- Arkansas: Despite only being in this race a short time, Democratic Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter is already largely outperforming Blanche Lincoln (D?-WalMart) against Republican opposition, according to a new Research 2000 poll.
Lincoln-Boozman 42-49 (-7)
Lincoln-Hendren 43-48 (-5)
Lincoln-Baker 41-49 (-8)
Lincoln-Coleman 44-47 (-3)
Lincoln-Cox 43-47 (-4)Halter-Boozman 40-48 (-8)
Halter-Hendren 44-45 (-1)
Halter-Baker 44-46 (-2)
Halter-Coleman 45-44 (+1)
Halter-Cox 45-43 (+2)Not only does Halter do better than Lincoln against Republican opposition, but the primary numbers between the two are quite promising. Lincoln only leads 44-31, with 25% still undecided – and that’s with about a quarter of voters (and about a quarter of Democrats specifically) still with no opinion of Halter. Lincoln’s favorable-unfavorable-no opinion among all voters clocked in at 42-52-6, compared with a much stronger 46-27-27 for Halter. Among Democrats specifically, Lincoln’s had a 62-34-4, compared with a 68-10-22 for Halter. kos accurately nutshells it:
Lincoln is the incumbent, and undecideds tend to disproportionately favor the challenger. That’s why incumbents over 50 percent are considered safe — because the undecideds aren’t enough to flip a seat. (Look at the primary undecideds — down seven points, Halter got five, Lincoln got two.) Given the hole Lincoln faces against the northwest Arkansas congressman, it’s hard to see how she makes up that ground and wins the race. She’s still dead man walking.On the other hand, a Boozman-Halter race would make Boozman the de facto incumbent — he’s been in Washington D.C. for 10 years now. In this environment, you want the outsider hitting the entrenched DC incumbent, and Democrats can do that with Halter as their nominee. And given the large number of people who still don’t have an opinion about him, Halter has plenty of room to grow in a way Lincoln no longer can, further eroding Boozman’s early advantage.
That’s why Lincoln runs worse against the no-name outsider Republicans vying for the seat compared to Halter. People like outsiders.
Lincoln can’t play that game, and Boozman can’t play that game.
That makes Halter the best possible candidate Democrats can nominate in Arkansas.
Lincoln is already losing to every Republican and has a lousy 42-52 approve-disapprove. If she is the Democratic nominee, the seat is far more likely to turn red. Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter offers Democrats the strongest chance to keep the seat blue. Consider contributing to him via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page.
- Florida: Traditionally, statewide political candidates in Florida just pay the $10,000 entry fee to appear on the ballot, as the alternative is an onerous gathering of over 110,000 signatures. Rather than buy his way onto the ballot, Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meeksought to use the signature gathering to establish his grassroots presence – and he has succeeded:
Meek Will Make History in FloridaRep. Kendrick Meek (D-FL) is expected to make history in Florida this week when he delivers more than 130,000 signed petitions to state election officials to secure a place on the U.S. Senate ballot, the Miami Herald reports.
No other statewide candidate has entered a race this way, as most simply pay a $10,000 fee to appear on the ballot.
Said Meek: “I thought it was very, very important that the people of the state of Florida place my name on the ballot to be the next U.S. senator.”
Meanwhile, Republicans are engaging in one of the nastiest, most divisive primaries in a long time between Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio, which will likely result in a politically wounded Rubio winning the nomination against a grassroots-fueled Kendrick Meek ready to roll. Congressman Meek has a terrific chance to win FL-Sen and turn the seat blue, and he has been added to the Expand the Map! ActBlue page, so please chip in if you can.
- Iowa: Republican Chuck Grassley truly lacks any sense of integrity:
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has long been a vocal critic of the Democrat’s health reform efforts, but today he started taking credit for some provisions of the bill, and talking up his own role in crafting the legislation.In a release sent out by his staff to reporters today, Grassley says the bill will “hold tax-exempt hospitals accountable for the federal tax benefits they receive” thanks to his work. …
Grassley has been among the most vocal opponents of Democratic reform over the past year, but he’s also known as one of the biggest flip-floppers on the issue.
At the start of the process, Grassley was expected to be among those Senators working to craft a bipartisan bill. But it wasn’t long before he abandoned that effort, and helped to start the “death panel” meme heard at town halls across the country throughout last summer. …
Later on, Grassley joined with the Republicans in condemning the bill’s medicare provisions. He jumped through several rhetorical hoops when he tried to explain his position in support Medicare while also attacking the idea of a public option last September. …
Now, Grassley seems to be jumping through the same hoops after the bill has been signed, talking up the changes reforms he once said will allow the government to “decide when to pull the plug on Grandma” are making to the health care system.
In the memo send out to reporters by his staff on on the Senate Finance Commitee, Grassley claims that the bill will ensure that “Congress, the IRS, and the public will now have additional tools and information to ensure that charitable hospitals act charitably.”
To appease the Tea Partiers, Grassley was more than happy to lead the way in spreading misinformation on health care reform – like the whole “pull the plug on Grandma” nonsense. Now that the health care reform bill has become law and will help people, the integrity-free Grassley sees it as his job to start taking credit for all of the good the legislation will do. Grassley’s Democratic opponent this year will likely be attorney and former gubernatorial nominee Roxanne Conlin. Iowa is a purple state that went for President Obama by nine points. Meanwhile, Grassley’s standing among Iowans plummeted throughout 2009, going from a 71-22 approve-disapprove in January ’09 to an all-time worst 50-40 approve-disapprove in September ’09 (a net 39-point freefall), when his numbers mysteriously stopped being tracked. Though an uphill battle, Grassley’s dishonest dive to the far right coupled by his utter lack of integrity provides Democrats with an opening.
