Numbers give Democrats edge in 2008 Senate races

[Janett_Reno]

Numbers give Democrats edge in 2008 Senate races

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/...008/index.html

Republicans hold 22 of the 34 Senate seats being contested next year

Three GOP senators are retiring and four others face tough re-election fights

Only one Democratic incumbent appears now to face real challenge

Poll: Public not happy with Congress, but would rather have Dems in charge


It may not grab the headlines like the race for the White House, but the battle for the Senate is heating up.

Democrats took back both houses of Congress last November, but they hold razor-thin majorities. In the Senate, they hold a 51-49 margin. Their advantage in the House is a couple of percentage points better, 233-202.

With such a small edge, you would think Republicans would have a good shot at taking back the Senate in 2008. But the numbers tell a different story.

Of the 34 Senate seats being contested next year, Republicans hold 22. And with three Republican senators retiring and with four facing difficult re-election bids, Republicans have a tough task ahead of them in trying to recapture the upper chamber of Congress.

On Thursday, Republicans got some good news when Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced he was resigning. A GOP source said Johanns has told friends he will run for retiring Sen. Chuck Hagel's Senate seat in Nebraska.

Johanns was in his second term as governor of Nebraska before stepping down in January 2005 to join President Bush's cabinet.

Hagel told CNN Wednesday that he had spoken with Johanns and encouraged him to run. Hagel also told CNN that Johanns would be making an announcement soon.

If he runs, Johanns may not have the Republican field to himself. Hagel's public criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war had already prompted Nebraska Attorney General John Bruning to mount a primary challenge to the incumbent senator. Now that Hagel's not running, there are no guarantees that Burning will step aside for Johanns.

Two other Republicans are also in the hunt for the open seat.

Among Democrats, former Sen. Bob Kerrey is considering running for the open seat.

Nebraska's generally considered to be a red state. Bush handily won re-election there in 2004. But an unpopular war and an unpopular president could give the Democrats hope next year, even in the Cornhusker State. The state's other incumbent senator, Ben Nelson, is a Democrat.

A Johanns-Kerrey matchup would instantly become high-profile. But it's not the only one.

It's a similar story in Virginia, where longtime Republican Sen. John Warner is retiring next year.

Former Gov. Mark Warner, no relation, said that he intends to run for the open seat. Warner's term as governor ended in January 2006, and he left office with high favorable ratings. Warner then flirted with a run for the White House before deciding against it.

Virginia was once a reliable red state, but Democrats have won three major statewide elections there this decade.

In 2000, Democrat Jim Webb ousted Republican incumbent Sen. George Allen by a margin of fewer than 10,000 votes, or less than half a percentage point. Webb's victory helped give Democrats their slim Senate majority.

The race there next year could be equally close.

"Virginia has been a reliable Republican state since the 1960s with an occasional Democratic breakthrough," CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider said. "Now those breakthroughs are becoming more frequent."

On the Republican side, there could be a bitter primary fight between Rep. Tom Davis, a moderate from northern Virginia, and conservative former Gov. Jim Gilmore, who dropped out of the presidential race earlier this year.

The other state where Republicans will be defending an open seat is Colorado. Sen. Wayne Allard announced earlier this year that he was retiring after his term finished and Democrats made major gains there in the 2004 and 2006.

In addition to those races, some Republican senators up for re-election next year will be fighting for their political lives -- Susan Collins of Maine, John Sununu of New Hampshire, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, and Gordon Smith of Oregon.

As of now, only one Democrat -- Mary Landrieu of Louisiana -- appears to face a major fight.

The New Hampshire race will most likely be in the national spotlight, now that former Granite State Gov. Jeanne Shaheen will take on Sununu, a first-term senator. The race will be a rematch of the 2002 election, in which Shaheen lost to Sununu in a very close contest.

