As harbingers of how an upcoming election race will ensue, few occurrences matter as much as do retirements of incumbents. Thus, it must come as dreadful news for the Democrats that Senator Chris Dodd (CT) and Senator Byron Dorgan (ND) will not be seeking re-election this fall. As well, it is being reported that 2 more Democrats will soon join them.
Dorgan’s announcement virtually guarantees that his seat will switch parties; Dodd’s retirement is more ambiguous. As was reported here last month, Dodd was in particular danger due to both policy decisions and personal peccadilloes.
These 2 decisions, particularly Dorgan’s, virtually guarantee that the Democrats will fall below 60 in the Senate. Thus, the filibuster-proof Senate will be over come November. It is also likely that, following the passage of health care soon, nothing of any consequence which is controversial will be passed within the next 7 years.
January 6th, 2010 at 7:04 am
Arriba,
The fascinating data yesterday are the exact numbers for Massachusetts that were released by Scott Rasmussen.
The exact numbers are:
Brown:
January 6th, 2010 at 7:09 am
Arriba,
Let’s try again.
Brown: 41.45%
Coakley: 49.91%
Now the intriguing results.
Republicans split:
Brown: 71.43%
Coakley: 24.01%
Democrats split:
Brown: 17.17%
Coakley: 75.10%
Independents split:
Brown: 65.03%
Coakley: 21.43%
So, to summarize:
If republicans shore up their base, the race will be closer.
PPP has an interesting blog post on this race. They say that, assuming Brown gets the same percentage of his base as McDonnell in VA and the same percentage increase in Republicans coming out to the polls, and Coakley gets the percentages that Deeds got in VA, then the race is 51.5% to 48.5%
This would be winnable.
Frank
January 6th, 2010 at 8:23 am
The new Democrats that will be running will try everything to distance themselves from the current Democratic government. Good luck with that! Republicans were not able to distance themselves from Bush in 2006 and 2008. I personally like President Bush’s policies – most of them.
January 6th, 2010 at 8:34 am
“I personally like President Bush’s policies – most of them.”
On the security front, so does Obama.