Projected 2010 Senate: Democrats 52-48 (assuming no caucus switches)
The wave of May primaries has improved the Senate picture for Democrats. In the case of all six major primary campaigns this month, Democrats either secured, or were not eliminated from securing, their most favorable general election matchup. In most cases, that also resulted in the more progressive–or at least less establishment–candidate winning the Democratic nomination.
Overall, Democrats are still stuck at 52 seats in the forecast. Still, they have improved by nearly half a seat over the past two months, and have greatly increased the number of campaigns where they are within striking distance. Democrats can realistically win all 12 of the first 20 campaigns, from Nevada on up, in full Senate chart I provide in the extended entry. Additionally, last night’s results suggest that John McCain is in real trouble in Arizona, making for a 13th winnable, competitive Senate seat. If Democrats were to somehow sweep all 13, then they would actually gain a seat in the Senate, recapturing their 60-vote supermajority.
Still, a 60-seat supermajority is not realistic. What is realistic is winning 54-56 seats, and then enacting filibuster and other procedural reform on the first day the Senate is in session for 2011. That would possibly make it easier to pass progressive legislation through the Senate than it has been in 2009-2010.
With a (slowly) improving economic and electoral climate, and with Democratic Senators are holding more hearings on how to enact filibuster reform today, this is an achievable goal. Not only Democrats are either leading, or within 2.5%, of enough campaigns right now to win 55 Senate seats, but even Robert Byrd is now coming out in favor of filibuster reform:
There are rays of hope for both Democrats and progressives right now.
Senate forecast overview
Dems*
GOP
Not up for election
41
23
Incumbent party safe
6
10
Sub-total
47
33
Current polling
5.07
14.93
Projected total
52
48
* = Because they caucus with Senate Democrats, Independents Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman are considered Democrats
In the extended entry, check out the full chart of the 20 Senate seats that might switch partisan control.
While David Brooks and David Broder will undoubtedly deliver stern lectures to the country tomorrow for its refusal to be all centrist, really there is no reason to sweat the national media narrative tonight at all.
We don’t run primaries to win a few news cycles. We don’t win them to persuade pundits, or get the same level of media play as the teabaggers. We run primaries to send a message to Democratic elected officials.
Tonight, for the first time ever, two incumbent Democratic Senators failed to win primaries in a single day. That has never happened before, and is greater than the number of incumbent Democratic Senators who lost primaries over the past decade combined. Further, both challengers had little to no establishment support (especially Sestak), and one was in a red state (Halter). Most importantly, both challengers took on the incumbents from the left.
The bottom line from all of this it that Democrats have to answer to the grassroots everywhere now.
That is the message tonight, and we were delivering it to Senate Democrats, not to the media. Both in the short term as fights Wall Street reform unfold, and in the longer term as the party reconsiders its modus operandi, it is a message we are going to keep delivering, over and over again, until they finally frakking hear it.
Primaries matter–that’s damn right. Click on the banner below to check out Open Left’s sponsor, Democracy for America, and join the ongoing fight to reform the Democratic Party.
It is raining today here in Philadelphia. Doubtful Specter will get the turnout he needs. The 15-day average is used in this election because of dramatic recent trends, and the high volume of polling on the campaign.
If no candidate reaches 50%, there will be a June 8th run-off. That’s the goal today. On the Republican side, John Boozman could well reach the 50% threshold. He is polling at 46%, with 15% undecided.
While I don’t feel quite as good about using the snarky blue-red coloring on this campaign, there it is anyway. On the Republican side, Rand Paul leads by 16.3%.
****
Polls in Kentucky start closing at 6 pm, and completely close at 7 pm. In Pennsylvania, polls close at 8 pm. In Arkansas, polls close at 8:30 pm. All times listed here are eastern.
Got any last minute predictions? The polls suggest Sestak, Critz, Lincoln (just over 50%, that is) and Mongiardo all win squeakers. However, primary polling and House polling really does not have a very good track record, so it’s all up in the air.
