OH-SEN: National GOP Writes Off DeWine; Plays Defense In 26 House Races
Today's Times reports that the NRSC has concluded that GOP Senator Mike DeWine may be beyond saving, so it's shifting funds out of that race and focussing on races in Missouri, Tennessee, where polls show Dems with modest leads, and probably Virginia, which is now a dead heat. The Times also says this:
In one sign of the shifting political environment, as of this weekend, national Republicans were running advertisements in 29 districts; of those, 26 are held by Republicans and 3 by Democrats, though Republicans plan to begin running advertisements this week against an Illinois Democrat, Representative Melissa Bean. National Democrats are on the air in 30 districts, and defending Democrats in just 3 races.
Advertisement
I've seen a lot about these seven Senate seats everyone thinks are competitive; but given how broadly the Democrats are challenging the Republicans in the House, are there any other GOP-held (or Dem-held) seats that have shifted into the competitive category in the past two weeks or so?
October 16, 2006 8:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Republicans have NOT "given up" on DeWine! They have simply stopped spending NRSC money. There's a HUGE difference. They've stopped spending money because DeWine has enough of his own to make it through Election Day. They've stopped only because the calendar only has 3 weeks left, and they need to focus their bucks on MO and TN and VA. Not because they are convinced they're going to lose.
October 16, 2006 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Corker Camp In Disarray; NRSC To Stop Running Ads For Corker
It looks as though the NRSC has lost all confidence in Bob Corker as they will stop running ads on his behalf this week:
After weeks of trying to resuscitate the sagging Corker campaign, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) will stop running TV ads for Bob Corker on October 19. Contrary to a Corker campaign release from earlier today, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) will be up with ads on behalf of Harold Ford Jr. through Election Day, and has more advertising time reserved in Tennessee than the national GOP does.
"The Corker campaign is doing a great job to ensure that Bob Corker's credibility problems remain at the forefront of the Tennessee Senate race," DSCC spokesman Phil Singer said. "Instead of putting out misleading press releases, the Corker campaign should focus on making sure that their candidate does a better job of addressing his character problems."
http://www.dscc.org/news/roundup/20061014_corker/
Ford Leads Corker 51-44
http://www.dscc.org/news/roundup/20061010_fordpoll/
Sunday, 10/15/06
http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=OPINION
Endorsement: Ford for U.S. Senate
The Tennessean today strongly endorses U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. for the United States Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Bill Frist.
October 16, 2006 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
The question is whether the NYT (and now, much of the rest of the MSM) reporting that the GOP has given up on DeWine will deflate the already-deflated Ohio GOP voters, who presently have little to come to the polls for in November. DeWine was the one state-wide race they had a chance of winning; if the "conventional wisdom" is that the RNC has given up on DeWine, even it's not true, will that be the fatal blow?
October 16, 2006 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think so. Thanks to the gains in 2000, the Dems already held most of the seats up this year.
MO, TN and VA were already that 2nd tier of seats that have become truly winnable in recent weeks.
3rd tier? Probably NV and AZ.. The dems there are both behind about 8-9 points with both GOP incumbents under 50%... if they can close the gap by half in the next couple weeks and ride a wave on election day, they might barely win. Carter in NV is probably more likely to win, though it'll be interesting to see if the Kolbe scandal has the side effect of helping Pedersen in AZ.
Beyond that, I don't think there's any other potential pickups.
October 16, 2006 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink