I wanted to summarize what I am hearing from various sources about the Senate races right now. I am going to rank these in my own personal priority order based on how progressive the Democratic candidate is, how extreme the Republican is, how close the race is, the bigger symbolism/national impact of the race, the outside spending (I figure any place the Chamber of Commerce and Koch Brothers are spending the most is a signal that it matters), the effectiveness of the campaigns themselves, the party committees' analysis, public polls, info from activists and interest groups working on the race, state party effectiveness, and other variables. One thing I have to say at the outset is how stunning it is that you can make a respectable argument (even if I don't buy them all) that 20 different races are reasonable competitive. There are races deep into the teens below that in a normal cycle would be in the top 6 targeted races in the country.
Here is my list:
1. Illinois. The last time I wrote about Senate races, Alexi Giannoulias was my number one priority in the country, and he remains so. The last poll I saw showed this a one point race, and I can't remember seeing a poll yet that wasn't in the margin of error. On the plus side, this is a Democratic state where Obama still has a lot of sway, and Kirk has established himself conclusively as a serial liar. On the other hand, the Giannoulias family bank failure (even though Alexi hasn't had any role in managing it for 5 years) continues to hurt him, and the Chamber of Commerce hates Alexi and is spending like a drunken sailor in the race. Alexi is a strong populist, progressive, and he deserves to win this race, but isn't taking any money from corporate special interests, so he is underfunded and needs our help.
2. Wisconsin. Russ Feingold is a symbol of progressivism who has stood tall on civil liberties, national security issues, and a variety of other issues no matter the political costs. His opponent, Ron Johnson, continues to run great ads unfortunately, and is spending $15 million of his own money. The numbers in this race have bounced all the hell over the place, sometimes showing Feingold up, sometimes Johnson, but safe to say it will be a battle down to the finish.
3. Kentucky. Still a tough state, especially in this political environment, but Jack Conway is hanging right in there. Virtually every poll I have seen has this race dead even or margin of error, and Rand Paul continues to say seriously goofy things every few days. Conway is a good guy and is running a solid race. And Rand Paul- who has the Chamber of Commerce, American Crossroads (the Karl Rove corporate front group), and the Koch Brothers backing him to the hilt- is a major league extremist.
4. Missouri. Another tough place to win statewide, but Carnahan still has a fighting chance. Polls show her bouncing between a dead heat and 5-6 down, but the trend lately is more in the dead heat category, and she has been running some great ads against Blunt. Blunt is the worst of D.C. corporate corruption: DeLay's closest ally, friend of Jack Abranoff, did favors for Phillip Morris while his girlfriend was a lobbyist there. This race is slightly uphill, but it's winnable, and winning would be sweet against one of the leading sleazes in American politics.
5. Connecticut. Linda McMahon is a billionaire from her and her husband's work promoting violence and sexism at the World Wrestling Federation, and she looks like she is ready to spend as much as a tenth of her ill-gotten gain trying to win this race. She would be one of the worst excuses for a senator this country has ever had, and Blumenthal's track record as Connecticut's Attorney General is actually pretty impressive. The race has tightened up because of McMahon's money, so Blumenthal needs all the help he can get.
6. Nevada. Losing the Majority Leader's seat to one of the nuttiest of the right wing nuts in this election cycle full of them would be a huge symbolic blow to the Democrats going into the next cycle, and for that reason alone it remains an important race. It is a measure of how tough this cycle is that someone as goofy as Angle remains only a couple of points down in virtually every poll that I see.
7. California. Barbara has opened a small but (at least lately) seemingly steady lead in this race, and despite Fiorina's money, the dynamics of the race seem to be moving our direction, but it is still close.