The final Quinnipiac poll of the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary shows Jose Sestak leading Arlen Specter by a single point. While a one point lead is far from a blowout or a sure thing, what is significant about this poll is that there are now exactly zero polling firms showing Arlen Specter ahead. Here are the final polls from the six pollsters to conducts surveys of this campaign in May:
Across these six polls, Sestak leads by 3.2% on the mean, and 2% on the median. The 15-day average I use for other forecasts shows Sestak up 2.6%.
None of those leads make Sestak anywhere close to a sure thing. However, Specter is only competitive in this primary due to his ongoing advantage in name ID, an advantage which averages 20% across five of these six polls (excluding F & M). That means Specter still has a big advantage among low information voters (who have still never heard of Sestak), and as such will need high Democratic turnout to win (since these low-information voters are less likely to vote). With Democratic turnout sharply down in primaries do far this year, that ain’t too bloody likely.
I expect Sestak to win as this point, and to become the first Democrat to defeat an incumbent backed by Obama in a primary. Admittedly, Specter’s party switch made this campaign far more winnable than any of the other primary or legislative campaigns when progressives staked out a position to the left of the administration, so it may not really be a breakthrough moment yet. From the very beginning of the campaign, Sestak was always ahead among Pennsylvania Democrats who had heard of both candidate, and he held a 2-1 lead among Pennsylvania Democrats who thought Arlen Specter switched parties to win re-election. In the environment, Sestak did exactly what he had to do to win: run a grueling slog of retail politics and fundraising to gather up just enough ground supporters and resources in order to raise his name ID and run ads of Specter saying he switched parties to win re-election. It wasn’t easy to do that with the entire Democratic establishment working against him, but on the eve of the primary it seems likely that he has pulled it off.
In their endorsement of Joe Sestak today, MoveOn came close to summing up what a victory in Tuesday’s primary would mean:
Joe Sestak has a strong record in Congress, supporting health care reform, clean energy, and a woman’s right to choose. If he wins the primary on Tuesday, it’ll send a powerful message that voters want Democrats in Congress who’ll proudly lead the fight for progressive legislation.
Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Let me offer a slight re-phrasing, however. The reason progressives need to keep engaging in progressive primary challenges against Democrats-pretty much wherever and whenever they are available–is to provide a counterweight to the massive amount of incentives elected Democrats have to engage in conservative and / or pro-corporate behavior.
Let’s review what those incentives are, quoting at length from a snarky post I wrote last year, (but hey, just because you are joking doesn’t mean you aren’t serious), “BREAKING: I am now a conservative Democrat.”
After several years of trying to “retake” the Democratic Party and make it more progressive, today I am giving up and becoming a conservative Democrat. Upon careful consideration, the benefits packages are simply too heavily tilted toward the corporate wing of the party. Check it out:
Being a conservative Democrats gets you ten times the media mentions that one gets being a progressive. You chances of appearing on Sunday talk shows also skyrockets.
Being a conservative Democrat gets you more money, too. You can proclaim that you are a conservative Democrat, and still have small, progressive, grassroots donors be by far your top contributors. Hard to argue with receiving both enormous big dollar fundraisers held in your honor and huge amounts of money from small progressive donors. So really, who cares if bloggers complain about you. Their readers are still going to fork over huge amounts of money.
If you are a conservative Democrat, you get frequentmeetings with the President and proclamations that he is one of your own. If you are a progressive, you have to stand at the back of the line, and then get threats about never hearing from the White House again if you step out of line.
Being a conservative Democrat also makes you far more likely to receive a major cabinet appointment. Not even counting the Republicans, New Democrats outnumber Progressives in President Obama’s cabinet by 7-1.
Finally, if one of those crazy progressives decides to challenge you in a primary campaign, if you are a conservative Democrat you can also count on the endorsements of 95% of your congressional colleagues, the entire party leadership, and virtually every progressive advocacy organization. They will stand by you.
