Democrats’ 2010 Senate prospects dimming

Posted by Bill Dupray on Oct 13 2009 Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Political handicappers are looking at the 2010 Senate contests and they see lots of blue seats turning purple and red before their eyes.

Toss-ups

Stuart Rothenberg yesterday moved Harry Reid’s seat from ‘Narrow Advantage for Incumbent’ to ‘Toss-up.’

When you look at the Democrats in his ‘Tossup’ category, you wonder whether these are really toss-ups or whether Rothenberg is whispering ‘it will all be okay’ in their ears.

* IL Open (Burris, D)
* Dodd (D-CT)
* Reid (D-NV) *

In the Illinois race, we had a poll out today showing Republican Mark Kirk leading Democrat Alexi Giannoulias by 7 points in his bid to fill Obama’s seat. With Rod Blagojevich’s going away in handcuffs after filling the seat with Roland Burris, one cannot help but think this seat leans more to the right than left.

In Connecticut, RCP has Rob Simmons beating Chris Dodd by 6 points, and Dodd has not led in any poll since March.

Reid is trailing both of his potential GOP rivals.

In one general election scenario, 49 percent of respondents picked Lowden and 39 percent chose Reid. In another, 48 percent picked Tarkanian to 43 percent for Reid. That poll, which surveyed 500 voters Tuesday through Thursday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

GOP Takeover

While those are the toss-ups, Rothenberg has at least one flat-out likely flip for the GOP in Delaware. Joe Biden’s seat seems like the lowest hanging fruit for Republican picking. He is not alone. Chris Cillizza agrees agrees that Delaware is the most endangered seat for the Blue team.

Lean Incumbent

When you look at the Democrat seats that ‘Lean Incumbent,’ they are not much better.

We are also moving two other Democratic-held Senate seats, Arkansas (Blanche Lincoln) and Colorado (Michael Bennet) from Clear Advantage for Incumbent Party to Narrow Advantage for Incumbent Party, based on their standings in polling and the improved quality of recent Republicans who have entered those contests.

Blanche Lincoln trails all 4 of her would-be Republican rivals and can’t get over 50% herself in any of the contests.

Bennet has got trouble to his left and his right. Much to the chagrin of the Party, a popular Democratic former state lawmaker, Andrew Romanoff, has decided to challenge Bennet in the primary. The Democrats had better hope that Romanoff is really popular, because a poll last month showed Bennet losing to former Republican Lieutenant Governor Jane Norton by 9 points.

Then there is ol’ Arlen Specter, who has to get by a real Democrat, Joe Sestak, before he gets to take on a real Republican, Pat Toomey. It seems that the Democrats are trying to out-Commie each other to win over the moonbat base. The problem is that, whichever one wins will leave Toomey with lots of good video for the general election.

But as time has gone on, the extent to which the two men have indeed attempted to outdo each other by taking more and more progressive stances has become fairly comical.

Cillizza thinks Specter and Sestak could be rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The most recent Quinnipiac University poll painted a troubling picture for Sen. Arlen Specter (D). While he continued to lead Rep. Joe Sestak (D) by double digits, Specter had dropped well below the 50 percent mark he enjoyed in past polls. And, in a general election matchup Specter was running even with former Rep. Pat Toomey (R). Toomey continues to impress with his fundraising — collecting more than $1.5 million from July 1 to Sept. 30. Democrats scoff at Toomey’s potential competitiveness but they are headed toward a primary that could well leave their eventual nominee badly battered and financially bereft.

That is a total of 7 endangered Democrats. How it is that they aren’t in a wild-eyed panic over these numbers is beyond me. It makes you wonder if, when it comes time to vote, all of Obama’s best laid plans will go right down the crapper when Democrats realize how vulnerable they really are.

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