I, for one, am definitely glad to hear that Democrats are closing the enthusiasm gap. This morning's welcome report from both Nate Silver and Simon Rosenberg are very encouraging.
And yes I'm delighted that Boxer, Murray, and Blumenthal are holding on to leads in polling. But what about West Virginia? The Democratic lead for our "sure win candidate" Gov. Manchin is gone. The pollster.com average for the race is now LEAN REPUBLICAN.
Without WV, Democrats sit at 50 including Ben Nelson and Lierberdeutsch. And Nate Silver has speculated that that might prompt a party switch. In short, 50 is not enough.
Why are we patting ourselves on the back for winning in California and Washington? Or Connecticut? We're supposed to be winning those. We need more than that to hold on to the Senate!
Why aren't we paying attention (and $$$) to West Virginia?
Control of the Senate would rest on winning CA, WA, plus one more. The easiest path for an additional pick up would be either Nevada or Illinois in my opinion. But West Virginia is just as close.
An investment of $500,000 would move mountains in cheap advertising and GOTV in WV. If the US Chamber of Commerce endorsed Manchin, where's the money? Are they gonna do anything? Maybe doing nothing is their strategy.
So maybe we can't count on WV after all. That would be a tremendous waste, but I'll entertain it. The other races are much harder- but still possible.
The next on the list of close contests around five points would be Kentucky and Colorado. I was deeply perplexed about which one of these two races had substantially more of a weakness to exploit. Ken Buck in Colorado has the misfortune to run with Tom Tancredo on the ticket in a state with a substantial Hispanic population. It would be hard to picture a Tancredo/Bennet voter but I might imagine it, should Bennet continue to neglect the Latino base.
It's obvious that the DSCC should bring immigration into the fight here, given that Tancredo would assuredly alienate moderates and engage Latino voters with his positions. I could see a scenario like this (DSCC please take note!)
- Bennett attacks Tancredo, while attacking GOP brand
- Tancredo responds with craziness
- Bennett asks Ken Buck to disavow Tancredo's comments
From there Ken Buck is in a trap, he can't do anything. Buck can't disavow his own party or Tancredo. Buck's next step would probably be to outline his own immigration plan or attack Bennett as weak on immigration.
Buck would explain his own extreme stance leaving room for Bennett to manouvre and exciting more Latinos to vote in the process.
Bennett can then outline his moderate approach, in between Democrats, Buck, and Tancredo. This strategy would require guts however and lately the DSCC hasn't totally demonstrated them.
The Kentucky race meanwhile, is the Kentucky race. I tend to actually agree with the campaign of Jack Conway and can find little fault there. Maybe just hit a little harder with attack ads, and definitely respond to this latest Paul attack ad, it's very powerful and shouldn't be underestimated:
This ad hits quite a lot of emotions in just the right way. It attacks Conway's independence, intelligence, rips on Democrats brand, and has some definite racial undertones.
Conway should respond immediately by delineating himself and calling out the ad.
I also think Pennsylvania is entirely winnable, where Toomey hasn't been sufficiently defined and there is a huge Democratic registered voter advantage. The same can be said for Wisconsin with their decidely democratic voter advantage and markedly left of center voter alignment.
UPDATE: I consider the next Senate races winnable, after California and Washington, in this order (based on polling form Pollster, 538, Dailykos, and Cook Politics)
Illinois
Nevada
West Virginia
Colorado-Kentucky (TIED for this spot)
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin
Florida (Crist winning. Really why is Meek still even in this?)
Missouri
New Hampshire
Alaska
I really consider Wisconsin to be on the edge of the "second tier" races that Nate Silver describes. Races below Wisconsin are a little of a stretch for me to envision a turnaround. Although Missouri does have some movement and Carnahan is starting to get some blows in, she still lags by more than 5 points in averaging and hasn't lead in a poll in at least 6 months.
Sorry but that I don't have more time to do a thorough Senate race by race breakdown. maybe later.