So really, why would anyone be a progressive Democrat given the different bonus packages that are on offer? I think my move makes a lot of sense. Every Democrat should be a conservative.
The threat of being defeated—or at least seriously challenged–in a primary election is one of the very few counterweights progressives can offer to this massive list of incentives elected Democrats have of acting in pro-conservative, pro-corporate ways. There may be benefits to sounding progressive on the campaign trail, but as far as governing in a progressive manner goes, not so much (except for, perhaps, not creating a sucky economy that results in a sucky electoral environment for incumbents).
Now, there need to be carrots, too. Rewarding the efforts of members of Congress like Alan Grayson can also serve as a form of incentive. If Congresscritters see that being a progressive leader can result in positive outcomes for your efforts at re-eelction and passing legislation, that will also help serve as a counterweight to the bullet points listed above.
But, right now, with several primaries looming over the horizon, it is time to get out the stick rather than the carrot. We need to make the following six upcoming primaries as painful as possible for these six Democrats who have spent most of their careers catering primarily to conservative and corporate interests. We need to do this in every district, and not just run up a white flag saying “oh, its OK to suck up to conservatives and corporations if you are from a red district.” That easily translates into “we are cool with you sticking it to us whenever it is politically expedient for you to do so,” a proposition that defeats the entire purpose of de-incentivizing pro-corporate, pro-conservative behavior among elected Democrats.
Set out your stick, and get your primary on. Here are six campaigns for you to join (help out in as many or as few as you wish) between now and June 22nd:
Primaries on May 18th
Join Joe Sestak, running for Pennsylvania Senate against ConservaDem Arlen Specter
Join Bill Halter, running for Arkansas Senate against ConservaDem Blanche Lincoln
Join Shelia Dow Ford, running for Pennsylvania’s 17th Congressional district against Blue Dog Tim Holden.
Primaries on June 8th
Join Marcy Winograd, running for California’s 36th Congressional district against Blue Dog Jane Harman
Primaries on June 22nd
Join Elaine Marshall, running for Senate in North Carolina, and facing a run-off with future ConservaDem Cal Cunningham
Join Claudia Wright, running for Utah’s 2nd Congressional district against Jim Matheson.
(Notes: This includes the Research 2000 poll that will show Sestak up 2%. As far as the trend in the Muhlenberg tracking poll, just wait until tomorrow, when the Monday sample is removed. In that one-day sample, Specter gained 4% overall. Its removal should give Sestak a nice bump.)
Arkansas Senate, Democratic primary Lincoln +10.5% (two polls, May 3rd to current)
(Note: While Lincoln leads, if neither no candidate reach 50%+1, there will be a June 8th runoff. With a third candidate close to 10%, that is very possible)
On April 28th, 2009, the day he left the Republican Party, Arlen Specter was losing the Republican primary to Pat Toomey. The three most recent polls showed Toomey ahead by an average of 6.7%, and the two most recent polls showed Toomey ahead by an average of 17.5% (Franklin and Marshall, showing Specter up 15%, is a sucky pollster).
If there were some sort of Independent primary, Specter would also be losing that. Specter’s favorable ratings among Independents in Pennsylvania are 30% favorable, 58% unfavorable. Pat Toomey is at 32%–9%, and Joe Sestak is at 31%–18%.
There is talk about this being anti-incumbent year, rather than just a pro-Republican year.. Well, there is no possible better test of that thesis than this primary. Arlen Specter is the ultimate incumbent, but the people of Pennsylvania don’t much like him anymore. If the establishment, including Organizing for America, can pull this off for him anyway, then maybe this is just a pro-Republican, pro-conservative year, and not an anti-incumbent one.
