCain, Lieberman, etc. Where do the rest fit? Evan Bayh? Fred Thompson? Bill Frist? Dianne Feinstein? Barbara McCulskey? Hillary Clinton? Barack Obama? John Edwards? Patrick Leahy? Ron Paul?
Obviously this is a tough thing to visualize for various reasons. If there’s an ordering, it can vary widely according to the issue of interest. A steadfast elephant on abortion may suddenly turn stalwart donkey on gun control, etc. Furthermore, not all Congresscritters have a big stake in every issue; some care deeply about, say, labor unions, but tend to follow other experts’ leads on, say, science funding.
Not that I’ve looked very hard, but I’ve never seen any website where, if you name the issue, you could see (a) who its most ardent players are, and (b) where they stand; and additionally, for any officeholder, (a) what their big issues are, and (b) where they stand. At a glance. Even better, with links to past arguments made on the floor, and votes cast, as backup data. There are sites that attempt to give every politician’s stand on every issue, summarized as what they’ve said pertaining to that issue, but getting a sense of positions of several hundred people at once would still require painstaking research.
Meanwhile, as Donklephant, you could play the role of Moderate Underground – playing up moderate Dems over hardline Reps, and moderate Reps over hardline Dems. Sway some votes, and get a more moderate Congress and White House.
August 7th, 2006 at 3:23 am
Good job.