And the Minnesota race could also be bitter. Coleman is also a first-term senator who squeaked into office in the 2002 midterm election. The Minnesota contest could also become even more interesting if comedian and liberal talk show host Al Franken wins the Democratic nomination.

It's not only the numbers that are stacking up against Republicans.

"You've got an unpopular war, an unpopular president and an overwhelming desire for change. And in a presidential year, the incumbent president's party defines the status quo," Schneider said.

Also hurting Republican candidates are the scandals involving and investigations into into several of their colleagues. Democrats coined the "culture of corruption" slogan last year, and it was one of the minor factors that helped them wrestle control of the House and Senate from Republicans. They are hoping that strategy works again in 2008.

The recent sex scandal involving Sen. Larry Craig should not hurt the GOP's chances of holding on to that seat in 2008 if the Idaho Republican does resign from office at the end of the month as he has said he will. At the least, though, the controversy over his arrest in a Minneapolis airport restroom and subsequent guilty plea won't help his party.

In most national polls, only around a quarter of Americans think the Democrat-controlled Congress is doing a good job. While that would appear bad news for Democrats, half of those responding to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll said the policies of Democrats in Congress would move the country in the right direction while only 34 percent said Bush's policies would.

The numbers, for now, seem to be working in the Democrats' favor. But November 2008 is a long way off.

[Janett_Reno]

The Republicans' Big Senate Fear

http://www.time.com/time/politics/ar...s-politics-cnn

dude, it isn't looking good and could the Democrats do the impossible and take 8 seats? At this point i am guessing between 5 and 8. I know you do not think a senator, congressman or gov is very important but trust me they are. The big spending party of the Republicans find themself in a mess dude, as Democrats are trouncing them on money. These Republicans have never seen a charge card they didn't like. The day's of the big spenders are getting closer and closer out the door.
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It started out as such a faint hope for New York Senator Charles Schumer that he hardly dared voice it. But as more and more Republicans retire or become engulfed by scandal, it has become irresistibly imaginable: the idea that Democrats might gain a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate after the 2008 elections. "It's a very remote chance and every star would have to align correctly," Schumer, who heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told TIME. "But it's way too early to make predictions."

It may not be too early, however, for Republicans to be fearing the worst. As early as July Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell grimly acknowledged: "When you look at our numbers, holding our own is the best we can hope for." And that was before five long-serving Senators recently announced their retirements, many of them in purple states such as Virginia and Colorado that may be difficult for the G.O.P. to defend.

In a more conventional election year, the G.O.P. might actually be making a push to regain a slim majority. The Senate is currently split 49-49 with two Independents — Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Vermont's Bernie Sanders — who caucus with the Democrats. But this cycle there are a range of factors working against them.

Overall, the G.O.P. has 22 seats up in 2008, while the Democrats must defend just 12. Out of the 17 G.O.P. incumbents, four Senators hail from states that John Kerry won in 2004 — Maine, New Hampshire, Minnesota and Oregon. Adding to Republican woes, they trail Senate Democrats by more than $15 million in campaign funds. "There's no question that the money is a concern," said Senator John Ensign, a Nevada Republican who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "Republican Senators need to realize that we're in a different political environment out there than before and that money is much harder to raise and that means they have to get off their lazy rear ends."

Even typically reliable strongholds like Idaho and Alaska could potentially be vulnerable next year. In Idaho, McConnell has made it clear he'd prefer embattled Senator Larry Craig — who pled guilty to disorderly conduct after Minneapolis airport police accused him of attempting to solicit gay sex in an airport bathroom — to resign immediately. That would leave a vacancy for Idaho Governor Butch Otter, a Republican, to appoint someone to serve out the last 15 months of Craig's term and preserve the party's incumbent advantage.