Last night on Hardball, Arlen Specter said that he knew his days in the republican party were numbered after his stimulus vote:
“When that vote came up on the stimulus, I knew it was the end of my association with the Republican Party. “
This is a flat-out lie. Far from demonstrating a principled or conclusive break with the Republican Party, Arlen Specter’s actions from his stimulus vote until his party switch demonstrate par excellence that Specter acts based on polling and to save himself, not on principle..
Specter stuck around in the Republican Party for eleven weeks after the stimulus (stimulus first passed on February 10th, Specter switched on April 28th). After the vote, he went out of his way to try and appeal to Republicans by qualifying his support of the stimulus and shifting hard to the right on a variety of issues. It was only after polling revealed none of those efforts would save him in the Republican primary that he switched the the Democratic Party. And, even before he switched, he secured a promise of support from the Democratic leadership in the event of any possible primary challenge.
None of this is hard to prove. Specter’s own statement on switching parties said that he talked to Republicans and watched polls for weeks after the stimulus vote, and only later concluded that a schism had occurred (emphasis mine):
Since [voting for the stimulus package], I have traveled the State, talked to Republican leaders and office-holders and my supporters and I have carefully examined public opinion. It has become clear to me that the stimulus vote caused a schism which makes our differences irreconcilable.
At his press conference the day he switched, Specter reiterated that his decision to switch was gradual, not a schism, and it was based on polls (emphasis mine):
“The decision has been reached gradually as I have traveled the state in the last several months,” Specter said. “And specifically, I got my own poll results back last Friday–late last week, [Specter switched the next Tuesday] and consulted with my campaign managers, and had a long discussion with Joan and my son Shanin over the weekend, and came to a decision over this past weekend.”
Specter is flat-out contradicting himself when he says that he knew his days in the Republican Party were over when he voted for the stimulus. He stuck around for eleven weeks, looking at poll numbers, and only “gradually” came to that conclusion.
During those eleven weeks, switching parties was not the only decision Specter made based on polls. As he saw polls coming in showing him well behind Pat Toomey for the Republican nomination, his voting habits shifted hard to the right in a last ditch effort to appeal to Republican voters. Last year, Nate Silver showed that Specter shifted from voting with Democrats 58% of the time in 2009 before a March 25th Quinnipiac poll showed him trailing Pat Toomey in the Republican primary. After the poll, Specter only voted with Dems 16% of the time:
Specter did not give up on appealing to the Republican base after the stimulus. In addition to the broad voting measurements Silver offers, during the eleven weeks that he remained a Republican, Specter found time to announce that he would vote against card-check (even though he voted in favor in 2007), that he was reintroducing his 20% flat-tax proposal (which slashes taxes for the wealthiest 5% and raises them for everyone else), to vote against Elena Kagan for Solicitor General, and to block Dawn Johnsen.
And then, lest we forget, even after his vote in favor of the stimulus, Specter bragged about cutting $100 billion from it, and said he wished the entire package had just been tax cuts. This is all still on his website.
We were able to cut out $100 billion from the package and include 35% in tax relief in the overall bill. My preference would have been John McCain’s proposal, which I voted for, to have the stimulus package of $421 billion in tax cuts alone. I voted for the Reagan tax cuts back in 1981 and that would be the best course, but in a legislative body you don’t have exactly your own choice.
“I was impressed with the position of the United States Chamber of Commerce which was for the bill very solidly. The Chamber of Commerce, obviously, is a very conservative, Republican organization which has its hands on the economy and what’s happening to many, many businesses and they were for it. All factors considered, I thought that action had to be taken.
“I voted for it with reservations, as I have commented.”
Specter went on to bend over backward to trying to qualify his position the stimulus to Republicans. He emphasized that he cut money from it, would have preferred all tax cuts, that he supported the Reagan tax cuts, sides with the Chamber of Commerce, and still had reservations anyway.