8. Washington. Same dynamic as the California race- Murray's established a small but steady lead.
9. Alaska. This one has been sneaking up on me. The dynamics are still tough, but this three-way race keeps getting more and more interesting. The Democratic nominee, Scott McAdams, still trails in the two better-known Republican candidates, but the two Republicans are having an all out tong war, both spending massive amounts of money trying to destroy each other. Republican friends tell me the money pouring in on both sides of the Miller-Murkowski slugfest is going to be enormous. In fact, because McAdams is behind, neither Murkowski (running a write-in campaign) nor the far, far, far right Republican nominee Joe Miller is worried about him right now, so they are training all their considerable firepower on each other. It reminds me of some 3-way primaries in the past- the one nominating Gray Davis in his first gubernatorial race and the one nominating Carol Moseley-Braun in her Senate race- where two huge spending candidates body slammed each other and the least known, smallest money candidate snuck into victory because voters came to dislike both big spenders. Keep an eye on this one.
10. North Carolina. Like Kentucky and Missouri, this is a tough state for a Democrat to be running in 2010. The difference between Elaine Marshall versus Conway and Carnahan is that she had to survive a tough primary, and came out of it with a massive money deficit compared to Republican incumbent Burr. In spite of that, she has kept this race within range, trailing only 7 to 10 points despite the unanswered ad barrage, and she has kept Burr under 50%. The remaining undecided voters in this race are mostly Democrats, and mostly have pretty unfavorable views toward Burr. Elaine still has a shot at winning this if she raises some dough.
11. Pennsylvania. I like Joe Sestak a lot, and love his ads. He too is keeping things within range in spite of being heavily outspent, and if things break a little toward the Democrats, and/or Toomey does something dumb, this might break our way. Pennsylvania has been a really hard hit state though, the Democratic/Obama brand is in tough shape here, and I am not feeling upbeat about this one.
12. Ohio. I keep hoping for a populist surge against a big business sleaze like Portman but it just doesn't seem like it is happening yet. The good news is that Portman is extremely vulnerable on the trade issue- a poll I have seen shows that 30% of the people currently voting for him move against him when they hear the trade message, so there is room for an upset if Lee can raise the money. The other good news for Lee is that Gov. Strickland's numbers have started to come back, and the Ohio Democratic Party field operation is completely outperforming the Republicans in early voting. Very uphill but Lee has room for a major upset on the trade issue if he can raise the money to get an anti-trade message out.
13. Iowa. Roxanne Conlin is as good a person as there is running for office this year, and the Democratic field operation in Iowa is as good as it gets, so far totally outperforming the Republicans in early voting. But Grassley is very tough to beat, and Roxanne will have to close the gap by a ways to give the field operation a chance to carry her home.
14. Colorado. This one feels a lot like PA, not yet impossible but looking increasingly like it is slip-sliding away from Bennet, who has never been a very exciting candidate. Buck is another far, far right-winger, but despite Buck's extreme views, Bennet has yet to gain traction. I am rating this one below PA because I think Sestak would be a more progressive Senator than Bennet.
15. New Hampshire. Hodes is running a strong reform message race and was one of the first to sign on to the MoveOn pledge, so I like him, but this one appears to be too far gone. If Kelly Ayotte had lost that close primary, Hodes would have been in the race, but it looks pretty tough right now, with Paul down by double digits.
16. Florida. This three-way race had the makings of an intriguing match-up, but with Crist and Meeks training their fire on each other in an attempt to become THE alternative to Rubio, this race feels like it is slipping out of hand. The Meeks people believe if their guy can emerge as the leading alternative to Rubio, voters and money will start moving their way, and that Rubio is vulnerable because of his far right views. I hope they are right but I fear that both time and money are in too short supply.
17. Louisiana. I like the populism I see in Charlie Melancon's messaging, and his one remains pretty close. But Louisiana is an awfully tough place to be a Democrat these days.
18. Indiana. Ellsworth remains behind big business lobbyist Coats and is running a pretty populist campaign against him, but there seems to be little traction.
19. Delaware. I like Coons a lot from what I have heard, but Delaware is not as high a priority because I think O'Donnell has put herself out of contention. I do like her "I am not a witch" ad, though- as far as I know, it is absolutely unique in American history.