Though Craig's reversal of his earlier promise to step down if he could not have his guilty plea reversed may frustrate the Republican leadership, the G.O.P. is still likely to retain an overwhelmingly red state like Idaho. Alaska, where seven-term Senator Ted Stevens is battling a federal corruption probe, could prove more challenging. Stevens is under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for taking bribes from Bill Allen, the former CEO of VECO, an oil field services company. Allen and another former VECO employee have pled guilty to bribing state legislators and are cooperating with the investigation into Stevens, who has maintained his innocence.

Ensign said he's giving Stevens the time he's asked for to prove it. "If it's resolved as quickly as possible Senator Stevens will have no problem getting reelected," Ensign said in an interview. All this is not to say the Democrats have a good chance of picking up nine seats. The tail wind from the 2006 elections would have to gust into 2008. "For Democrats to get to 60 they'd have to go 8-0 in every plausible race and then find one more from one of the scandal-ridden states and defend Senator [Mary] Landrieu in Louisiana," said Charlie Cook, editor of the non-partisan Cook Political Report, which tracks congressional races. "That's an incredibly tall order."

These unexpectedly vulnerable seats could place an added strain on already limited G.O.P. resources. As of August 31, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which defends and recruits G.O.P. candidates, had raised $20.5 million so far this year and had $7.1 million cash on hand, compared to the $36.7 million raised by Schumer and the $20.6 million still left in Democratic coffers. Democrats have even latched on to the 60-seat dream as a fundraising tool. Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, told supporters in a recent fundraising letter "the party is poised to gain the 60 seats necessary to stop Republican filibusters and bring our families and neighbors home from this war."

As Cook points out, Louisiana could destroy the Dems' faint hopes. Landrieu is facing the toughest race of her career, one in which Cook says she only has a 50% chance of winning. Unlike her previous opponents, the G.O.P. has recruited a real threat this time: State Treasurer John Kennedy, who switched parties in August in order to run against her, though he has yet to officially announce his candidacy. Katrina left the state trending G.O.P. after displacing hundreds of thousands of African American voters.

Two other states where the G.O.P. has had success in recruiting promising candidates are Virginia, where Representative Tom Davis and former Governor Jim Gilmore have both expressed interest in John Warner's seat, and Nebraska, where former Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns has thrown his hat in the ring to succeed Chuck Hagel. Johanns is also one of the only candidates that President Bush might be able to help this cycle. "The President is well received in Nebraska; I would be honored to have him here," Johanns said. On the other hand, even strong Republican candidates may not be enough if former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey decides to return to the political stage in his home state, while the Republican nominee for the Virginia Senate seat will have an uphill battle running against Democrat Mark Warner, a very popular former governor. "Virginia is going to the hardest state to hold," Ensign admits. "The most expensive and the hardest. But it is still a Red State, so we're going to play there."

Overall, Cook predicts a Democratic pickup of up to five seats with Virginia, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Maine at the top of his list. New Mexico, he said, becomes a Democratic shoe-in if presidential hopeful New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson decides after the early primaries to shift gears and run for the Senate seat being vacated by outgoing Senator Pete Domenici. Things start to get dicey in Minnesota, where the strongest Dem candidate appears to be comedian Al Franken.

Democrats on Capitol Hill are doing their best to lay the groundwork for a few upsets. In order to try and push legislation past the G.O.P.'s frequent filibusters, they have laid on the pressure, particularly on the four Republican incumbents from states trending Blue. The four — Maine's Susan Collins, New Hampshire's John Sununu, Gordon Smith of Oregon and Norm Coleman of Minnesota — are constantly on the spot, whether it's because of near-weekly votes on President Bush's strategy in Iraq or popular legislation to expand stem cell research and children's health care. The strategy has forced some defections, such as Collins and Coleman on Iraq and Sununu on children's health care. "Sununu voted for [a bill to expand state children's health care plans] after he voted against it multiple times," said Sununu's Democratic opponent, former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen, who plans on tying Sununu to Bush as much as possible. "On the war, he's essentially voted with President Bush seven times now." There are some signs the strategy is working: Sununu is trailing Shaheen in most New Hampshire polls.