Finally, even when none of these efforts worked,, and Specter still trailed Toomey by gaping margins, before he switched parties Specter first secured a promise from the Democratic leadership that they would support him in any potential primary challenge he might receive:
Specter was promised that the Democratic Party would fully support his candidacy as a Democrat and would not back any other Democrat seeking the seat. “In money and message,” the party will be behind Specter. Any other Democrat who intends to run will “not have the blessing of the party.”
None of this is really a surprise from a Senator who, back in 2006, did this:
Prior to the vote on the Military Commissions Act of 2006, he [Specter] went to the floor of the Senate and said what the bill “seeks to do is set back basic rights by some 900 years” and is “patently unconstitutional on its face.” He then proceeded to vote YES on the bill’s passage.
Arlen Specter is one of the most all-time self-serving politicians. Even his claim that he was the deciding vote on the stimulus ignores that there were 61 votes for the stimulus when it first passed the Senate, which allowed Ted Kennedy to stay in the hospital during the vote on the conference report.
If Democrats were to nominate this man, it would reflect extremely poorly on our own party. Surely, Democrats stand for more than just staying in power. Hell, by nominating Specter, Democrats would show they aren’t even very good at staying in power, since Joe Sestak performs 5% better against Pat Toomey than Arlen Specter. This is hardly a surprise, since Specter’s self-serving actions are now on display for the whole state of Pennsylvania to see, and voters do not typically react well to politicians who only look out for themselves.
Between now and June 22nd, progressive pose a real threat to House Blue Dogs and Senate ConservaDems in at least six primary campaigns. Five of these primary campaigns feature incumbents, and in all six campaigns the Democratic Party machinery is backing the more conservative candidate. Sometimes, as is the case in the Pennsylvania Senate primary, this support means several hundred thousand dollars of paid advertisements.
There is no better way to get Democratic members of Congress to listen to you, than by defeating, or even by coming close to defeating, incumbent Democrats in primary elections. If you can beat the party, or at least make them sweat, then they have no choice but to take you, and your concerns, seriously. These are six campaigns where the party machinery is already sweating.
So, today I a asking you to join up with all six of these primary campaigns. Follow the links below, and sign up to their email lists. If you want abetter Democratic Party, this is the best possible way to make that happen:
Primaries on May 18th
Join Joe Sestak, running for Pennsylvania Senate against ConservaDem Arlen Specter
Join Bill Halter, running for Arkansas Senate against ConservaDem Blanche Lincoln
Join Shelia Dow Ford, running for Pennsylvania’s 17th Congressional district against Blue Dog Tim Holden.
Primaries on June 8th
Join Marcy Winograd, running for California’s 36th Congressional district against Blue Dog Jane Harman
Primaries on June 22nd
Join Elaine Marshall, running for Senate in North Carolina, and facing a run-off with future ConservaDem Cal Cunningham
Join Claudia Wright, running for Utah’s 2nd Congressional district against Jim Matheson.
There will be more primaries over the summer, and lots of general elections to focus on as well, but right now these are the campaigns we need to support. So, sign up and get your primary on! The Democratic Party won’t represent you just to be nice,or if you just stamp your feet–this is something we have to fight for.
An incumbent Democrat in the U.S. House lost a primary challenge last night. Alan Mollohan, WV-01, was defeated by the more conservative State Senator Mike Oliverio. With Oliverio scoring a comfortable 56%–44% victory, it seems that Mollohan’s ethical troubles easily trumped charges that Oliverio was too conservative:
During the campaign, Oliverio focused almost solely on Mollohan’s past ethical troubles in his TV ads, and highlighted CREW’s designation of Mollohan as one of the 15 most corrupt members of Congress.
Mollohan struck back and claimed DoJ cleared him of any wrongdoing. He also attacked Oliverio for participating in a group of conservative legislators that supports privatizing Social Security and outsourcing of U.S. jobs.