20. Arkansas. I think Blanche is history, but she still has a boatload of money, so you never know.
Wow, only twenty races people are targeting this year. Anyway, that's my ranking and my update. For those of you keeping track, the top 3 races are the same top 3 priorities I had the last time I wrote after that things have moved around some: CA, WA, DE are in better shape, so I'm prioritizing them slightly less for example. Some races, like IA and FL, have slipped because the numbers just aren't going in the right direction. MO and CT have moved up the list because both races have tightened. But check out the list, and if I convince you on any of them, please get some cash to these candidates.
I will be doing periodic short updates on House, Senate, and Governor races between now and election day. My first one on the Senate is below. House race assessment will come Monday at 12 EST.
I want all the Democrats to beat all the Republicans, but with 19 different races that are competitive to one degree or another, I will be focusing my personal attention to the races that I care the most about, namely the ones with strong progressive candidates running in the tightest races. However, I know everyone cares about a wide variety of different factors, issues, and races, so I will give updates on every Senate race each time I write. I am putting them into three different categories. The first is made up of the more conservative Democrats from more conservative states. The second is the biggest group, decent progressive candidates in tough races. The third category is the one I am personally most strongly prioritizing: strong progressives in tough but winnable races.
Category 1 (no particular order)
1. Arkansas. Blanche Lincoln vs. John Boozman. Lincoln virtually destroyed herself with her paralysis and contradictions during the health care fight, making almost everyone incredibly angry. She is 20 points down in the polls, badly wounded by the tough primary fight, and very few Democrats around the country are eager to help her. However, she proved in the primary that she is one hell of a campaigner, and she does have a 4-1 cash advantage over a rather flawed Republican candidate, so she's not dead yet.
2. Louisiana. Charlie Melancon vs. David Vitter. Melancon voted against health care reform, is a conservative on most social issues, and, like all Louisiana politicians, won't buck the oil industry. On the other hand, he's taken a gutsy stand on some populist economic issues, including the Employee Free Choice Act, and is running against one of the top sleazebags in the Senate, David Vitter. This is an interesting race: it is hard to imagine a Democrat winning in the Deep South in such a Republican year, but Melancon is a good candidate and Vitter has some flaws, to understate the case by a mile or more.
3. Indiana. Brad Ellsworth vs. Dan Coats. Ellsworth would be a conservative vote on most social issues, and will have to be lobbied heavily on everything else, but I do give him some credit for being an economic populist on some issues, including health care, the stimulus, and banking reform this year (although he totally screwed up by coming out against repealing Bush's tax cuts for the rich). Coats is the worst caricature of a DC lobbyist, and should be vulnerable as a result, but it is a tough year for any Democrat to win in Indiana.
Category 2 (no particular order)
1. Paul Hodes vs. TBD. Kelly Ayotte would be a pretty strong candidate for the Republicans if she wins the primary. She has been consistently up by Hodes by double digits. If she loses to the rich right-winger running against her, though, Hodes has more potential to win. The best thing about Hodes is that he has begun running strongly on the reform agenda MoveOn and many other progressives have been promoting, which I think will help him.
2. Connecticut. Dick Blumenthal vs. Linda McMahon. Blumenthal's Vietnam stupidity wounded him, and McMahon will outspend him enormously. On the other hand, the WWF thing gives Democrats plenty of ammo, Blumenthal has been a well-liked Attorney General, and Connecticut is a Democratic state. I think Blumenthal's 8-10 point lead might shrink a little, but he is likely to win if he can do a decent job turning out the Democratic vote.
3. Florida. TBD vs. Marco Rubio vs. Charlie Crist. This is a confusing race all the way around. One of the worst people in this year's field of candidates, credit default swap kingpin Jeff Greene, is spending ungodly amounts of money to try and buy the Democratic nomination from Kendrick Meek, who is a very solid guy. If Greene wins the primary, no national Democrat will want to be associated with him, and he has no chance. If Meek wins, he will still have an uphill race in an odd three-way campaign. Crist is dangling the idea of caucusing with the Democrats, which may make it less compelling for national party money to go to Meeks.
