Minnesota Democrat Senator Mark Dayton is expected to bow out of his re-election bid.
It's breaking news on the Minneapolis Star Tribune right now:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/5231507.html. He is expected to give a press conference in about 15 minutes.
He is in his first term, and would be up for re-election in 2006.
This can only be a good thing. Anyone who read my post about Dayton approximately 4 hours ago (in reference to him endorsing St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly, who endorsed Bush in '04) can tell why. Dayton is very vulnerable, mostly because he has very little support with his base.
Most Democrats think he's made several stupid moves, the most widely publicized being when he closed his DC offices this fall after hearing reports of possible terrorism. He was severly criticized for that. A poll came out last week that said his support had dropped by about 14% in the past year. And he hasn't given his base a lot of reason to support him without question. For instance, he's taken bad votes on both choice and the environment.
In some ways, I feel bad for the man. He spent his first two years being the quiet junior senator to Paul Wellstone's powerful, passionate senior senator. After Wellstone's death, he spent about a year trying to be Wellstone - to no avail. (First, he just can't replace Paul; second, he went from a very small presence to trying to have a HUGE presence and it just didn't go smoothly.) Last year, he was barely involved in the Kerry campaign. There was even an article in the local paper comparing our two Senators activities on behalf of the opposing candidates: Republican Senator Norm Coleman helped do the Reps response to the Dem convention; he was at every Bush stop; he was co-chair of the MN Bush campaign; etc. Dayton was at a few events. That's about it. He was not the state's most outspoken Democrat for Kerry - former VP Walter Mondale usually filled that role.
Lastly, his campaign was just in shambles. Since he's a multimillionaire who mostly financed his campaign the last time around, he doesn't have much of a fundraising base. Last year he raised $1.4 million - but spent $1 million to do it. And just in the past month he got rid of his key fundraising and communications people and brought in new ones.
I'm not sure who will fill this role - I'll try to asses the viable candidates and maybe post again later this week. But I think this is a good thing. The Republicans are lining up to run for this seat, and it would have been very tough for Dayton.