Oliverio did not even run on the health care bills, for which Mollohan voted. The section of his website dedicated to health care is all of nine sentences in length, and clearly has not been updated for at least two months, as it notes that he has (emphasis mine) “serious reservations about the bills now before congress.” He even left how he would vote on the health care reform bill vague.
I think the main lessons from this campaign is that corruption will trump ideology almost every time. It took down William Jefferson in a deep blue district, just as it took down Republicans in deep red districts like PA-10 and TX-22. Given the role that corruption played in this campaign, I am not even sure if this can be chalked up to an “anti-incumbent” feeling.
This is also why I think Democrats made a very bad move in Illinois when they nominated Alexi Giannoulias for Senate over the more conservative Doug Hoffman. Democrats simply should not be losing a Senate campaign in Illinois, but a candidate attached to a failed family bank is going to be a very difficult mountain to climb this year. It make shte rst of the party look bad, too, if they come to aid Giannoulias.
Even as we work to build progressive power, we cannot support progressive Democrats mired in scandal over more conservative Democrats who are cleaner. Corruption trumps ideology with voters, and defending corruption for the sake of ideology will taint our efforts as a whole.
Last week, two of the more conservative Democrats in the House of Representatives, Larry Kissell and Heath Shuler, faced surprisingly stiff primary challenges from candidates who raised literally no money:
On Tuesday in North Carolina, two Democratic House incumbents fared surprisingly poorly against left-wing primary challengers. From Public Policy Polling (emphasis mine):
The biggest story out of Tuesday’s election results in North Carolina was not anything related to the US Senate race, but the surprisingly weak performances by Larry Kissell and Heath Shuler in their primaries. Kissell received 63% and Shuler only 62% against candidates who did not have the resources to mount really serious campaigns.
The poor performances by Kissell and Shuler and where they did poorly- the most liberal parts of their districts- are a clear indication that there is significant unhappiness with them on the left. The question now is how that unhappiness will manifest itself this fall.
The candidates Kissell and Shuler faced, Nancy Shakir and Alixa Wilson, had raised a combined total of zero dollars as of March 31. Not even a single dollar.
These results suggest that there is a larger pool Democrats who are disgruntled at the incumbents in their own party than previously imagined. In fact, this pool of disgruntled Democrats might well be larger than the much more publicized tea party.
Over the past week, more evidence has appeared that the Democratic base is digusted with conservative Democratic incumbents. In Utah, conservative Democrat Jim Matheson has been forced into a primary challenge against a challenger who has raised less than 1% of his money:
It was a busy political convention weekend in Utah, with party activists feeling restless. Over on the Democratic side, five-term Rep. Jim Matheson was unable to reach 60% of the delegate vote at his party’s convention, forcing him into a primary for his house seat against retired high school teacher and adjunct college instructor Claudia Wright. And all this in the same weekend that saw Utah GOPers unseat their own incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett.
Matheson took 55% of the vote to Wright’s 45% — a stunning position for a nine-year incumbent. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Democratic activists were put off by the Blue Dog Matheson’s instances of voting against the Democratic legislative agenda, with his vote against the new health care reform law as one example.
“You’re angry about some of my votes,” Matheson told the convention, which responded with what the Tribune described as ironic applause. “But I’m a Democrat and I’m here to tell you I don’t run from that label because it’s in my blood.”
This morning, a poll shows that Blue Dog Tim Holden is receiving a similarly cool reception from the Democratic voters in his district. A new poll shows him leading Shelia Dow Ford, who has all of $6,607 on hand, 54%-27%. It is pretty stunning that Holden can only get 54% support in this district, even though he has been in Congress for 18 years and is running against someone who basically does not have a campaign.
Taken together, these four campaigns show that there is very fertile ground for progressive primary challenges against Blue Dogs. The base is sick of conservative Democrats who vote with Republicans (all four have Progressive Punch scores under 50% on crucial votes in 2009-2010, and all four voted against the health care bill). This is even the case in red districts (all four of these districts have lean-Republican, or strong Republican, Cook Partisan Voting Indexes). All four of these incumbent Democrats are surrendering around 40% of the primary vote to candidates who have raised virtually no money and who are not even able to run real campaigns. Imagine what could have happened if they faced strong primary challenges.