4. Pennsylvania. Joe Sestak vs. Pat Toomey. Sestak is a solid candidate running a decent but not especially strong campaign. Toomey is the darling of both economic and social conservatives, the former head of the Club for Growth and a caucus of "family values" conservatives in the House. Sestak has a 2.5 million dollar money gap at the moment. Given the money edge, Sestak's flawed campaign, and Pennsylvania turning harder than many states against Obama, this will be a tough race to win.
5. Nevada. Harry Reid vs. Sharron Angle. Reid's approval ratings have been lagging for a year, but Angle may be the most extreme candidate of all in an extreme year for Republican candidates. Reid has moved a few points ahead in most of the polling reports available. I think Reid will pull this race out, just because of how crazy Angle is.
6. Washington. Patty Murray vs. Dino Rossi. Any other year, Murray would be breezing to re-election as she has been a fairly popular Senator and Rossi has a lot of flaws as a candidate, but right now they are running neck and neck. Outside Republican groups are targeting this race heavily. This will go down to the wire, with Democratic turnout being critically important.
7. Colorado. Michael Bennet vs. Ken Buck. I would have preferred Romanoff in this primary, who ran as a populist insurgent outsider, but Bennet is running a good campaign as well, and Buck is another very extreme Tea Party candidate. I think Bennet will pull out a tough race in the end, but this one will be close.
8. Delaware. Chris Coons vs. Mike Castle. This is an uphill race because Castle is popular, but Coons is running a very solid campaign, and Delaware is a pretty Democratic state. Coons is behind, but not by as much as people thought he would be.
9. Ohio. Lee Fisher vs. Rob Portman. Fisher survived a tougher-than-expected primary against a progressive woman with no money. Portman is an ex-Wall Street exec and Bush trade czar. This will be one of the closest races in the country. Unfortunately, Fisher has a $7.5 million fundraising deficit right now.
10. Missouri. Robin Carnahan vs. Roy Blunt. Roy Blunt was Tom DeLay's closest ally in the House. His entire career has been intertwined with helping the worst actors in corporate America. He has been the go-to guy for tobacco, the big banks, big oil, big insurance companies, and has is as right-wing as you can get on social issues as well. Robin has been a strong progressive reformer on both social and economic issues.
This is another tough race in the lean Republican political environment of Missouri in a Republican year. Robin in some respects is the right kind of populist to take on a sleazy insider like Blunt, and she is keeping the race very close. Unfortunately she just did the incredibly dumb thing of backing the Republicans on Bush's tax cuts for the rich, undercutting her case as a populist fighting for the middle class. Before she did that, I had this race as my number two priority for progressives, but that was a terrible decision.
Category 3. My top priority races, this time in reverse priority order. Given the candidates, campaigns, and their opponents, these are the races progressives could have the biggest impact on.
6. California. Barbara Boxer vs. Carly Fiorina. I hesitated to put this on the list, because California is such a big state and there is so much money swirling around that it is hard to make a difference. This race, though, is really important in many different ways. Boxer is an outspoken old school progressive, and if someone like her can't get elected in California, it will send shock waves through the entire national party. I've always thought Barbara was important in internal Senate dynamics because she is one of a very few progressives willing to push back and speak up against a lot of the good old boys who still dominate the Senate Democratic caucus. And beating the worst kind of corporate CEO hack like Fiorina is important symbolically in a populist year.
5. North Carolina. Elaine Marshall vs. Richard Burr. Elaine Marshall is a great candidate, remarkably progressive for the South, and Richard Burr has some big vulnerabilities- he's just not very popular. But Marshall has a $6 million fundraising deficit, and it will be very tough to win anywhere in the South in 2010.
4. Iowa. Roxanne Conlin vs. Chuck Grassley. This is the single toughest race of my top tier but it packs a massive political punch. Grassley is the ultimate entrenched political insider, the ranking Republican on Senate Finance, and with the possible exception of Mitch McConnell, may be the Senator who has done more to help big multinational corporations than anyone else. He is running against the ultimate movement progressive running this year, Roxanne Conlin. She is a crusading attorney who has spent her legal career suing big business on behalf of poor and working-class consumers, was an early leader of the feminist movement, and has been a supporter of every progressive issue campaign over the last 40 years.
