Retroactively cross-posted from Deny My Freedom
Indiana is a treasure trove of pick-up opportunities for us this year.
The 8th district (where Sheriff Brad Ellsworth faces off against anemic fundraiser and ultra-conservative John Hostettler) and the 9th district (where former Rep. Baron Hill faces freshman Rep. Mike Sodrel, who beat Hill by less than 2,000 votes in a much more favorable environment with Bush at the top of the ticket) have been considered top-tier races for a while.
But we have a third opportunity to pick up a seat: in Indiana's 2nd district.
Indiana's 2nd district is in the heart of the Rust Belt.
Mishawaka had factories in the automobile industry and the rubber industry, and still has the only factory which makes Hummers
The Elkhart area has numerous musical instrument and RV production plants.
Kokomo has several DaimlerChrysler plants, a Delphi plant, a Coca-Cola bottling plant, and several other plants.
The district's largest city is South Bend (Indiana's fourth largest city after Indianapolis, Fort Wayne and Evansville).
South Bend is, of course, the location of Notre Dame University.
Like the rest of the Rust Belt, the district has been hit hard by outsourcing of American jobs to foreigners.
The second district was created largely out of the old 3rd districts and 5th districts (Indiana lost a seat due to reapportionment).
The Democrats had control of the redistricting process, and they added in part of the heavily Democratic 1st district to make the district more Democratic (the old 3rd district went for Bush in 2000 56.2-42.5, but the new second district only went for him 53.6-44.7).
Tim Roemer, who you probably remember running for DNC chair against Howard Dean last year, decided to retire that year, having narrowly won re-election against Chris Chocola in 2000,
51.6%-47.4%.
The Count decided to run in the new district in 2002. The Democratic candidate was former Rep. Jill Long, who had lost her seat in 1994 to Mark Souder. She lost a high-profile race with plenty of money poured into it by both sides 50.5%-45.8%.
In 2004, Joe Donnelly decided to run. He did not get much help from the national party and was generally under-funded, yet he managed to hold Chocola to a 54-46 victory (one of the better performances by a Democratic challenger that year. Many of the Democratic candidates who came even closer to victory than he did are running again this year (such as Lois Murphy and Patty Wetterling).
The money race this year
|
Raised |
Cash on Hand |
Chris Chocola |
$1,924,963 |
$1,554,483 |
Joe Donnelly |
$592,397 |
$435,215 |
Donnelly is clearly still way behind in the money race, but the DCCC has placed him on their Red-to-Blue list, and is committed to getting involved here (in fact, they've already gotten involved, with a great radio ad you can listen to here)
Donnelly's Positions
It seems to me that Donnelly's voting record will probably be pretty similar to that of John Murtha. He's pro-life and pro-gun, ethanol-focused for energy (the district does have a lot of agriculture), but is decent to good on bread & butter issues like health care, trade, prescription drugs, and all that good stuff. He seems to also be in line with Murtha on national security. He favors a strong defense but also believes that "Congress must insist on a clearly defined plan to complete the Iraq mission." (which is Luntz-speak for favoring withdrawal).
Chocola, of course is a hard-core conservative rubber-stamp for the Bush administration. In fact, he's this week's GOP crony of the week.
Issues
The district is being hit just as hard by gas prices as the rest of the country, but a big issue here, as in the rest of the Rust Belt, is trade.
Due to the large manufacturing sector, free trade agreements like CAFTA and the Oman Free Trade Agreement are very unpopular.
The Count voted for both of them, and Donnelly, with the help of Mike Ross(AR-4) and the Blue Dog Coalition, has been on the attack.
Mike Ross focused on our national debt in the attack, and does a great job, what with China and Mexico having also taken large numbers of jobs from the district.
Chris Chocola has voted for a budget year in and year out that has resulted in our nation borrowing a billion dollars a day, nearly half of which is coming from places like communist China," Ross said.
"We're borrowing money from China and even Mexico to finance this out of control reckless spending that Chris Chocola is responsible for."
Chocola's main issue is Donnelly's having been late on property tax payments.
Polls
There have been two recent polls. One, done by Cooper & Secrest for the Donnelly campaign from July 10-13, had Donnelly leading 48-38, with a 4.4% margin of error. The poll had the Count's job performance rating as 34% positive, 60% negative.
There was also a poll done by Research 2000, which had Donnelly leading 46-41.
If you live in the area, I'm sure he could use your help, though, so ...