Over at FDL, Jon Walker thinks that Republican Party is now the hotbed of insurgencies against the institutional status quo. Well, I think the House results listed above, combined with the unfolding results in the Arkansas, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina Senate primaries, shows that there is as much, if not more, fertile ground for progressive primary challenges in the Democratic Party. Progressives are getting 35-40% of the vote for free against Blue Dogs. The key is just that we have to be targeting Democrats who have voted against the party’s agenda from the right, rather than focusing on progressive Democrats for not bringing down the party’s agenda because it wasn’t progressive enough. Enough of the base is with us to win campaigns against the former, but not against the latter.
I am working on getting together some materials to help these primary challengers, and hope to launch a campaign to this effect later today. It is time for us to get into the fight. Stay tuned.
Three new polls this morning show, on average, the Pennsylvania Senate primary exactly tied. Quinnipiac shows Specter up 2%, F & M shows Sestak up 2%, and Muhlenberg shows an exact tie.
Worth noting about these polls:
All are among likely primary voters. Quinnipiac has the largest sample size, with 945. Muhlenberg 407, and F & M has only 150. No matter the differences in sample size, the similarity between the three polls suggests the campaign is a toss-up.
Sestak has the strongest support, according to Quinnipiac:
Specter’s support is slightly weaker than Sestak’s as 34 percent of the incumbent’s voters say they might change their mind, compared to 25 percent of the challenger’s backers.
Specter would benefit from higher turnout, as he leads among all registered Demorats, according to F & M:
But the poll also shows Mr. Specter ahead 38 to 29 percent among all 404 adult Democrats surveyed if the likeliness of their voting was not considered.
Democratic turnout in primaries has been low in 2010, so this is small comfort for Specter.
While the trend in the ttacking poll suggests that Specter has stemmed the Sestak surge, Sestak still has room to grow:
Specter remains better known than Sestak, with a 50 – 33 percent favorability. By comparison, Sestak gets a 42 – 10 percent favorability, with 46 percent saying they don’t know enough about him to have an opinion.
Sestak will surely become better known over the final week. It will, however, be difficult for him to maintain his better than 4-1 favorability rating. Those two trends–likely rising name ID, but a lower favorable ratio–might cancel each other out.
Polling over the next few days will provide further clarity, or lack thereof, on the campaign. One thing is for certain, however: there is no way that Specter could have won this campaign without all the endorsements from party officials and establishment progressive institutions. In a straight up match against Sestak, without any endorsements, Specter loses. This campaign is struggle between the rank and file of Pennsylvania Democrats, and their “leaders.”
Today in Pennsylvania Senate news, Arlen Specter has gone on the air with an ad featuring President Obama:
The deciding vote, eh? This ad reminds me of the ones that Specter ran six years ago. Rick Santorum also liked Arlen Specter, when he cast the deciding vote on the Bush tax cuts:
And, Specter ran an ad nearly identical to the one he is now running with Obama, featuring George W. Bush:
The Pennsylvania primary is an interesting test case that will help provide answers to many political questions:
Can the powers that be can hoist any candidate they want onto their constituents? Really, its pretty impressive to get the entire political establishment of both parties to try and defend you from your own constituents. It is doubtful that there is any current member of the U.S. Senate that the institutional status quo loves more, and has done more to support, than Arlen Specter.
Do voters actually like bipartisanship or not? Over the final week, Specter will simultaneously be featured in ads showing him with Bush and with Obama.
How much sway does Obama really have in Democrtic primaries? If Obama really can move votes among Democrats, Specter’s ad today really should be a sort of trump card that wins him the primary. But, if Sestak is able to pull it out, don’t expect fear of the White House to sway many prospective primary challengers anymore.