No one gave Roxanne a chance when she decided to run, but Grassley's negatives have been steadily rising and she is within single digits. It's still a tough race to win in this Republican year, but Roxanne is in range.
3. Kentucky. Jack Conway vs. Rand Paul. Kentucky will be very tough for any Democrat to win, but this is a hugely important race. Paul is the top priority for tea partiers around the country, and if he gets a seat in the Senate, their extremist movement will have will have a standard bearer for years to come. I have been very impressed by Conway and the kind of campaign he is running, and he is very much in this race in spite of the toughness of the Kentucky political terrain.
2. Wisconsin. Russ Feingold vs. Ron Johnson. I get the sense that very few people understand how tough this race is shaping up for Feingold. Wisconsin is far more of a purple state than a blue one, and it has been hard-hit by the recession. Johnson is a very effective candidate, running ads with a compelling message, and he has tons of money. This race is currently a dead heat, and progressives will have to kick in big to save the seat.
1. Alexi Giannoulias vs. Mark Kirk. In my view, the race for Obama's old Senate seat is the most important race in the country for progressives. Kirk has been proven to be a serial liar about his biography, and a staunch supporter of the big banks and corporate America, but with his moderate social issue views, if he becomes an incumbent he will be tough to beat in the future even in a Democratic state like Illinois.
Alexi Giannoulias, on the other hand, is a crusading reformer who has staked his campaign on taking on big money and big business, and has pledged to form a Senate progressive caucus if he wins the race. He has lost a lot of money by turning down corporate lobbyist contributions, though, and Kirk has a $3 million edge, and the Chamber of Commerce is running attacks ads for him. Every dollar we can swing toward Alexi in this race right now is critical. The symbolism of winning this race and the stakes for the future only adds to its importance.
I was planning to write a piece on banking issues today, but with three surprise retirements of Democratic incumbents in statewide positions yesterday (Dorgan and Dodd in the Senate, Gov. Ritter in Colorado) I have to comment on that situation. Fortunately, the two things are pretty closely linked.
Look, I have no doubt that personal considerations entered into all three of these decisions, and we don't want to overdraw our conclusions here. Byron Dorgan and Chris Dodd have both been in the Senate a very long time, and are both getting to the age where retirement is an understandable option. There are all kinds of rumors about Ritter's more surprising news, but again there are likely very personal reasons for him wanting to not run for re-election.
Having said all that, though, there is very little doubt that a tough-looking 2010 for Democrats weighed into the decision-making here. Base enthusiasm is lagging, Obama's approval rating is sinking, unemployment isn't going down: political professionals are looking at all these factors and getting very nervous. Anyone who was considering retiring already has to be thinking that the 2010 election trends make the decision to get out while the getting is good a pretty smart one.
I'm not going to sugarcoat anything here: anytime you have a bunch of incumbents retiring, it's not a good sign for what people think of the party's chances in the fall. However, there is one really important silver lining: in a year when voters are in this foul a mood, non-incumbents and anti-establishment candidates have some significant advantages over incumbents. In 2006 and 2008, in many of the big primary races the anti-establishment insurgent won, including that 2008 Presidential race you might remember.
Which brings me to the banking issue. The biggest single mistake President Obama has made politically and economically was the one he made in the very earliest days of the transition, which was to signal he wasn't going to take on the big banks aggressively. Swing voters, Democratic base voters, and Democratic activists are all united on one key point: they hate the big banks on Wall Street, and are angry that politicians are not being far tougher on them. In order to survive and win elections in 2010, Democrats are going to have to separate themselves from Bob Rubin-style economic policies and be far more aggressive and populist in their campaigns. Doing that as a non-incumbent will be easier in many cases than trying to do it as an incumbent.