- Ohio: Running against George W. Bush in 2010 is, typically, not necessarily the most effective strategy for Democratic victory. One race where that is the exception is Ohio’s Senate race, where the Republican standard bearer is two-time George W. Bush appointee Rob Portman. Portman was a key architect of Bush-era trade and budget policies. Local activists and organizers haven’t forgotten:
Ohio labor and trade leaders criticized the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate on the anniversary of his appointment as a trade representative, while the Republican’s campaign press secretary dismissed the event as a manufactured anniversary to distract voters.In a media teleconference, labor and trade advocates attacked the resume of former U.S. Rep. Rob Portman, who is seeking to fill the Senate seat being vacated by Republican U.S. Sen. George Voinovich. …
Cincinnati AFL-CIO Executive Secre-tary-Treasurer Doug Sizemore said Bush chose Portman for a reason and that his record in the House show he “betrayed Ohio workers time and time again.”
“Portman voted repeatedly to fast-track international trade agreements and also voted against helping workers who lost their jobs due to outsourcing,” Sizemore said.
“Portman also supported NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and still thinks it created jobs. I can tell you there are 50,000 Ohio workers who would disagree with him on that.
“This anniversary is important because as we weather this recession, we can’t forget how we got here,” he said. “Portman’s job killing trade policies were a recipe for disaster five years ago, and they are not the way out of this crisis … and we can’t afford to have him represent our voice in the Senate.”
Ohio Conference on Fair Trade Director Karen Hanson blasted Portman and said the number regarding trade and loss of jobs speaks for his work.
“It’s unthinkable for Portman to receive anything but failing marks for his record as Bush’s U.S. trade representative,” Hanson said.
She claimed 17,000 Ohio workers had their jobs shipped overseas on his watch and the U.S. trade deficit rose nearly 6.5 percent “slowing economic growth and impeding job creation.” She also claimed the trade imbalance with China eclipsed $200 billion for the first time in U.S. history.
“These are just statistical numbers and they don’t begin to reveal all the collateral damage to Ohio families and communities by this decimation of our manufacturing base in this state,” Hanson said. “Ohio workers, businesses and middle class families deserve better than Portman’s agenda in Washington.”
Rob Portman, a consummate Washington insider and close friend of corporate lobbyists and Wall Street, will indeed have to answer to Ohio voters for the Bush economic record. Countless Ohio families are still facing momentous economic woes as a result of that Bush economic record – and they’ll have an opportunity to express their discontent by opposing Portman for Senate. Portman’s Democratic opponent will either be Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher or Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.
- Utah: Even Robert Bennett knows he’s in trouble:
There is no bigger quarry in the eyes of many conservative activists than Mr. Bennett, who has drawn seven challengers and will not know for six weeks whether he will even qualify for the ballot. His fate is being watched not only by grass-roots conservatives testing their ability to shape the party, but also by many elected Republicans in Washington who are wondering, If Bob Bennett is not conservative enough, who is?”If the anti-incumbent tide is as strong as some people think it is, I will be swept out, despite all my efforts,” Mr. Bennett said in an interview. …
His own polling shows him in third place, he said, trailing “Anybody-but-Bennett and Undecided.” He said he knew that a tough fight for re-election awaited him after he voted for the bank bailout in 2008 and a few days later walked into a town meeting and “it was through clinched teeth that they welcomed me.”
The rise of the Tea Party movement, along with an investment in the race by the Club for Growth, the antitax Washington-based group that seeks to influence Republican primaries, has turned the race into what the soft-spoken senator calls “the nastiest one I have experienced.” …
But the criticism of Mr. Bennett reads like this: He pledged to serve only two terms, but he is now seeking his fourth. He sits on the Appropriations Committee, which distributes earmarks, and has done little to slow the growth in federal spending.
And not only did he vote for the bank bailout, known as the Troubled Assets Relief Program (so did Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Utah’s senior Republican senator, but he is not up for re-election), he also signed onto a bipartisan health care bill seen as an alternative to the main Democratic plan.
The long-time Republican incumbent isn’t conservative enough for Utah Republicans, so they’re looking to bounce him. As the story mentions, the Senator’s own sister lost her bid at her precinct caucus to be a delegate to the state GOP nominating convention. Bennett truly may not win re-election. In case the eventual GOP nominee is an off-the-deep-end Republican, Democrats have a serious candidate running in Liquor Control Commission Chairman and businessman Sam Granato.
- Arizona: John McCain and J.D. Hayworth are locked in a nasty, Crist-versus-Rubio-esque Republican primary. Meanwhile, Democratic candidate and Tuscon City Councilman Rodney Glassman has signed up a couple of Arizona’s most prominent Democrats to Chair his campaign, from a press release:
Two of Arizona’s most prestigious Democrats have committed to serving as honorary campaign co-chairs should Tucson Vice Mayor Rodney Glassman announce in April that he will run for U.S. Senate.Former U.S. Sen. Dennis DeConcini and former Gov. Rose Mofford have stepped forward and offered to serve as honorary co-chairs of the Glassman senate campaign.
In 1976 DeConcini was a little known statewide candidate from Tucson when a pair of high-profile Republicans went after each other in a senate primary. DeConcini defied the odds and won the election.
Mofford worked her way up through Arizona politics and helped restore Arizona’s image after Republican Gov. Evan Mecham was impeached and removed from office.
DeConcini’s election, in particular, holds an important message about the potential of Glassman’s uphill bid. If McCain-Hayworth fully goes the way of Crist-Rubio, Rodney Glassman could well have the opportunity to pull off a sizable political surprise.
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