Today’s tracking poll shows Sestak up 4%, down from 5% yesterday. Also, Specter has twice as much money to spend in the final week as Sestak. This campaign is far from over, and you can help out at Joe Sestak’s website.
The first poll on the Pennsylvania general election for Senate since Joe Sestak began rising in the polls is out. It completely destroys the idea that Arlen Specter is more electable than Joe Sestak:
This campaign is being looped into a general “purge” narrative of hard-core ideologues dumping incumbent Senators in primary (or some such whining). However, on a purely pragmatic level, at this point, it would be electoral suicide for Democrats not to nominate Joe Sestak for Senate in Pennsylvania. If Specter is able to come back and pull this primary out, Democrats will start in a big hole. By comparison, with Sestak, they are only 2% behind in a Rasmussen poll. Given that Rasmussen has had a roughly 6% “house effect” in favor of Republicans this year, it is likely that Sestak is now leading in the general election against Toomey.
Sestak has gained 9% on Toomey over the past month, while Specter has lost 2%. And really, why wouldn’t Sestak have also made up ground in the general election during a period when he gained in the primary? His gain has come almost entirely because of positive bio ads (the negative ads have gotten the attention, but the positive bio ads have gotten a lot more airtime) that have significantly raised his name ID and favorable rating in the state. Specter, by contrast, is extremely well known, and people’s minds are made up about him.
Returning to whining moderates for a moment, let me get on a rant to the pundits talking about primary “purges”: stop pretending that the incumbent Democrats who have found themselves in trouble primaries are principled “moderates” in any way. Could it be more glaringly obvious at this point that Arlen Specter is an opportunist who seeks mainly to save his own job? Can you please try and remember that Blanche Lincoln systematically lied to virtually every Democratic constituency (see here for women, labor and health care advocates, then see here for African-Americans) before those groups started recruiting a primary challenger? And can you recall that Joe Lieberman flip-flopped on perhaps the biggest progressive grassroots advocacy campaign of the past decade just to beat progressives for the sake of it?
The fact is that the progressive base is neither large enough, nor powerful enough, to defeat incumbent Democrats in primaries just on the basis of abstract ideological disagreement. We can only beat conservative and moderate Democrats in primaries when those Democrats also happen to be wankers. And while the Senate is full of wankers, Arlen Specter, Joe Lieberman and Blanche Lincoln have acting in particularly wankerific fashion over the past few years. We progressives wouldn’t have a shot in any of these campaigns if we were dealing with principled politicians who let you know where they stand and / or who actually put their constituents above their own careers.
The lies, the flip-flops, the glory-seeking, the vindictiveness, the cynicism–without all that, progressives would not have a chance to beat Democratic incumbents in primaries. At least for right now, we can only beat the wanker conservatives.
No Democrat voted “no” but Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) who switched from Republican to Democrat roughly a month after the vote cast a “no” on Kagan.
So naturally, when asked about Kagen’s confirmation today, Arlen Specter warmed about Republicans obstructing Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court:
Now that President Obama has nominated solicitor general Elena Kagan to the US Supreme Court, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), a longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, believes the Republicans he used to side with might try to mount a fillibuster.
Specter says he expects there will be “a fair amount of Republican obstructionism” to the nomination:
“The atmosphere in Washington is worse than I have ever seen it with gridlock. I think we have to be prepared for a real battle.”
Cough.
It is also reported that Arlen Specter did not blink when making this statement. Further, high ranking officials in the Pennsylvania Democratic Party immediately praised Specter’s unblinking reversal on Kagan as yet another sign of his political genius and electability. Because, you know, like, voters really dig this sort of thing.
In a related development, John Kerry doesn’t know if Arlen Specter is Swiftboating Joe Sestak, but he can totally vouch for Arlen Specter’s character either way. Because Arlen specter is s stand-up, straight-shooting kind of guy.