The movement against the banks is building and growing. On May 6th of last year, I wrote a piece about what would need to happen to take on the power of the big banks. I listed six ideas, the first of which- creating a new coalition to take on financial reform issues- happened in the weeks after my article with the formation of Americans for Financial Reform. The middle four ideas are all being worked on to one degree or another- progressives coming up with an economic Plan B to the one we care on now, working to get public financing of campaigns passed, encouraging investigative journalism in the banking arena, progressives forming more alliances with independent community bankers. The sixth idea, starting a nationwide movement to switch over money from the big banks and credit unions, got a huge burst of momentum with the launch of the Move Your Money campaign. Inspired by a dinner one night with Arianna Huffington and a group of top flight political and media strategists (and, no doubt, by the one line in my seven-month-old post- I'm sure everyone there has great memories about my blog posts), a new campaign was launched to encourage people to move their money from the too-big-to-fail banks which wrecked our economy into smaller independent community banks. Read about it here, and join the action.
Bailing out and coddling the big banks is the number one reason that swing voters, Democratic base votes, and Democratic activists have gotten angry at the establishment and less inclined to support Obama. If Democratic candidates on the ballot this year take up the anti-big bank banner, they will reap big benefits, because the anti-Wall Street movement is gaining momentum. And if the rest of us start challenging Wall Street's power in other ways, we might really begin to change America in a serious way.
I have been hearing from friends and family members about health care reform a great deal, many of them telling me phrases like "politics is the art of the possible", "half a loaf is better than no loaf at all", "it's time to end the gridlock." While in some contexts I would agree that it's time to compromise, we're not at that point yet on health care.
Today, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, normally one of the more taciturn members of Congress, endorsed that argument.
Meanwhile, Rep. James E. Clyburn (S.C.), the third-ranking Democrat in the House, said he has been reminding his party colleagues that Congress passed multiple, piecemeal civil rights bills in the 1960s and that activists had to put off demands for voting rights until 1965 to win a landmark ban on employment discrimination in 1964.
"LBJ made it very clear a half a loaf is better than no loaf at all," Clyburn said Wednesday. "We should do what can be done immediately and use the time between now and 2013 to figure out how to do the rest."
No, we shouldn't. Major attempts at health care reform comes along only once in a generation- as Ezra Klein pointed out, once every 19.5 years. We're not going to have another major shot at this anytime soon. Folks who are saying we should do what everyone agrees upon now- a ban on discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, a ban on dropping sick people from coverage, a ban on annual caps- and fix it later don't get that. When the horrible Medicare Part D bill was passed in 2003, a give-away to insurance companies and a nightmare for seniors, did Democrats go back and fix it when they took the majority in 2007? What about the 2005 bankruptcy bill, provisions of which that exempted derivatives from regulation helped lead towards the current financial crisis? The Military Commissions Act?
If arguments that the worst abuses under Republicans can be corrected later when Democrats are in charge are completely without basis in evidence, I don't know what makes Jim Clyburn expect that we'll just fix health care reform later, like it's as easy as changing a lightbulb. We'd be banking on not only picking up seats in the 2010 elections, which historically does not happen during a Democratic President's midterm, but we would need to pick up the seats of folks who actually would support a public option in the Senate. As Chris writes, Chris Dodd is already on the ropes, and we may lose Delaware. Who are we banking on for pickups that will actually commit to voting for a public option and hold firm? Mongiardo or Conway in Kentucky? Melancon, a Blue Dog, in Louisiana?
And what happens in between attempts? More people will lose their coverage, the uninsured will go uninsured, and premiums for people like me will continue to go up. Will our institutional allies have as much money and resources to spend on the ground? Will President Obama be as popular, and have as much capital and political favors as he does now? Oh, wait, he's already down to 50% in multiple polls. But I bet Clyburn would have told us with his crystal ball six months ago that his popularity would always remain above 60% for the first year of his term.
There are too many, to quote Rumsfeld, known unknowns in this hypothetical. We have to do it all now and make the Republicans vote against reform that will help their constituents. To do otherwise would be to take a very large gamble at a very large cost.
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